Emory Alumnus Disrupting Venture Capital
The Hatchery launched its second season of The Emory Innovators Series by hosting an innovative Emory alumnus, Chris Hjelm. Chris is a graduate of Emory University’s Goizueta Business School (Bachelor’s in Business Administration, 2010) and a Partner in Connetic Ventures, where he serves as the Chicago Office Lead and Head of Data.
Connetic Ventures is a fascinating company that utilizes an A.I. (named Wendel) to compare prospective venture performance against a database of successful venture's performance. Not only does this make for incredibly accurate investing, Wendel recommends women and minority-owned ventures about 50% of the time compared to less than 10% on average for traditional VC funds.
In addition to sharing about his current work, Chris also shared some advice to current students who are thinking about their first career moves. Chris made the case that students would do well to focus on the cultural fit between themselves and a potential company and evaluate whether or not they can really thrive in a particular company environment. The short-term and long-term gains of doing this cultural evaluation really pay off.
The next Emory Innovators will take place on November 5 and will feature another innovative Emory Alumnus. You can register for that event here. If you missed the live conversation with Chris the recording can be viewed here.
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