Network - Kauffman Fellows

Hello, Bonjour.

With 589 Kauffman Fellows in 46 countries representing well over 500 venture firms and organizations, the Kauffman Fellows Network runs deep with strong bonds across the globe. We count as part of our network more than 1,000 mentors and speakers who have supported the Kauffman Fellows Program, transcending roles as founders, CEOs, government leaders, and more.

Limitless. Over 500 unique venture firms represented across 6 continents.

The Kauffman Fellows Program is made possible through the steady support of the global venture community. Firms become members of the Kauffman Fellows Network by sponsoring someone at their firm for a Kauffman Fellowship

A Mélange of Perspectives.

The Kauffman Fellows Network has unparalleled access to the best minds in the venture and innovation business and a support system for Fellows to navigate every aspect of innovation investing from deal flow to navigating the public markets. The trust that Kauffman Fellows build during the 2-year program endures and grows deeper as they graduate into the Kauffman Fellows Network.

Class 23 Stats

0% Founders or Co-Founders
of VC Funds
0% Managing Directors or Partners
0% Directors or Managers
0% Principals or Investors

Game-Changers

Adele Oliva

1315 Capital

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Jason Green

Emergence Capital

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Game-Changers

Trae Vassallo

Defy VC

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Mamoon Hamid

KPCB

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Game-Changers

Jennifer Fonstad

Aspect Ventures

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Shailendra Singh

Sequoia, India

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A Family Like No Other.

Every Kauffman Fellow has access to the full network. Fellows also meet in smaller chapters, typically based on region, industry focus, or other similar interests. There are over a dozen regional chapters and special interest groups (SIGs) across the globe, so Fellows can meet on a regular basis around shared causes.

A Global Affair.

Once a year, Kauffman Fellows come together for our annual summit. We visit amazing startup ecosystems around the world, gather as a family, and learn about a new region in the world. In 2019, we will host our 10th anniversary summit, having previously visited Tokyo, Mexico City, Shanghai, New York, São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, Dublin, Singapore and Bali, Kansas City, and Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

Interactive and comprehensive community platform

Trusted Expert Network

At the Kauffman Fellows Reunion VC Summit in Kansas City in October 2016, CEO Jeff Harbach (Class 16) highlighted the power of our organization’s global network and announced the launch of the Trusted Expert Network, TENx, an interactive, comprehensive community platform. The announcement was a centerpiece of his outline of the exciting vision for the future of Kauffman Fellows.

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The following firms have participated in the Kauffman Fellows Program

Select Continent

Africa/ME
Asia
Australia
Europe
North America
South America

Ghana

Nigeria

South Africa

Egypt

Israel

Jordan

Lebanon

Endeavor Lebanon

Palestinian Territories

Sadara Ventures

Australia

Czech Republic

Credo Ventures

Estonia

France

Germany

Greece

European Investment Fund

Ireland

Italy

Netherlands

Canada

Northeast, US

Mid-Atlantic, US

Southeast, US

Texas / South Central, US

Southwest, US

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Name	Last Name	Current Firm	Country	State/Province	City	Location	Fellowship	Class	Fellowship Bio	Professional Bio	Education Bio	Class Number
Liat Aaronson	Aaronson	Innovation Endeavors	Israel	,	Herzliya	Middle East	Marker LLC	22	A member of Class 22, Liat served her fellowship under the mentorship of Sham Sandhu at Marker LLC in Tel Aviv, Israel, and Scott Brady of Innovation Endeavors. She also served as a mentor to Eyal Mayer (Class 21).	Liat is Partner at Marker LLC and is based in the firm’s Herzliya office. She is an observer on the board of Victorious, and sits on the boards of Rewire, Glide, and Duality. Until recently she served as the executive director of the Zell Entrepreneurship Program at the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) Herzliya, an avant-garde private university in Israel. The innovative venture creation program she helped grow and develop in the ten years of her leadership allows undergraduates in their final year of study at IDC to experience entrepreneurship hands-on, taking ideas and developing them into funded startups. Many successful companies, including Gift’s Project, Wibiya, Wibbitz, Bizzabo, Argus, and Fairfly were founded out of the program. She is on the advisory boards in Israel of SeedIL, Cockpit Innovation Hub, Ramle Innovation Hub, Taglit Excel Ventures Program, WiSE, the Weizman Institute, and SCOLA, the Unit 2470 Alumni Entrepreneurship Program. Liat curates the venture creation curriculum at MEET (Middle East Entrepreneurs of Tomorrow), and is a mentor at Barclay’s Accelerator (powered by Techstars), The Italia Innovation Program, and Siftech, Jerusalem’s first startup accelerator.	She holds a BA in political economy of industrial societies (economics and political science, cum laude) from the University of California at Berkeley, an LLB and MBA from Tel Aviv University, and an LLM in European law from the University of Leiden in the Netherlands (cum laude). Liat became a member of the Israel Bar Association in 1999, after completing her internship at Kantor, Elhanani, Tal & Co. She attained practical experience in M&A and new ventures as an associate attorney at Naschitz, Brandes & Co., a position she held until joining IDC Herzliya in 2005.	22
Dan Abelon	Abelon	Two Sigma Ventures	United States	New York,	New York	NY/CT	VenSeed	19	As a member of Class 19, Dan performed his fellowship at VenSeed.	Dan joined Two Sigma Ventures as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence in 2015. Today he invests in startups that use advanced tech such as data science, AI, machine learning, and predictive analytics. Dan is a serial entrepreneur and investor. His investing activities include VenSeed, an accelerator for high-potential venture capital managers, Edge Harris, a family office in New York that he is helping to establish a seed fund. Dan has helped incubate technology products including ReadyGraph, a SaaS tool that allows websites to automate their growth; and SIGNL, a big data tool that detects when private companies start achieving momentum. Previously, Dan co-founded SpeedDate.com, a venture-backed online dating service with over 23 million members that was sold to IAC. In order to bring the speed dating concept online, Dan gained expertise in growth hacking, subscription payments, web analytics, and mobile product development. Prior to launching SpeedDate, Dan worked for IBM’s Business Consulting Services. He also spent time in Lazard’s Technology Mergers and Acquisitions Group and at the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation where he sourced investments in agriculture and information technology in the Philippines.	Dan holds an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He received his BA in economics and philosophy from Columbia University, where he cofounded the Columbia Entrepreneurship Club and grew an advertising business through the university’s incubator. Dan loves to travel, and has worked in international development as a volunteer in various countries, including Ghana, Thailand, and Ukraine. In his spare time, he enjoys playing the keytar, composing digital music, skiing, and biking. Dan serves as an Endeavor Expert, mentoring entrepreneurs in the developing world, and is a member of the Manhattan chapter of YPO.	19
Benjamin Abram	Abram	Wylan Energy	United States	California,	Menlo Park	Northern CA	Westly Group	14	As a member of Class 14, Ben served his fellowship at the Westly Group under the mentorship of Mike Dorsey and Managing Partner Steve Westly.	Ben is the founder of Wylan Energy. For Ben, this company is the culmination of nearly a decade of research around business ideas that produce significant and scalable energy efficiency savings. Wylan Energy runs rebate and subsidy programs in select jurisdictions to enable everyday consumers to go green, less expensively. Overlapping his time with Wylan, Ben spent 5 years as an associate-in-residence for The Westly Group, a clean technology-oriented venture capital firm based in Menlo Park, California. As the second employee of this fund, Ben assisted its founder, Steve Westly, in raising $127 million in their first institutional fund. At Westly, Ben served as a board observer at OhSo Clean, a sanitation company, and at Glacier Bay, a power management company whose battery-powered auxiliary unit enables truck fleets to save one gallon of fuel per hour of use by meeting the air-conditioning needs of their operators without idling their engines. As an individual, Ben is also an advisor to IncentAlign, an enterprise software company that enables large institutions to allocate resources more efficiently and effectively with a market-based approach. Initial applications include allocating sales territories and accounts.	Ben is a graduate of Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering, graduating with a bachelor's degree with dual majors in civil & environmental engineering and public policy studies. Ben serves or has served on a number of non-profit boards, including the Chordoma Foundation, FACE AIDS, and the Duke University Board of Trustees. He is from Chapel Hill, North Carolina.	14
Jan Adams	Adams	EMBL Ventures	Germany	,	Heidelberg	Europe	EMBL Ventures	11	A member of Class 11, Jan was mentored by Stefan Herr at EMBL Ventures in Heidelberg, Germany.	Jan joined EMBL Ventures in 2002 and is now a Managing Director with the firm, focusing on opportunities in the life science and medical device sectors. He has been representing the firm on various portfolio boards including Endoart Medical Technology, Lipid Therapeutics, Allercra Therapeutics, and Opsona Therapeutics. Prior to joining EMBL Ventures, Jan was a postdoctoral fellow of the Ernst Schering Research Foundation at the University of Granada, Spain, where his research focused on stem cells. Prior to that he was a fellow of the Boehringer Ingelheim Research Foundation, conducting work on molecular transport mechanisms at the Wellcome CRC in Cambridge, UK.	Jan holds an MS in biochemistry & molecular biology from Tubingen University, Germany and completed a PhD in genetics at the University of Cambridge, UK.	11
Sola Adeola	Adeola	L.A.T. Clevson	Nigeria	,	Victoria Island, Lagos	Africa	Institute for Venture Design	15	A member of Class 15, Sola served her fellowship at The Institute for Venture Design under the mentorship of Muhtar Bakare.	Sola is Head of Corporate Strategy at L.A.T. Clevson, a boutique investment firm with offices in Nigeria and London that invests in African startups. The firm's investment model aims to generate wealth that contributes to economic development. As such, its portfolio companies often sit at the convergence of several sectors; the firm invests proprietary capital or strategic co-investments, custom-tailored to the needs of each venture Previously. Sola was the Executive Secretary of the Freedom Foundation, a Lagos, Nigeria-based nonprofit whose mission is to reach out, give hope, rehabilitate, educate, and empower impoverished persons in Nigeria through community-based programs and initiatives in order to achieve individual and community transformation. Sola is also the founder of Designing Futures, a business incubator focused on startups in the education sector. DF is a platform for individuals who want to launch initiatives (for-profit and nonprofit) to solve education challenges and be financially sustainable. Earlier, Sola was the Nigerian project coordinator for The Institute for Venture Design (IVD or The Institute), a partnership between Stanford’s Centre for Design Research (CDR) and the FATE Foundation. The Institute aims to increase the level of innovation and technological development in Nigeria through the incubation and building up of a culture of entrepreneurs, innovators, and risk takers. Sola was the lead Nigerian counterpart managing the partnership with Stanford CDR and working to set up the organization and facilitate programs. Sola's past work experience has been in the field of management consulting, working for Accenture and Dalberg Global Development Advisors.	Sola has a Bachelor of Science in foreign service (BSFS) from Georgetown University and a Master's in public administration from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, where she focused on education policy.	15

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Fellows and Mentors Around the World