Unshackled University Fellows Program // Class of 2020
Unshackled Ventures is focused on doing good with doing well. Based in Silicon Valley, we invest in and help immigrant founders succeed faster. We have backed phenomenal founders solving hard problems and are supported by some of the most iconic names in technology & business.
The university system is our generation’s Ellis Island — in fact, 80% of our portfolio companies have an immigrant founder that completed their higher education in the U.S. By combining Unshackled Ventures’ funding, resources and experience with a students’ ability to scout entrepreneurial talent at their university, we aim to find and invest in the best immigrant entrepreneurs in campuses around the country.
After onboarding our 2019 cohort of fellows, we are now rolling out the fellowship in many more campuses across the country.
We are looking for outstanding students in each of our target campuses (if you are reading this, you are at one of them) to work with us throughout the school year. The program will begin as soon as students are selected and ready. Since we know students are busy, we will work with each selected student to figure out their schedule and availability throughout the school year.
This position is on a voluntary basis throughout the academic year.
Potential roles & responsibilities include (not all will apply):
- Organize in-person and virtual events with entrepreneurs on campus;
- Help spread our content in on-campus networks & communication channels;
- Scout and introduce immigrant entrepreneurs from your campus/region to us;
- Help create relationships with local investors, angels, and accelerators;
- Help us connect with student-run and university-run entrepreneurial bodies/groups;
- Help evaluate a few investment opportunities for learning purposes;
- Design promotional, marketing and influencer campaigns;
- Create social media, brand presence and communications strategy on campus;
This program is ideal for students looking to build their résumés & kick start their career in VC (either with us or another early-stage fund), gain relevant experience to start their own companies or join one of our portfolio companies.
Who & How to Apply
Candidates can be from all levels of education (undergrad, graduate, Ph.D., etc.), all degrees/majors, types of universities (vocational, community colleges, 2 and 4-year programs) and ideally graduating after the summer of 2020 to build your involvement with us. The only requirement is that you love the idea of supporting & investing in our nation’s best immigrant talent and will hustle in this role.
If you are motivated to be an Unshackled fellow, apply here.
About Unshackled Ventures
Unshackled Ventures is the first and only early-stage venture capital fund for immigrant founders. We are actively investing out of our second fund and manage over $25M in assets. Besides investing in immigrants, we sponsor their visas & green cards to enable them to spend 100% of their time building companies. Our fund is backed by some of the most notable investors in the country, including Emerson Collective, Bloomberg Beta and one of the top retail families in the world. Unshackled has been featured in numerous publications and national media outlets, like the Wall Street Journal, Huffington Post, ReCode, Forbes, and Bloomberg.
Some of our more recent investment areas include Autonomous Technology (driverless trucking), Space Technology (Cell tower in space), Climate Change (Methane detection of Oil & Gas), Healthcare Tech (Radar monitoring of senior living), Food innovation (Plant-based protein and modernized food distribution), Future of Work (Coding boot camps), Industry 4.0 (Blockchain, On-demand manufacturing), and Applied AI (Legal, Water treatment, eCommerce, etc.). Our portfolio companies have raised $60M+ from 330+ co-investors including top investors like Y Combinator, First Round Capital, Sequoia/Accel Scouts, NEA, Khosla, Shasta Ventures, and Village Global (Zuckerberg, Gates, Bezos backed fund).
