VENTURE FUNDING
What IPO slowdown? The hot play this fall at the University of Michigan Business School is "Idea to IPO in 14 Weeks." Going to class won't guarantee you'll go public, but students will develop companies and get facetime with VCs by semester's end.
While many B-schools offer classes in dotcom - Harvard will launch "Starting Technology Ventures" next spring - "IPO" makes the hunt for capital a requirement. Many of the nearly dozen VC guest lecturers for the course's initial offering came away impressed. "This was way ahead of what I've seen other places," says Navid Nassiri, a principal at Vortex Capital Partners. Nassiri won't reveal what he funded last semester, but says he hopes to seed student businesses with as much as $500,000.
"Business courses are outdated," says Josh Coval, the 31-year-old professor who first rolled out the course last spring. "That's why a lot of students drop out of business school, because it's too sluggish."
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