A Year As A PhD Investing In Student Startups
Why I’m returning for Year Two
I came to Oxford in 2017 to pursue a PhD in Computer Science. With a focus on applying machine learning techniques to reduce carbon emissions from houses I found myself in a research lab on the cutting edge of innovation. However, in my first year, I was increasingly struck by the growing gap between what happens in the lab and what happens in the real world, especially with all the public interest in the area. As my first year ended, bridging this gap was at the forefront of my mind. Fortunately, it was only about a week after I started thinking about this that I received a message about the formation of the Creator Fund.
As a returning Student Investor, there were multiple reasons why I decided to stay on.
Being a Student Investor brings a new perspective to life on campus and a real purpose to encounters with other entrepreneurial students and founders. At any event I went to, for years I talked to founders about their companies and “AI” startups about their underlying technologies purely for the sake of curiosity. Now that curiosity is channeled into the due diligence I do in Oxford in making real investment decisions. I’ve also gained a new lens to my work in the lab, enabling those ideas to be brought from the lab to the outside world.
Such a diverse background of the team provided an unparalleled opportunity to learn and a fantastic group of people to know.
However, the biggest reason for staying on is the Creator Fund team itself. Last year the team comprised a wide mix from founders and researchers to experienced investors and even a medical doctor. Despite us computer scientists being found far more often in founding teams and with startups, I’ve been able to gain valuable experience with others on the investor side of the table. Something that I didn’t expect was the skills and experiences I’d get from the rest of the team — during due diligence for an investment we made, I even learnt about the life and death importance of correct stroke diagnosis at the scene of incidents and the inadequacy of current methods. Such a diverse background of the team provided an unparalleled opportunity to learn and a fantastic group of people to know.
Going forward, it’s great to be going into the second year of the Creator Fund with a talented new team who I can’t wait to spend the year working with.
— Joe Brown, 3rd year PhD at University of Oxford.
