Flip Video entrepreneur Jonathan Kaplan and his wife, Marci, have created a new early-stage venture fund to assist Carnegie Mellon alumni in the development of future technologies.
The Open Field Entrepreneurs Fund (OFEF), made possible through an undisclosed amount gifted to CMU by the Kaplans, will help finance new businesses started by CMU alumni who have graduated within the last five years. Jonathan Kaplan, who graduated from CMU in 1980 with a degree in business administration, believes the amount will reach $25 million within five years.
“Our goal with this effort is to provide Carnegie Mellon graduates with the opportunity to realize their innovative spirit and start new businesses,” said Kaplan, former CEO of Pure Digital and five-time entrepreneur in a prepared statement. “We’d like to make Carnegie Mellon the destination of choice for young entrepreneurs.”
Pure Digital’s handheld Flip video camera revolutionized the consumer electronics industry when it was released in 2006, one of the first purely digital point and shoot cameras (until mobile phones took over). Fellow CMU serial entrepreneur and classmate Peter Stern, founder of Datek Online, will provide financial and advisory support for the fund.
“We’re thrilled to see this fund come to the region,” says Catherine Mott, of BlueTree Allied Angels, one of the largest and most active angel groups in the region. “We believe there is a great deal of intellectual capital at CMU that could be commercialized and we would be thrilled to “co-invest” with the fund and/or follow-on fund opportunities that fit our investment criteria. We see this as a welcome addition to the region.”
Interested applicants need to present a business plan for review, outlining how they will use the funding and join the OFEF incubation environment. The OFEF will provide $50,000 in matching funds to recipients. The fund will not be a competition, Kaplan said.
The university’s faculty and students have helped to create 200 companies and 9,000 jobs in the last 15 years. CMU spin-offs represent 34 percent of the total companies created in Pennsylvania based on university technologies in the past five years.
Source: Carnegie Mellon University
Writer: Deb Smit
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