Rockefeller University; L'Attitude; Carnegie Corporation of New York; Tufts University
The venture-capital industry pours hundreds of billions of dollars into startups every year, and much of that money flows from Harvard, Yale, and other top university endowments.
The people overseeing university endowments in the US control $637.7 billion in assets, according to a study last year, and an increasing share is allocated to venture-capital firms.
Large endowments typically devote 15% to venture, compared to 10% to US stocks and 11% to fixed-income assets, according to the National Association of College and University Business Officers, which ran the study.
Some mega-endowments, such as Princeton's fund, allocate nearly a third of their portfolio to venture funds.
The reason is simple: Venture brings higher returns, even higher than stocks in this bull market.
Known as limited partners, or LPs, endowments have traditionally been tight-lipped about which venture firms they invest in, but Insider has assembled one of the most comprehensive lists yet of who is making key investment decisions and where the money is going.
The following is a list of the US university endowments with more than $1.7 billion in assets under management (AUM), filtered for the funds that make investment decisions internally, instead of hiring an outside fund manager.
Not surprisingly, elite Silicon Valley firms like Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia, and Kleiner Perkins are getting the bulk of dollars. But some lesser-known names like 645 Ventures, Kindred, and Pear VC are also attracting the attention of top investment managers.
We pored over annual reports and other publicly available information and contacted every investment officer to compile this list. We also used PitchBook estimates.
The universities and their chief investment officers are listed below from smallest to largest endowments based on the latest fiscal year available, which in most cases is 2020.
Did we miss any? Contact the author Ben Bergman at bbergman@insider.com.
Kristin Agatone, Lehigh UniversityLehigh UniversityAUM: $1.7 billion
Kristin Agatone left Harvard's endowment to take a turn at an investment-advisory firm for wealthy families and charities. But it wasn't long before she returned to the world of higher ed as chief investment officer at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
The school's assets have increased from about $1.2 billion to $1.7 billion since she started in 2016.
Lehigh is an investor in TrueBridge Capital Partners, an investment firm that raises money from endowments and corporate pensions to invest in venture-capital funds, according to PitchBook.
Niles Bryant, Bowdoin CollegeBowdoin College
AUM: $1.8 billion
Niles Bryant inherited one of the highest-performing endowments of similar universities when he stepped into the role of chief investment officer of Bowdoin College earlier this year.
He took over from Paula Volent, who held the position for more than two decades.
Bowdoin is a longstanding investor in Sequoia Capital, according to The New York Times and PitchBook. In 2005, Volent had to persuade trustees to put half a million dollars into a Sequoia fund focused on China. That bet paid off, with the stake worth $3.75 million by 2019.
Before Bowdoin, Bryant was the director of investments at the Intel founder Gordon Moore's family foundation and was an attorney specializing in capital markets and mergers and acquisitions.
Richard Chau, Tulane UniversityTulane University
AUM: $1.9 billion
Richard Chau is the newly appointed investment chief of Tulane University, where he spent the previous eight years overseeing the endowment's private-equity and real-estate portfolios.
Chau's tour of investment offices includes turns at Bessemer Trust and Cambridge Associates.
Tulane's private-equity and venture holdings represent a third of the portfolio, according to Chau.
Tulane backed two new venture firms last year, bringing the total number of firms in its private equity and venture portfolio to 38.
Jack Finlaw, University of ColoradoUniversity of Colorado
AUM: $1.9 billion
Jack Finlaw had a colorful career as a corporate lawyer in the cable-television industry, then as the chief legal counsel to the governor of Colorado, before landing at the state school in 2014.
Finlaw has said the endowment is in the top quartile when compared to similar funds.
Under Finlaw's leadership, the university has plugged 25% of its assets into private equity, including $197 million in venture capital, according to financial statements. It's a limited partner of Sanderling Ventures and Sequel Venture Partners, based in Boulder, PitchBook reports.
William Reeser, University of FloridaJeffrey Greenberg/Universal Images Group/Getty Images
AUM: $1.9 billion
William Reeser left the world of healthcare to become the chief investment officer of the University of Florida after a career at the fundraising arm of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.
He brings a "wealth of experience and a keen eye for successful investments," a university representative said in a statement at the time of Reeser's hiring seven years ago.
There isn't much said online about the endowment's investments, but a financial report says the fund has outperformed benchmark returns for the past three-, five-, and 10-year periods.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider
See Also:
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