Bearcat Ventures

Congratulations to our fund’s first investment Tembo —already making us money🚀

Bearcats in the Bay - Summer Edition saw our students meeting with serial entrepreneur and University of Cincinnati alum, Austin Allison, CEO & Co-founder of Pacaso 🚀 Austin shared his extraordinary entrepreneurial journey from founding dotloop, Cincinnati's first $100M exit, as a University of Cincinnati College of Law graduate student to his launch and growth of Pacaso. Some of the key take-aways Austin shared with the group included: ~ Be passionate about solving a problem before committing to starting a venture ~Build in a sector with tremendous growth potential ~Identify true product-market fit before trying to scale ~The skills and industry understanding you gain from working at a company early in your career can often be more beneficial than starting a venture right out of college Grateful to Austin for sharing his time and expertise with our students living in San Francisco this summer working on their own startups and at SF startups (more to come on our new Bearcat 'Hacker House')! Go Bearcats! ❤️ 🖤 Joshua Jerin Jay Kothari Nida Aslam Jaden Walton Noelle Scheper 1819 Innovation Hub University of Cincinnati Alumni Association

🔥 Honored to Be Recognized Among Cincinnati's Best in Venture Capital 🔥 Celebrations were in full swing yesterday as Bearcat Ventures was honored to be named Cincy Inno Fire Awards 2025 Finalist in the Venture category! 🎉 This recognition is especially meaningful as BV is entirely student-led and powered by a team that is passionate about supporting startups, driving innovation and learning through real-world investing. Every general body meeting, due diligence prep and investment decision has been fuelled by countless hours of hard work, collaboration and commitment. We're proud to represent UC as a Fire Awards Finalist and are grateful to be recognized along so many incredible organizations in Cincy's startup ecosystem. 🚀 We'd like to thank our incredible mentors and supporters who have believed in us since day one: Joe Maruschak , our Faculty Advisor Kate Harmon , our Executive Director Our Investment Committee Tony Zingale Tim Metzner Bob Fealy Peter Schmidt Chris Hjelm Lynne Laube Emma Scharfenberger Off Elizabeth Edwards Andrew Goldner Marvin Abrinica Rob Manz Scott Jacobs Max Dworin University of Cincinnati's Center for Entrepreneurship 1819 Innovation Hub Thank you to Cincinnati Business Courier and Liz Engel for this opportunity!⭐️

Meet Bearcat Ventures, a Cincy Inno 2025 Fire Awards finalist that's rewriting what hands-on learning looks like. Powered by the University of Cincinnati's Center for Entrepreneurship, this student-run venture fund gives Bearcats the chance to invest real capital into real startups, and they’re already making waves: 💰 Raised $ 1 M+ to support early-stage innovation 📊 Made first investments in Tembo, Band Connect, and Sense Neuro Diagnostics 🔍 Through its Venture Research Studio, it supported 32 UC founders, helping them raise $ 30 M+ in follow-on capital Catch them among this year’s UC-backed standouts at the Cincy Inno Fire Awards, happening June 11 here at 1819. Interested in attending? Sign up here: https://bit.ly/4msQF20 #CincyInnoFireAwards #1819InnovationHub #BearcatVentures #StartupCincy #UCAlumni #VentureCapital #StudentVC #CincinnatiInnovationDistrict #FromIdeaToImpact

Last night, I had a major starstruck moment as I attended Peter Walker 's workshop on Founder Ownership & Dilution trends in VC. As the Head of Insights at Carta, he has studied over 40,000+ startups to dive into ownership and dilution trends in the space. I've been following Mr Walker's page for a year and am always blown away by his ability to present critical takeaways in the most intelligent, engaging and visually appealing manner. His talk was filled with valuable insights for any founder looking to raise in the current environment and he highlighted some key trends such as: - Median Valuations for startups are at an all-time high, but with only about half as many deals happening as compared to 2021. Takeaway: VCs are willing to invest in exceptional companies, but the standards have become much higher! - Seed-strapping is becoming increasingly common as founders take a different approach to scaling their startups. - Verticals like Defense Tech are emerging rapidly with the advancement in AI. Thank you so much to Ammara Mehd Ghani Talha Masood for hosting this event- I'm still not over the rush! I also had a wonderful time meeting Arjun Rai 👨🏽🍳👨🏽💻🤵🏽♂️ Henry Xiao and learning about their experiences!

📢 ATTENTION: Grad Students & Rising Seniors! If you're looking for a full-time/co-op role with an upcoming startup founded by an exited Founder, check out these opportunities with Kernel!!! About Kernel 👾 We’re building the developer platform that lets AI agents use real applications, starting with browsers. Our edge is an infrastructure platform that’s extensible, observable, and built for scale from day one. We’ve shipped foundational tech, landed paying customers, and are well-funded while still in stealth. Our serverless platform handles the hard stuff: autoscaling reliable browser infrastructure, observability, and the messy details of web interaction so developers can focus on what their agents do, not how they do it. Kernel makes AI tangible, practical, and powerful — allowing developers to deploy agents that can truly interact with the digital world. Here are the open job posts:  - Infrastructure Engineer: https://lnkd.in/edH6R-S5 - Backend Engineer: https://lnkd.in/e-7YBCwC Don't miss out, apply soon!!

Congratulations to the following UC Venture Lab & Tech Transfer portfolio companies and to our student-led Bearcat Ventures for being a finalist in the 2025 Cincinnati Business Courier Cincy Inno Fire Awards 🔥 Subterra - 'Startup of the Year' finalist Band Connect - 'Healthcare/tech' finalist Sense Neuro Diagnostics - 'Healthcare/tech' finalist Airtrek Robotics - 'Disrupter' finalist Bearcat Ventures - 'Venture capital and funders' finalist Read more about the finalists: https://lnkd.in/dVz2Jf5U 1819 Innovation Hub ❤️ 🖤 Cincinnati Innovation District

Looking to break into the startup world while you're still a student? Bearcat Ventures is building a talent pipeline to connect UC students with exciting Cincinnati startups. ✅ Flexible, real-world experience ✅ Networking with founders and innovators ✅ Roles tailored to your interests The process is simple—submit your resume, and we’ll reach out if there’s a match. Apply now via this link: https://lnkd.in/gsjd7_d8 and unlock your startup future in Cincy! #BearcatVentures #StartupCareers #UniversityOfCincinnati #CincyStartups #StudentOpportunities #TalentMatch #InnovationEcosystem

Bearcat Ventures: New York Edition 🗽🚀 Pt. 4 We had the incredible opportunity of meeting Jen Curtis from NYU and learning more about their entrepreneurial programs at NYU's Entrepreneurial Center. We were excited to learn more about their events, competitions and investment fund, and got to tour their Leslie eLab which is a great space for working! 💡 Thank you so much for hosting us, Jen! -- Thank you University of Cincinnati's Center for Entrepreneurship , UFB and Lindner Tribunal for supporting this trip! -- Spencer Applegate Joshua Jerin Jaden Walton Nida Aslam

Bearcat Ventures: New York Edition 🗽🚀 Pt.3 We had a wonderful time meeting Will McKelvey at Lerer Hippeau 's office and connect with a fellow Ohioan! Some of the biggest takeaways from our riveting conversation with Will were: - Every startup is competing against other startups over one primary vector: Talent 💡 - Top 3 things to look for in founders: 1. Do they have a unique value proposition? 2. Do they have the skills to fundraise? 3. Do they have "the dawg in them"?🚀 - If you ever question the founder's integrity, you should not invest in them ❌ Thank you so much for hosting our group! --- Thank you to the University of Cincinnati's Center for Entrepreneurship , UFB and Lindner Tribunal for supporting this trip! -- Aniruddhan Ramesh Anuj Menon Atharv Shete Bidhatri Amatya Jaden Walton Jay Kothari Joe Kuncheria Panjikaran Joshua Jerin Kaden Combs Khaled Oweis Lillian Bakri Phuong Le Spencer Applegate Vishesh Anand William Butler-Croutwater Yash Pahariya