Notre Dame Venture Capital

Three student managing directors — Bryan Han, Dawson Medina, and Matthew Freel — lead the investment process, supported by a group of general partners and an external advisory board that includes partners from PivotNorth Capital, Lead Edge Capital, and GIC. Decisions are made by the student team after due diligence, with advisors providing mentorship rather than veto power. The entire membership rotates annually as students graduate.

Deal flow comes from a combination of the student network’s campus-level vantage point, direct founder outreach, and co-investment relationships with established VC firms. Alumni now working at Andreessen Horowitz, Accel, Bessemer, and Tiger Global also feed opportunities back to the fund, creating a closed-loop sourcing channel. Weekly on-campus speakers and pitch sessions further funnel promising startups toward the investment team.

NDVC operates as a university-backed asset manager within Notre Dame, not a family office. It functions like a micro-VC fund: the team raises a pool of capital internally from the university and alumni, then deploys it into early-stage startups through a structured investment process. The model resembles a campus-run venture studio with a training component for undergraduates.

All disclosed activity indicates direct investments in individual startups, with no fund-of-funds or LP commitments mentioned. The fund’s own materials describe writing $10,000 to $25,000 checks directly into pre-seed and seed rounds alongside larger VC firms, suggesting a direct-investment-only posture. No secondary or fund investment vehicle has been identified.

NDVC targets pre-seed and seed stages exclusively. The fund’s website explicitly states a check range of $10,000 to $25,000 for these rounds. There is no indication of later-stage, growth, or Series A-and-beyond involvement.