# Eugene M. Lang Entrepreneurial Initiative Fund

> Eugene M. Lang Entrepreneurial Initiative Fund is a VC fund backing Education. See 29 investments, check sizes, portfolio and contact details. Updated Aug 2026.

- Type: VC Fund
- Location: New York, United States
- Total investments: 29
- Last investment: Mar 2025
- Lead investor: 3%
- Last updated: Aug 2026
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/1851585
- X (Twitter): https://twitter.com/ColumbiaEntprog
- Website: https://www8.gsb.columbia.edu/entrepreneurship/student-resources/lang-fund
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/langentrepreneurshipcenter

Eugene M. Lang Entrepreneurial Initiative Fund is a VC fund in New York focused on Education and Medical. The Lang Fund provides early stage investing opportunities to qualifying student business initiatives.

## Contacts

5 contacts available for Eugene M. Lang Entrepreneurial Initiative Fund. Shizune tracks 1 team members at Eugene M. Lang Entrepreneurial Initiative Fund. Sign up free to unlock them: https://app.shizune.co/sign-up/investor-profiles/find-team-emails/columbia-university-lang-fund?utm_source=investor_profile

## Round sizes

| Stage | Round size |
| --- | --- |
| Seed | $25k–$1.1M |
| Pre-Seed | $25k–$1.2M |

## Investment focus

### Industry

| Industry | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Education | 4 | 14% |
| Medical | 3 | 10% |
| Software | 3 | 10% |
| E-Commerce | 3 | 10% |
| Restaurants | 3 | 10% |

78 industries tracked in total.

### Stage

| Stage | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Seed | 20 | 69% |
| Pre-Seed | 3 | 10% |
| Angel | 2 | 7% |
| Grant | 1 | 3% |
| Funding Round | 1 | 3% |

6 stages tracked in total.

### Country

| Country | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| United States | 25 | 86% |
| Spain | 1 | 3% |
| Ukraine | 1 | 3% |

## Team

| Name | Title | Investments | Profile |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Vincent Ponzo | Managing Director, Lang Center For Entrepreneurship | 0 | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/vince-ponzo |

## Investments

| Company | Description | Amount | Stage | Date | Website |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Verteel | Verteel is a dual use drone operating platform specializing in medical supply chain and defense. Founded by a team of Air Force officers, pilots, and engineers with decades of leadership experience. Verteel is 1 of 8 companies in the US that can legally operate long-range commercial drones within the national airspace system. |  | Pre-Seed | Mar 13, 2025 |  |
| WearOpal | We believe everyone has the right to feel safe and secure. At WearOpal, we create safety wearables that seamlessly integrate into daily life — starting with a personal safety smart ring that can discreetly request assistance from 911 and emergency contacts. |  | Grant | Aug 12, 2022 |  |
| MavenMagnet | A platform and services to help businesses realize their full potential in the connected world. |  | Seed | Jan 01, 2022 |  |
| AVEC | AVEC's alcohol mixes are made from actual ingredients, including a splash of real juice, such as blood orange, pineapple, or yuzu, and a blend of natural botanicals derived from real products, such as jalapeo, lemongrass, or pomelo. The sweeteners used by the company are naturally found in nature. | $1.2M | Pre-Seed | Oct 14, 2021 |  |
| JOCO | JOCO Powers Delivery in Urban Environments. Our premium light electric vehicles (LEVs) are built to last and our platform removes all the hassle of owning, storing, charging and maintaining a LEV; just focus on doing the deliveries! With carbon emissions at an all time high, we’re on a pursuit to bring cleaner air to the world. |  | Seed | May 01, 2021 |  |
| mint&rose | mint&rose is a fashion lifestyle brand that offers shoes, bags, and accessories collections made in Spain. The brand designs, manufactures, and retails Made-In-Spain, high quality, contemporary collections focusing in shoes bags and other accessories. They leveraging and preserving techniques that have been used for centuries, usinghigh-quality materials. mint&rose was founded in 2012 and is headquartered in Valladolid, Spain. | $225K | Seed | Aug 16, 2019 |  |
| Wandering Bear Coffee | Wandering Bear offers extra strong, surprisingly smooth, conveniently and sustainably packaged organic coffee that’s always fresh and easy to enjoy – however you take your caffeine. The brand boasts a product range built for customization, including single serve and bulk boxed cold brew on tap, Vegan ready to drink skus, and new innovationsincluding extra strong K-Cups (the strongest on the market), and Coarse Ground Coffee, Wandering Bear elevates consumers’ coffee experience whether that be at home, the office, or on the go. Pricing ranges from $3.69 to $29.99 and all products are available for nationwide shipping via wanderingbearcoffee.com and Amazon.com. Select products are available with other select retailers, including Thrive Market, Fresh Direct, Whole Foods and Kroger. | $50K | Seed | May 01, 2015 |  |
| Travefy | Travefy is the easiest online and mobile group travel planner. Through Travefy, groups can collaborate on trip details, build rich itineraries, and collect shared expenses so no one is stuck with the bill.Travefy is available directly to consumers and branded Pro versions are available for travel brands, suppliers, and agents among others. It hasbeen featured in The New York Times, Forbes, Fast Company, and U.S. News and World Report among other publications and has won numerous innovation awards. | $1.2M | Seed | Apr 27, 2015 |  |
| Blockparty | Blockparty is a fast-growing hospitality and entertainment business that partners with sports and music properties to develop pop-up fan communities inside and outside venues. By combining strategic partnerships with temporary infrastructure, mobile technology, and an obsession with customer service the Blockparty team has created the ultimatestreet-to-seat experience for fans nationwide.Founded in 2014, Blockparty is headquartered in Dallas, Texas. | $500K | Convertible Note | Apr 15, 2015 |  |
| BlocPower | BlocPower is an energy technology startup that develops healthier, greener, and smarter buildings.It leverages advanced technologies, innovative electrification equipment, and structured finance to provide green heating and cooling to urban buildings. The company also connects government agencies, utilities, building owners, and smart equipmentproviders to identify unhealthy, energy-wasting buildings to retrofit. Its proprietary machine learning platform then determines which retrofits will produce the most energy savings at scale and uses the cloud and IoT to gather data and remotely monitor energy consumption. Since its founding, BlocPower has completed energy projects in nearly 1,000 buildings and delivered results ahead of schedule and under budget. It utilizes its proprietary software for analysis, leasing, project management, and monitoring of urban clean energy projects, and its customers are saving 20–40% on their energy bills each year. The company is backed by top investors, including Kapor Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, the American Family Insurance Institute for Corporate and Social Impact, AccelR8, the Goldman Sachs Urban Investment Group, Elemental Excelerator, CityRock Venture Partners, the Schmidt Family Foundation, and Salesforce Ventures.Donnel Baird and Morris Cox co-founded the company in Brooklyn, New York in 2014. | $25K | Pre-Seed | Feb 28, 2014 |  |

10 of 29 investments shown.

## Co-investors
- [Linseed Capital](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/linseed-capital) — VC Fund, 2 deals together
- [Nebraska Angel Network](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/nebraska-angel-network) — VC Fund, 2 deals together
- [Nebraska Global](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/nebraska-global) — VC Fund, 2 deals together
- [Amplifyher Ventures](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/amplifyher-ventures) — VC Fund, 1 deal together
- [Anthemis](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/anthemis-group) — VC Fund, 1 deal together
- [APA Venture Partners](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/apa-venture-partners) — VC Fund, 1 deal together

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## FAQ

### What does Eugene M. Lang Entrepreneurial Initiative Fund invest in?

Eugene M. Lang Entrepreneurial Initiative Fund invests primarily in Education, Medical and Software startups, most often at Seed and Pre-Seed stage. Most of the 29 investments tracked by Shizune back companies in United States. The Investment Focus section breaks down every industry, stage and country in the portfolio.

### What is Eugene M. Lang Entrepreneurial Initiative Fund's check size?

Eugene M. Lang Entrepreneurial Initiative Fund typically joins rounds of $25k–$1.1M at Seed and $25k–$1.2M at Pre-Seed. These ranges are 10th–90th percentile round sizes calculated from confirmed public funding rounds, so they are a realistic guide to the rounds Eugene M. Lang Entrepreneurial Initiative Fund participates in.

### How do I contact Eugene M. Lang Entrepreneurial Initiative Fund?

Public channels for Eugene M. Lang Entrepreneurial Initiative Fund include LinkedIn, X (Twitter) and the website linked on this profile. For a verified work email and phone number, create a free Shizune account — contact data is searched across 20+ sources and validated before delivery, so your outreach lands in the right inbox.

### Who are the partners at Eugene M. Lang Entrepreneurial Initiative Fund?

The team at Eugene M. Lang Entrepreneurial Initiative Fund includes Vincent Ponzo (Managing Director, Lang Center For Entrepreneurship). The Team section lists each member with their title, investment count and links.

### Is Shizune's investor data accurate?

Yes — every stat on this profile is calculated from confirmed public funding rounds monitored across hundreds of sources since 2020. This profile was last refreshed in Aug 2026 and is updated monthly. Spotted something off? Use the “Suggest an edit” link near the top of the page.

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