VC fellowship graduation

Congratulations to our Spring 2023 Cohort!

Congratulations to all 25 Fusion Fellows who graduated from our Spring 2023 Venture Fellowship Program! This was our second year offering the program, and we were fortunate to receive more than 400 applicants. We could not be prouder of this talented cohort, a highly diverse group with a broad range of technical, scientific and quantitative backgrounds.

The program is designed for working professionals in technical roles and students pursuing advanced degrees in technical domains, with the goal of helping them explore the world of venture capital and startups. The program was initiated last year by our Managing Partner, Lu Zhang, and was led this year by our new Partner, David Gerster.

We designed this program to demystify the opaque world of VC, distilling the key concepts into a rigorous twelve-week course. We covered deal sourcing and due diligence; how venture capital compares to other “alternative” investments; the mechanics of preferred stock and convertible notes; term sheet negotiation; and the nuances of how founders and investors think about dilution in the context of a financing. In the words of one fellow, “The Fusion Venture Fellowship is a cheat code for VC.”

We also designed this program to function as an apprenticeship, with hands-on exercises in deal sourcing and screening. This proved to be one of the most popular features of the program, providing an opportunity for future investors to learn by doing.

Fusion Fund is committed to building a talent pipeline to establish the next generation of venture investors. Congratulations again to all our Fellows for their dedication and curiosity throughout this intensive twelve-week journey.

  • Albert Kim

    Mojo Vision- Engineer,

    Stanford University

  • Carl DeSelm

    Department of Radiation Oncology- Assistant Professor,

    Washington University

  • Chengxi Li

    Meta- Research Scientist,

    Purdue University

  • Emily Zhao

    Google Datapls Team- Software Engineer,

    University of Pennsylvania

  • Ethan Yang

    Venus MEdtech Inc.- Director of New Business Development and Clinical Sciences,

    University of Miami

  • Finn Mallery

    StartX- Co-Managing Director, Student Accelerator,

    Stanford University

  • Jesse Windle

    Hi Fidelity Genetics- Director of Data Science,

    Duke University

  • Jiajun Xu

    Business Messaging Ads ranking, Meta- Research Scientist,

    University of Southern California

  • Lucrezia Rovati

    Mayo Clinic- Visiting Research Fellow,

    Vita-Salute San Raffaele University

  • Matthew Bauer

    Harvard University- Leder Human Biology Internship,

    Harvard Law School

  • Melanie Rosenberg

    Tellus You Care- Lead Machine Learning Engineer,

    Yale University

  • Nadine Jawad

    Middle Eastern/North African (MENA) Research Pipeline- Co-founder, Co-chair,

    Stanford Medical School

  • Nicholas Saiz

    TeraDAR, Co-Founder, Principal Engineer,

    Stanford University

  • Nick Gunady

    Aerovy- CEO

    School of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Purdue University

  • Ran Li

    Google- Senior Software Engineer,

    Stanford University

  • Robert Wong

    Nextdoor- Sr. Data Scientist,

    University of California

  • Sebastian Rositano

    Nucleate Biotech Accelerator Program- Executive,

    Columbia University, NY

  • Shuyi Cen

    3H Healthcare Investment- Investment Analyst Intern, Stanford University

  • Tracy Lahey

    AMGEN- Manager, Strategy & Business Development; Digital Health Innovation

    University of California

  • Yayun Jin

    Microsoft- Machine Learning Engineer,

    North Carolina State University

  • Zewen Zhang

    Tesla Inc, - Cell Modeling Intern,

    Stanford University

  • Zhehui Chen

    Cloud Team- Software Engineer,

    Georgia Institute of Technology

  • Zhuoyi Huang

    Meta- Creation ML Team,

    Stanford University

 

Fusion Fund is committed to help build a VC talent pipeline to establish the next generation of VC investors. Starting in 2024, we will host 2 cohorts per year – every Spring and Fall.

Stay tuned!

 
 

  • “I want to express my sincere appreciation for the exceptional experience I've had during this fellowship. The insights gained have been invaluable.”

  • “I wanted to convey my gratitude for your leadership and guidance throughout the fellowship. In particular, your approachability invited each of us to ask questions and engage with the discussions freely.”

  • “I value how this fellowship joins professionals across an array of backgrounds and cultivates an open learning environment. Upon concluding this engagement, I feel more confident in my understanding of the VC history, ecosystem-wide approaches and nuances and in my ability to navigate a career transition into the field.”

  • “The course was well-structured and the mentors were amazing. As a practicing physician with limited business experience, this program was great to understand the basics of the tech startup and early-stage VC environment.”

  • “Thank you so much for an extremely informative series – this has been a fantastic fellowship experience.”

  • “The Fusion Fellowship is a cheat code for VC.”