RootedIn VC Fellowship
By stanford alumni, for stanford students
The 10-week experiential learning journey to break into Venture Capital
Jan. 7 – Mar. 11, 2026
Stanford, CA
rootedin vc fellowship 2026
We are thrilled to invite you to a transformational 10-week journey designed for students who are serious about pursuing a career in venture capital, particularly those with no prior exposure or from other industries.
Taught by Stanford alumni who are seasoned practitioners in VC, through the real world journey of start-up discovery and evaluation, students will learn first-hand the critical aspects of venture capital, including deal sourcing, due diligence, and investment evaluation. Through hands-on investment practice, mentorship, field trips, networking and peer collaboration, we aim to cultivate the next generation of venture capital leaders who aspire to propel innovation and entrepreneurship through the lens of VC.
5 Lecture Sessions
These sessions will cover 5 strategic frameworks and core concepts, including VC decision-making, business models, deal sourcing, due diligence, selection criteria, portfolio management and exit.
Guest speakers who are Stanford Alumni working as Partner in VC will be invited to the classroom in every session to share the first-hand lessons learnt and personal stories under the session topics.
5 In-Field Sessions
Students will shadow and work directly with mentors to apply what they’ve learned. These field sessions are key to providing students with real-world exposure.
Mentors who are all Stanford Alumni working in VC will assign tasks to student groups under the session topics.
10-week Student-Led Deal Sourcing and Pitch
Students will work in groups to source real-world start-up deals on their own. Each group will submit top 3 investment projects out of at least 30 deals with investment memos and present to the investment committee at the final day.
These projects will be evaluated by the investment committee, which will award outstanding groups and individuals.
The final results will be revealed at the final gathering.
Our Approach
Our Philosophy
We believe in the transformative power of hands-on experience, real investment decision making practice, and mentorship in cultivating the next generation of venture capital leaders. We believe that if we set a real-world, open-ended and intellectual-stimulated stage that rewards curiosity, integrity and humility, future venture capital leaders will change lives, change organizations, and change the world.
Opt-in Culture: The people who are here want to be here! Students exert their initiatives at their voluntary will and actively contribute to the projects.
Unbounded Problems: Like in life, there is no single right answer in our class. The risks are complex and ambiguous. The returns are uncertain and unclear. We give students ample opportunities to experiment, source, analyze, take the leap of faith, and fail. It’s great preparation for real-world problem solving.
Real-world Projects: Students want to make real impact in the world. We think they can start immediately. Our class challenges them to interact with real start-up projects as well as interpersonal dynamics, and tackle problems that are happening right now, not the ones from a textbook page.
Diversified Collaboration: To inspire critical thinking, we bring together students, faculty, and practitioners from diverse disciplines, perspectives, and backgrounds. Diversified points of view are key in pushing students to advance their own venture mindset practice.
Our Vision
Our program advocates inclusivity and collaborative growth with Stanford spirit and identity. It is about bringing together diverse entrepreneurs, investors and scholars to create a synergistic venture ecosystem and close loop learning experience for students who are aspiring venture capitalists.
Our Mission
Inspire. Invest. Include. We achieve our mission by equipping future venture capital leaders with real investment opportunity as a learning tool, providing role models and mentors to guide them through real-world projects, and fostering diversity and balanced gender representation in group learning experience..
rootedin vc fellowship 2026
Program Faculty Advisors
Our program is guided by an esteemed team of faculty advisors from Stanford University, including distinguished academics, seasoned practitioners, and leading industry experts. These advisors provide invaluable oversight on the program mission, vision, strategy and curriculum design, ensuring that each session is both rigorous and insightful.
Academia Advisor
The David S. Lobel Professor of Private Equity at Graduate School of Business, Stanford University.
Professor Strebulaev is an expert in corporate finance, venture capital, startup financing, corporate innovation, innovation ecosystems, and financial decision-making. His recent work has examined the valuation of VC-backed companies, decision making by startup investors, returns to VC investors, and impact of venture capital investments.
Professor Strebulaev’s work has been widely published in leading academic journals and he has been awarded a number of prestigious awards. His research has also been featured in a variety of media, including New York Times and Wall Street Journal.
Practitioner Advisor
The Nicholas E. Donatiello Jr. Lecturer in Management at Graduate School of Business, Stanford University.
Claudia is a venture advisor at NEA, one of the largest and most active venture capital firms with over $24B in funds. Claudia is also a member of Broadway Angels, a premier network of women investors, where she invests and mentors many early-stage company CEOs, and the chairwoman of Global Corporate Venturing that represents over 1,600 corporations that invest in startups.
Claudia also serves on the board of the Best Buy Corp, the CoreLogic Inc, the Bank of the West/BNP Paribas, the Energy Impact Acquisition (SPAC), the National Association of Corporate Directors/Northern California, and the Parity.org, an organization dedicated to support women and minorities to achieve the highest leadership positions.
Industry Advisor
A double Oscar-winning dramatic and documentary film writer-producer-director. Lecturer in Organizational Behavior at Graduate School of Business, Stanford University since 2001.
Bill won an Academy Award for the documentary Twin Towers. He has also received a second Oscar, three additional Oscar nominations, a Peabody Award, three Emmy Awards, three additional Emmy nominations, two Writers Guild Award nominations, a Producers Guild Award nomination, and a Robert Kennedy Journalism Award.
He has directed commercials and other projects for a number of Silicon Valley companies including Google, Yahoo, and MasterClass. He is also an advisor to a number of Silicon Valley companies including Mattermost and MasterClass.
rootedin vc fellowship 2026
Program Instructors, Speakers and Mentors Including
Taught by Stanford alumni who are seasoned practitioners in VC, through the real world journey of start-up discovery and evaluation, students will learn first-hand the critical aspects of venture capital, including deal sourcing, due diligence, and investment evaluation. Through hands-on investment practice, mentorship, field trips, networking and peer collaboration, we aim to cultivate the next generation of venture capital leaders who aspire to propel innovation and entrepreneurship through the lens of VC.
Founder & Instructor
Founding Partner at Y+ Ventures, Guest Lecturer at Peking University, ex-President at Yongjia Capital
Dedicated to contributing to the venture capital industry, Jing has founded her own fund to support innovative early stage start-ups. Additionally, she has served other funds as Venture Partner to help VC funds grow.
Bringing a global perspective and cross-cultural understanding to every venture, Jing have served as President at Yongjia Capital in China for seven years, a former subsidiary of China’s top 4 financial group, which focused on cross-boarder Mergers & Acquisitions.
Jing received her MBA from Stanford University Graduate School of Business.
Speaker
Venture Partner at IVP, Professional Faculty at Berkeley Haas, ex-General Partner at IVP
Jules Maltz joined IVP in August 2008 and has over 19 years of venture experience. He focuses on venture investments in rapidly-growing software and Internet companies. Jules was recognized by Forbes Magazine as one of the top 100 venture capitalists in the world by his inclusion in the 2018, 2019, and 2020 Forbes Midas List. He was also included in the GrowthCap Top 40 Under 40 Growth Investors List in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2018, and 2019.
Jules led IVP’s investments in Buddy Media (CRM), Checkr, Clipboard Health, Dropbox (DBX), Eightfold, G2, Grammarly, Hims & Hers, Hopin, Indiegogo, MuleSoft (MULE), NerdWallet, Nextdoor, Oportun, RetailMeNot (SALE), Roam, Slack, SteelBrick (CRM), Tala, TransferWise, TuneIn, Veriff, Zendesk (ZEN), and Zenefits, and was actively involved in sourcing investments in Marketo (MKTO), Spiceworks, Twitter (TWTR), and Yext (YEXT).
Jules currently serves as an Observer or Director of Clipboard Health, G2, Grammarly, Roam, Tala, and Veriff.
Jules received his MBA from Stanford University Graduate School of Business.
Speaker
Co-founder & CEO at Enya Labs, Co-founder at Boba Network, Advisory Council at Stanford GSB, ex-Partner at XSeed Capital, ex-President at Stanford GSB Alumni Association
Alan is the Co-founder & CEO at Enya Labs, the platform enabling hybrid applications between the blockchain and off-chain worlds. He also serves as co-founder at Boba Network, the first and only multichain Layer 2 blockchain scaling platform, offering Hybrid Compute to developers worldwide.
Before entering start-up world, Alan was Partner at XSeed Capital, an early stage VC investment firm.
He currently serves at advisory council at Stanford GSB.
Alan received his Master Degree from MSx program at Stanford University Graduate School of Business.
Speaker
Technology Executive, Bestselling Author (The Venture Mindset), ex-Partner at McKinsey and EY, exAmazon AWS AI.
Alex helps organizations launch digital ventures and solutions that redefine industries. At Amazon, he built businesses across eCommerce and AWS AI/ML, and as a Partner at McKinsey and EY, he led clients in creating new growth engines. During COVID, he was CEO/cofounder of a digital platform supporting cancer patients.
Alex is a keynote speaker and co-author of The Venture Mindset, a national bestseller on how to make smarter bets and transform traditional organizations into hubs for innovation. As a startup advisor, he work with early-stage companies: AI-driven drug discovery, Alzheimer’s vaccine, medical tourism, eCommerce.
Alex received his Master Degree from MSx program at Stanford University Graduate School of Business and PhD from Higher School of Economics.
Speaker
Investor, entrepreneur, producer, tech and media exec, and was hired at Google in 2000 as one of the first 200 employees.
David led Google’s international expansion and launched their overseas ads and offices while hiring the first management teams, establishing Google’s international business development, sales, and operations in Asia, Europe, and Latin America.
After Google, David co-founded XG Ventures, a Google alumni seed fund and was co-founding Partner of SK Telecom Ventures, a $100M corporate VC fund based in Silicon Valley. He also co-founded KStartup (accelerator funded by Google and SK), which incubated AI-based edutech unicorn, Riiid, Korea’s first crypto exchange, Korbit (acquired by Nexon), Partner (acquired by Kakao Enterprise), Baful (acquired by Naver), Rank Wave (acquired by CJ E&M), and Malang Studio (acquired by Yello Mobile). His personal and VC investments include over 90 companies with 30+ acquisitions.
He currently invests into emerging tech, media, and Web3 startups out of his fund SLVC, while advising and building the future of tech and entertainment with industry leaders.
David is on the advisory boards of ASES (Stanford Entrepreneurship Society) and HPAIR (Harvard Project for Asian & Intl. Relations) and member of Gold House.
Speaker
Strategic Partnerships in Healthcare at General Catalyst
Harish is a manager at General Catalyst, a global top-tier venture capital firm with tens of billions in assets under management. As part of the firm’s health assurance funds, he focuses on highly innovative digital health companies that are solving some of the most pressing challenges faced by healthcare provider organizations. He advises the firm’s portfolio of 100+ healthcare start-ups in the areas of strategy and business development. As part of the Strategic partnerships initiative at General Catalyst, Harish was instrumental in launching innovation partnerships with 15 large healthcare organisations in the US, bringing together the best of Silicon Valley innovations and traditional healthcare’s real world use cases and applications.
Before joining General Catalyst, Harish served as the investment lead for iLabs India Special Situations Fund, where he led multi-billion dollar investments in companies in Energy & Infrastructure and Healthcare & Lifesciences sectors. He served on the boards of publicly listed portfolio companies, guiding CXO teams on turnaround levers.
Harish received his Master Degree from MSx program at Stanford University Graduate School of Business.
Mentor
Principal at WiL
Aki works at World Innovation Lab, a US & Japan-based VC, with capital base from governments and leading global corporations in Japan and Asia, including Sony, Nissan, NTT, KDDI, 7-Eleven & others.
Aki received her BA from The University of Tokyo and MBA from Stanford University Graduate School of Business.
Mentor
Chief of Staff at Factory VC
Sam works at Factory to help grow and build new AI companies. Recently focused on the future of public safety and emergency response @ RapidSOS, and of transportation and cities @ Lacuna. Before that, Sam worked at Oliver Wyman, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and beyond.
Sam received his BA from Yale University and MBA from Stanford University Graduate School of Business.
Mentor
MD/MBA turned healthcare investor at Vive Collective
Kathy started her career as an engineer/entrepreneur as the co-founder of SPOUTS of Water, a ceramic water filter manufacturer in Uganda. For her work, she was a Cartier Women’s Initiative Fellow, the recipient of the Takeda Young Entrepreneurship Award and featured on National Geographic Chasing Genius.
In addition to SPOUTS, she was the co-founder of Juni Essentials / Dr. Noah, an all-natural oral care brand – she was also listed as Forbes 30 Under 30 for her work. In addition, Kathy worked across global healthcare clients as a management consultant.
Kathy holds an MD/MBA from Stanford where she was a recipient of the Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship. She holds an AB/SM from Harvard where she studied Engineering Sciences and Molecular and Cellular Biology.
partners
partners
Meet Our Cohort 2025.
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