🚀 Week 3 by the Numbers:

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Investor Members: 3 (+3 from last newsletter)

🛩️ I’ll be at __ events this month: 6

🤝 Newsletter Subscribers: 210 (+21 from last newsletter)

Bring them home!

CU Boulder venture-backed founders have raised over $4 billion since 2015… so why aren’t we talking about them?

The university celebrates its research spinouts—rightfully so. Since 2018, startups commercializing CU Boulder technology have raised $3.5 billion in capital. Big ups to the Venture Partners at CU Boulder!

More than 220 startups have been spun out of University tech, with 36 of those being from 2024 alone. This has placed CU Boulder in the top 5 nationwide for startup creation.

But... what about the alumni founders building outside that system?

I’ve personally asked many CU Boulder faculty what the facts are about CU Boulder alumni that go out and create startups. How many raise capital successfully? Who have been the big alumni-founded successes in the past few years? Who stays in touch with them from the University?

The answer, more often than not, is “We don’t know.”

So… I did a little digging.

CU’s Uncontacted Founders

Of the companies founded since 2015, CU Boulder alumni-founded VC-backed startups (excluding those licensing CU IP) have raised over $4 billion dollars.

That includes massive successes like:

Fervo Energy – Co-founded by Buff Jack Norbeck (Civil Eng. '10), raising over $676M to date, according to Pitchbook

&

CoreWeave – Co-founded by Buff Brannin McBee (Finance '08), raising nearly $1.6B to date, according to Pitchbook

That means CU Boulder-affiliated startups—whether they licensed CU IP or not—have raised at least $7.5 billion since 2015. And this metric doesn't even include the success of bootstrapped companies!

And yet—where are the events, the recognition, the community for these alumni founders?

Let’s bring them home! (metaphorically)

Boulder Angels - The Alumni Wrangler

This is why I’m partnering with CU to build Boulder Angels—to build a home base for CU Boulder founders and investors. A place to connect with other alumni founders, mentor up and coming tech startups, and angel invest into the next generation of Buff success stories.

If you're a founder, investor, or just want to be part of the movement, let’s talk:

[email protected].

See you in next week’s newsletter.

-H