# University of Arkansas System

University of Arkansas System is an Endowment / Foundation based in Little Rock, United States.

## Overview

- **Organization type:** Endowment / Foundation
- **Headquarters:** Little Rock, United States
- **Region:** North America
- **Address:** Little Rock, Arkansas, United States
- **Founded:** 1871
- **Assets under management:** Undisclosed
- **Website:** uasys.edu
- **LinkedIn:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/university-of-arkansas-system

## Regulatory record

- **Reports private funds:** No

## About

Chartered in 1871, the University of Arkansas System now enrolls over 70,000 students and employs more than 27,000 people across a flagship land-grant research university, a medical school, and multiple community colleges. The system holds a multi-billion-dollar external investment pool managed out of Fayetteville, with strategic influence flowing from significant donor relationships—notably the Walton Family Charitable Support Foundation, which committed $120 million for a School of Art, and the Winthrop Rockefeller Charitable Trust, which established the Winthrop Rockefeller Institute on Petit Jean Mountain. The investment program reaches across early-stage seed and start-up commitments, expansion-stage capital, fund-of-funds, secondaries, and general venture. Deal flow channels through named co-investor networks: NewRoad Capital Partners, co-founded by a UA trustee, and FortySix Venture Capital, which manages the Dickson & Main Fund I specifically backing UA-affiliated founders. The real-asset side of the portfolio includes Cammack Campus commercial space in Little Rock, the Don Tyson Center for Agricultural Sciences in Fayetteville, and the Claypool Farms land parcel in Springdale. Philanthropic obligations remain structurally separated through the Razorback Foundation and the University of Arkansas Foundation. The system participates in the NACUBO-TIAA Study of Endowments and its CIO engages with the Academy for Institutional Investor, signaling a posture calibrated to peer-university benchmarks. Other hard assets include a museum collection, the Fayetteville Meteorite, and the Arkansaurus fridayi fossil, alongside a private natural resources program. The structural differentiator is the endowment’s deliberate entanglement with a venture ecosystem built around its own campus network. Rather than operating as a plain-vanilla allocator, the system co-founded and seeds dedicated venture platforms—FortySix Venture Capital and the Dickson & Main Fund I—that convert its university's talent pipeline and trustee network into proprietary deal flow, a model rarely seen among state university endowments.

## Sectors

- Enterprise Software
- FinTech
- AI/ML
- ClimateTech

## Offices

- Fayetteville, Arkansas, United States

## Questions

### Is the University of Arkansas System’s endowment managed as a separate entity from the university?

The endowment operates inside the university system but maintains a separate external investment pool. Philanthropic foundations—the Razorback Foundation and University of Arkansas Foundation—are distinct legal structures, insulating gift-funded initiatives from the investment portfolio.

### Does the University of Arkansas System participate in fund commitments or only direct deals?

The system commits capital across direct co-investments, fund-of-funds, secondaries, and venture fund vehicles. Named commitments include the Dickson & Main Fund I managed by FortySix Venture Capital, which focuses on UA-affiliated startups.

### What investment stages does the University of Arkansas System typically target?

The endowment covers early-stage seed and start-up rounds, expansion and late-stage rounds, fund-of-funds, and secondaries. This span allows exposure to venture-backed companies from formation through growth, often alongside university-tied co-investors.

## Related profiles

- [The University of Pennsylvania Health System Retirement Plan](https://altss.com/profile/the-university-of-pennsylvania-health-system-retirement-plan)
- [BJC HealthCare Defined Benefit Pension Plan](https://altss.com/profile/bjc-healthcare-defined-benefit-pension-plan)

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Last updated: 2026-06-03T20:00:00.000Z

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