Students at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business snagged more than $85 million in venture capital funding during the past year for their start-ups, the school announced this week.
“Entrepreneurship is thriving at Chicago Booth,” Steven Kaplan, faculty director of Chicago Booth’s Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship, said in a statement. Indeed, since the start of the school’s Edward L. Kaplan, ’71, New Venture Challenge in 1996, 65 companies have raised more than $180 million in funding and created nearly 1,000 jobs, according to Kaplan. In the past year alone, 11 companies started by Chicago Booth students secured $85 million in VC funds.
Beyond the venture capital raised, Chicago Booth has awarded $750,000 to student start-ups as part of its business plan competition.
Successful entrepreneurial ventures run the gamut, ranging from Braintree, a company to help businesses process credit card payments that received $34 million in funding from Accel Partners last month, to GrubHub, an online resource for finding and ordering restaurant food for delivery.
“Entrepreneurship is one of the most popular concentrations for our MBA students,” Kaplan said. “Even students who don’t plan to start a business when they graduate say they benefit from the skills taught in our entrepreneurship courses.”
At Booth, students can choose from 25 entrepreneurship and related courses, many of which provide hands-on learning opportunities for the students. Courses include entrepreneurial finance and private equity, new venture strategy, entrepreneurial selling and developing new products and services. The strength of the school’s entrepreneurship program helped it rank second in a recent international survey of graduate programs by Entrepreneur magazine. Additionally, the school’s entrepreneurial selling course was ranked one of the ten best courses by Inc. magazine.
For more on entrepreneurship at Chicago Booth, click here.
Read the full article: Entrepreneurship Thrives at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business
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