PR
Training the next generation of investors and entrepreneurs, Bauer College’s new
Cougar Venture Fund will depend on student expertise By Wendell Brock
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O
B
eginning this fall, students in the
Bauer College now have an opportunity
to function as venture capitalists.
They won’t just be reading from textbooks,
either. They will be evaluating “real deals
with real money.”
That’s how Kala Marathi describes the Cougar
Venture Fund, a newly established program
designed to train the next generation of
investors and entrepreneurs at the University
of Houston.
“Bauer College and the University of Houston
are proud to join the ranks of a handful of elite
institutions such as Cornell University and the
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The Department of Marketing &
Entrepreneurship course will be taught
by Keith Rassin, an adjunct professor and a
successful Houston entrepreneur and investor.
Though the course was originally intended
for graduate students, the inaugural class will
include qualified students from the Wolff
Center for Entrepreneurship, as well as the
University of Houston Law Center.
Marathi served as managing director of the
Houston Angel Network for nine years before
coming to Bauer. At the Cougar Venture
Fund, she will cultivate relationships with
Texas’ angel-investor and venture-capital
communities, identifying and vetting the
companies the students will study. She wants
to provide students with a diversity of business
types representing the interests and strengths
of the UH community. Target industries
include software, energy, life science, and
service-oriented companies.
The Cougar Venture Fund was created from
a $1 million gift from the Jerome Robinson
Family Fund for Graduate Entrepreneurship.
Its primary goal is to educate. But as a working
investment fund, it also exists to make a profit
and has the potential to become a self-sustaining
pool of capital that can train Houston’s next
generation of entrepreneurs and investors.
F
As the Bauer College’s new Executive Director
of Innovation, Marathi has been charged with
launching the fund. Working in conjunction
with a board of advisors consisting of experienced
entrepreneurs, angel investors and venture
capitalists, the fund will invest in attractive
Texas startups with significant growth potential,
based on recommendations from students
enrolled in the college’s new venture
fund course.
University of Michigan in offering this type of
opportunity,” said Marathi, who will act as the
Cougar Venture Fund’s managing director.
Rassin conceived the course and said he is
“thrilled” to be part of the Cougar Venture
Fund’s development. “It is an amazing
opportunity for us to offer students a chance
to participate in the rigorous process of raising
money to fuel a startup business,” he said.
“Bauer College and the Wolff Center for
Entrepreneurship continue to impress me
with the support they provide for innovative
programs like this. It is very clear why Bauer is
one of the best entrepreneurship programs in
the country.”
“You never know,” said Rassin. “Thanks to the
Robinson Family and our students, UH might
one day be a stakeholder in the next Apple,
Google, or Microsoft.”
INSIDE BAUER