Van Wickle Ventures

Van Wickle Ventures (VWV) is a student-run, evergreen venture fund affiliated with Brown University, founded in 2019 and based at the Nelson Center for Entrepreneurship in Providence, Rhode Island. Co-founded by Sophie Starck and John Diorio and seeded with a gift from Robert and Erna Place, the fund invests $25,000 to $50,000 checks drawn from Brown's endowment into startups founded by Brown and RISD students, alumni and professors, investing across all early stages from pre-seed and seed through seed-plus and Series A, generally as a co-investor. The fund is one of the few fully student-run vehicles deploying real institutional capital: throughout the academic year students source and rigorously diligence prospective companies, then present opportunities to an investment committee of seasoned alumni venture capitalists, drawn from funds such as Pear VC and Alumni Ventures, who vote on the final investment decision. As an evergreen fund, all returns are reinvested so that VWV remains a permanent supporter of Brown's entrepreneurial ecosystem while training the next generation of investors in sourcing, diligence and decision-making. To date the fund has sourced more than 700 Brown-founded companies and built a portfolio of roughly 13 startups, including Minded, Apprenta, Ghia and Otis, with its most recent disclosed investment being Lexi at the pre-seed stage in February 2026. By deploying endowment capital into companies founded by the Brown and RISD community and recycling its returns, Van Wickle Ventures supports the university's entrepreneurial ecosystem and develops student investors.