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31

Oct

Ray Rothrock visiting MIT Sloan Energy Venture entrepreneurs

By Aswin Andrison (MBA2014)

Venture funding is an important factor to successfully launch a business and bringing it to scale. This is no different to a group of aspiring energy entrepreneurs participating in this year’s MIT Energy Venture  class (15.386). As many as seven entrepreneur teams equipped with top-notch business, policy and technology know-how from MIT and Harvard are working to commercialise technologies, including local warming, microgrids, biomass pellets, flexible water quality monitoring, and so-on.

The participants were very excited with the visit of Ray Rothrock, senior partner at Venrock, a pioneering venture capital firm built on the success of the Rockefeller family. With 30-year experience in evaluating and funding energy ventures, Ray emphasised the differences of energy ventures and what the groups should aspire to be in order to hit the ground running, not just through technology breakthroughs, but also through innovative business models.

Ray’s visit in the Energy Venture class is an example of how venture capitalists can create value by advising wannabe entrepreneurs with down-to-earth wisdom. If you are working on an energy venture, don’t forget to make the most of the opportunity to pitch at the VC Conference where many more VCs will be present. No doubt, this will be an excellent opportunity to test your idea and a strong platform to fund your business should you decide to pursue it.

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