# Venture University

> Venture University is a VC fund backing Software and Health Care. See 41 investments, check sizes, portfolio and contact details. Updated Aug 2026.

- Type: VC Fund
- Location: San Francisco, United States
- Total investments: 41
- Last investment: Jun 2024
- Lead investor: 0%
- Last fund: Oct 2019
- Last updated: Aug 2026
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-venture-university/
- X (Twitter): https://twitter.com/VentureUniv
- Website: https://www.venture.university/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/VentureU/

Venture University is a multi-stage investment fund and a trade school for venture capital, private equity, and angel investing.Venture University is redefining the value of an investment fund by creating an investment team that is capable of covering markets broader, deeper, faster, and smarter than a typical fund, providing a significantly morepowerful network that can better support portfolio companies, and offering greater value to LPs.Venture University's mission is to generate consistent and superior returns net of fees and to curate and develop top investor talent for the benefit of the innovation ecosystem.Venture University's investment fund, VU Venture Partners, invests in seed through growth stage companies, initially investing up to $1M per company and up to $10M in follow-on rounds. Each quarter the investment team makes 3-6 investments across Consumer, Enterprise, Fintech / Blockchain, Frontier Tech, HealthTech, and Real Estate Tech.Venture University's trade school is designed as an Investor Accelerator and includes a VC/PE Investment Apprenticeship and Academic Program. Venture University accepts <2% of the applications it receives, making it more competitive to get into than the top Ivy League schools and MBA programs.Individuals that participate in the VC/PE Investment Apprenticeship Program include those who seek to join venture capital and private equity funds as Analysts, Associates, Principals, and Partners, angel investors and family offices looking to professionalize their direct investment strategies, aspiring new fund managers, entrepreneurs who want to learn to think like investors, experienced professionals who would like to make career transitions, and select undergraduate and graduate students.Venture University offers extraordinary individuals the ability to gain quality investment experience by... - Joining the investment team of VU Venture Partners- Working alongside and learning from top performing General Partners- Leading deal sourcing efforts around your own investment theses- Conducting deep due diligence- Presenting investment evaluations during weekly Partner Meetings - Participating on Investment Committees- Making real investments with real capital- Co-investing with top tier accelerators, VC/PE funds, and strategics- Building a powerful network within the startup and VC/PE industry, and becoming part of a tight knit family of VU Alumni- Sharing in the financial upside from the investments made

## Contacts

5 contacts available for Venture University. Shizune tracks 3 team members at Venture University. Sign up free to unlock them: https://app.shizune.co/sign-up/investor-profiles/find-team-emails/venture-university?utm_source=investor_profile

## Investment focus

### Industry

| Industry | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Software | 11 | 27% |
| Health Care | 6 | 15% |
| Machine Learning | 6 | 15% |
| Manufacturing | 5 | 12% |
| Mobile | 4 | 10% |

108 industries tracked in total.

### Stage

| Stage | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Seed | 19 | 46% |
| Series A | 10 | 24% |
| Funding Round | 5 | 12% |
| Convertible Note | 4 | 10% |
| Series B | 3 | 7% |

### Country

| Country | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| United States | 30 | 73% |
| Canada | 2 | 5% |
| Hong Kong | 2 | 5% |
| Japan | 1 | 2% |
| Israel | 1 | 2% |

9 countries tracked in total.

## Team

| Name | Title | Investments | Profile |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Arpan Ajmera | Associate | 1 | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/arpan-ajmera |
| J. Skyler Fernandes | Co-Founder & General Partner | 3 | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/j-skyler-fernandes |
| Zac Rowley | VC Investor | 0 | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/zac-rowley |

## Investments

| Company | Description | Amount | Stage | Date | Website |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Buy&Ship | Buyandship provides cross-border eCommerce solution focusing on Marketing and Logistics. At Buyandship, is redefining the experience of E-Commerce without changing the sites, disrupting the underlying infrastructure, we provide consolidate, aggregate and load-balance shipments across the world to the consumer's doorstep. Our technologyfocuses on connecting the fragmented existing logistics infrastructure to create a seamless experience for both merchants and consumers, and the benefit is that they get a solution that is 30-50% less than other carriers. We also work with merchants, marketplaces, and platforms to create a channel to reach an audience across our geographies (9 Countries currently) and reaching over 1.5M+ people per month whilst growing. We envision our members being able to purchase from any site around the world and have it seamlessly be shipped home. No more geographical restrictions, No more price monopolies, No more ambiguous shipping situations. We are building towards a transparent system, where both buyers and sellers just focus on the product. | $6M | Series B | Jun 19, 2024 |  |
| Lora DiCarlo | Lora DiCarlo used biomimicry to translate human mouth, tongue, and finger-like haptics into microrobotic mechanisms that feel like a human partner. Osé adjusts to each woman's unique physiology for a personal fit that makes achieving the elusive blended orgasm easy. |  |  | Jan 05, 2021 |  |
| ICW | ICW is the world’s first platform for product testing, inspection and certification. It is the global marketplace for supply chain compliance connecting global retailers, manufacturers, material suppliers and trading companies with testing service providers. At ICW, they believe in a better way of ensuring supply chain and product compliance.Their platform consolidates Testing, Inspection & Certification resources and connects with the most competitive international organisations. They supply you with a dedicated quality assurance / quality control department by leveraging big data analytics, artificial intelligence and our team of experts. |  | Series A | Jan 04, 2021 |  |
| Varda | Varda is a space manufacturing startup that focuses on creating products in space for terrestrial applications. They aim to manufacture things in space that benefit from low gravity. The company intends to create an infrastructure that harvests source materials for new products in-space via asteroid mining.The company was founded in 2020 byDelian Asparouhov and Trae Stephens. |  | Seed | Dec 23, 2020 |  |
| Farcast | Farcast (formerly DASH Systems) is a Los Angeles based technology company developing hardware and software to enable precision airdrop deliveries. They take a commercial airplane, open the door, and autonomously release and land packages within a helipad-size area. Its technology allows commercial cargo to be safely delivered in remote, rural, orpreviously inaccessible areas, quickly and affordably. | $8M | Seed | Dec 16, 2020 |  |
| Spyce | Spyce is the restaurant that’s reimagining cooking and serving up next-level deliciousness. With an impressive lineup of globally-inspired seasonal salads and warm bowls, Spyce takes an innovative approach to dining with an automated cooking platform. Spyce was founded in 2015 and is headquartered in Somerville, MA, USA. |  | Convertible Note | Oct 14, 2020 |  |
| Flower Company | FLOWER CO is a cannabis wholesale membership club that saves members 40% on popular brands and products, delivered to your door. They work with small business in each market to get a product to you and they believe that the modern cannabis economy can be an equalizing force that provides high-quality jobs.The company currently delivering torecreational and medicinal users across Alameda country, Vallejo, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Sacramento, and Marin. Their business model delivers premium products to consumers directly from the old-school supply at wholesale prices.FLOWER CO was founded in 2018 and is headquartered in Arcata, California. |  |  | Oct 08, 2020 |  |
| Lora DiCarlo | Lora DiCarlo used biomimicry to translate human mouth, tongue, and finger-like haptics into microrobotic mechanisms that feel like a human partner. Osé adjusts to each woman's unique physiology for a personal fit that makes achieving the elusive blended orgasm easy. | $3.5M | Seed | Oct 05, 2020 |  |
| Finless Foods | Plant-based and cell-cultured seafood that changes how the world eats… and supports healthy oceans.OUR MISSION IS SIMPLE – we want to create a future where the ocean thrives. We work toward this every day by creating delicious, alternative seafood products that help you satisfy your cravings from the sea without bait or a hook. We are usingground-breaking (or rather ocean-breaking) plant and cell culture technology to revolutionize the way the world sources delicious food. Good for us. Good for the ocean. |  | Series A | Sep 16, 2020 |  |
| Dover Microsystems | Dover Microsystems brings real security, safety, and privacy enforcement to silicon. Its hardware-based technology empowers processors to protect themselves in real-time from the exploitation of software vulnerabilities that can stop all network-based attacks. The company's mission is to immunize the world’s processors against allnetwork-based attacks. CoreGuard, their unique silicon IP with proprietary micro policies, acts as a bodyguard to the host processor, monitoring every instruction executed to ensure it meets a set of security, safety, and privacy rules. With CoreGuard, a processor can actively stop entire classes of network-based attacks and prevent the exploitation of software vulnerabilities.The company was founded in 2017 and is headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts. |  | Convertible Note | Aug 07, 2020 |  |

10 of 41 investments shown.

## Co-investors
- [VU Venture Partners](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/vu-venture-partners) — VC Fund, 31 deals together
- [UntroD Capital](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/real-tech-holdings) — VC Fund, 2 deals together
- [10X Capital](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/10x-capital) — VC Fund, 1 deal together
- [500 Global](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/500-startups) — VC Fund, 1 deal together
- [8VC](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/8vc) — VC Fund, 1 deal together
- [AgFunder](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/agfunder) — VC Fund, 1 deal together

## Similar investors

### Similar stage
- [Antler](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/antler-be9c) — VC Fund
- [Alumni Ventures](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/alumni-ventures-group) — VC Fund
- [Right Side Capital Management](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/right-side-capital-management) — VC Fund

## FAQ

### What does Venture University invest in?

Venture University invests primarily in Software, Health Care and Machine Learning startups, most often at Seed and Series A stage. Most of the 41 investments tracked by Shizune back companies in United States. The Investment Focus section breaks down every industry, stage and country in the portfolio.

### How do I contact Venture University?

Public channels for Venture University 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 Venture University?

The team at Venture University includes Arpan Ajmera (Associate), J. Skyler Fernandes (Co-Founder & General Partner) and Zac Rowley (VC Investor). 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.

# About Shizune
Shizune.co is an investor database. Core features:
- 48,091 startup investors (angels, VCs, accelerators, and others)
- Email, phone, LinkedIn (for intros), socials, and other contact data
- Updated daily from public funding news
- CSV and Excel export

The User can access the full database FOR FREE after signing up: shizune.co