An Indiana University Maurer School of Law faculty member will lead—and two of its students participate—in the fourth cohort of IU Ventures, the university’s early-stage venture and angel investment arm.
Mark Need, clinical professor and director of the Law School’s Elmore Entrepreneurship Law Clinic, will lead the 13-student cohort—the largest yet—which includes David Dillon, a second-year JD-MBA candidate, and 1L student Klaus Griesemer.
“I am thrilled by the exceptional diversity and talent in this year’s IU Ventures Fellows class,” said Need, also a venture legal analyst in residence with IU Ventures. “The program’s growing partnership with new and existing campus entrepreneurship programs continues to enrich the Fellows’ experience, providing unparalleled opportunities to engage with real-world venture investing and issues facing scalable startups. The strength of this class underscores the program’s momentum and the expanding reach of our venture ecosystem.”
The IU Ventures Fellows Program immerses students from a range of disciplines in the venture capital industry through National Venture Capital Association curriculum, real-time projects, and deal exposure.
The program runs from January through December and brings together entrepreneurial students who share an interest in venture capital. Students spend the spring semester learning venture finance fundamentals while participating in online and in-person seminars, guest lectures, and class discussions. Some have the opportunity to serve in a venture capital internship over the summer, while everyone works individually and as part of teams in the fall to implement learnings in real-time projects for venture capital projects.
Those unique opportunities have drawn interest from students across the IU ecosystem, including law students.
“I’ve found venture capital to be a space full of innovation and problem solving,” Dillon said. The joint Maurer-Kelley School of Business student applied after hearing about the program from Need and others.
“The people who have the best solutions for problems are often the people experiencing those problems, and unfortunately, those people aren’t always well-resourced to bring that problem to market,” he said. “Venture capital is uniquely positioned to set those entrepreneurs up with a chance to solve a problem. I really enjoy the idea that a confluence of specialties can improve an idea, a business, and match a problem to a marketable solution.”
For Griesemer, the entry into the world of venture capital and entrepreneurship started early on in life, watching his stepmother work in a variety of startups and established technology companies created with the help of venture funds.
After graduating from the Kelley School of Business, Griesemer spent two years in commercial transactions with the Indianapolis-based Simon Property Group.
“I came to law school and knew I wanted to work eventually on the transactional side of things,” he said.
That included the IU Ventures Fellows Program.
“It’s exciting,” Griesemer said. “The program runs for a full calendar year, and we’re taking classes through VC University, a joint initiative of Berkeley Law, The National Venture Capital Association, and Venture Forward. Additionally, through IU Ventures, we’ll get to be part of a nonprofit that essentially operates as its own investment firm, helping startups with connections to IU around Bloomington and Indianapolis.”
According to Dillon, the Law School’s strength in business law has helped give him an advantage.
“My first year at Maurer helped me realize how interconnected the business and legal worlds are,” he said. “Coming from a business background, I hadn’t expected the legal world to be so prevalent in business operations, but my work at the Law School has helped me realize the scale at which the two disciplines overlap.”