Introducing the NYU Innovation Venture Fund Fellows!
The NYU Innovation Venture Fund was established in 2012 to invest capital in promising entrepreneurs within the NYU ecosystem. This ecosystem has been inspired and built by the likes of men and women such as Jack Dorsey (Twitter / Square), Herb Kelleher (Southwest Airlines), Carley Roney (the Knot) and Scott Harrison (charity: water). As a result, the Innovation Venture Fund has had the privilege of investing in the exceptional founders behind companies such as Clarifai, Kinvolved, Biodigital, Brooklinen and most recently, KitSplit and PainQx, among others.
As the NYU community has grown beyond the Washington Square campus to Brooklyn, and internationally to Shanghai and Abu Dhabi, the breadth and experience of multi-disciplinary founders has improved exponentially. As a result of this growth, the Innovation Venture Fund, as part of the NYU Entrepreneurial Institute, is proud to announce the Innovation Venture Fund Fellowship program. This years Fellowship class includes three of your NYU peers with experience starting, investing in or working at startup ventures.
While the Innovation Venture Fund invests at the seed-stage in startups founded by NYU students, faculty, and researchers, Fellows will identify promising investment opportunities for the Fund and for candidates for programs at the Entrepreneurial Institute, including J-Term Startup Sprint, Summer Launchpad, Ignite and others.
As part of this fellowship, the Fellows will be publishing monthly deep-dives on specific industry verticals ranging from urban tech to agriculture to provide the next generation of NYU entrepreneurs with a better understanding on technology adoption, growth and investor perspectives across emerging sectors.
We are excited to welcome our first class of talented fellows, Kyra Durko (Stern ‘18), Magdalena Coronel (Stern MBA ‘19) and Patrick Presto (Tisch ITP ‘18)! Feel free to reach out to them directly if you are working on a startup venture and we look forward to meeting you!
Patrick Presto: Prior to pursuing his masters degree at NYU’s Interactive Telecommunication Program (ITP), Patrick Presto was a product manager focused on payments, risk, and compliance at Square Inc. He is currently focused on researching and developing different user experiences in the field of human-computer interaction. Patrick’s affinity for startups and entrepreneurship began after his undergraduate studies working on a start-up food truck, Coolhaus, in his hometown of Los Angeles, CA.
Kyra Durko is a junior at NYU Stern studying finance and computing and data science. Freshman year she founded TABu, a mobile payment app that integrates with leading POS systems to allow users to open, split, and pay a bar tab from their phone. She saw the company from idea, to financing a pre-seed round including Dorm Room Fund, to launch in a handful of venues in NYC. She was featured on Apple's first show "Planet of the Apps" where she secured Gary Vaynerchuk as a mentor, was a finalist in NYU's $300K Entrepreneurs Challenge, a two time Ignite Fellow, and a member of the 2017 cohort of Summer Launchpad. She can help any aspiring NYU entrepreneur navigate the opportunities available.
Magdalena Coronel: MBA Candidate, NYU Stern School of Business. Prior to relocating to the United States, Magdalena had 8+ years in the early stage venture capital industry in Latin America. Subsequently, she was VentureStart Program Manager at the Sacramento Regional Technology Alliance in Sacramento, California. In this role, she provided hands-on, customized guidance to assist tech companies working towards venture capital funding. In addition, she supported the Sacramento Angels investment group in managing their monthly startup selections process and co-founded an Angel Club in Uruguay analyzing deal flow from Colombia, Argentina, and Uruguay. Magdalena has the passion for developing innovative and globally high-potential ideas which could transform the world.
