Spring 2025 Semester Review
CVC's 15th anniversary, member updates, spring campus events, retreat highlights, client projects with Lightspeed and Citi Ventures, and a state of the union from our management team.
15 Years of CVC!
15 amazing years of CVC friends!
CVC is turning 15 this year, a truly incredible milestone for any undergraduate organization at Cornell.
Over the years, we’ve grown tremendously, on campus, through our alumni network, and in our partnerships with VC firms and their PortCos. At our core, we remain committed to building a tight-knit community of intellectually curious and passionate members.
None of this would have been possible without the dedication of past CVCers who devoted their college years to shaping this organization, as well as the invaluable support of our clients and mentors. From lunch chat leaderboards, to the VC memes that somehow get worse every year, to late-night eHub yap sessions, we’ve never been more grateful to be part of this community.
To celebrate, we’ve gathered some of the funniest and most nostalgic photos from our Slack archives. We hope this collection takes you on a trip down CVC memory lane.
Summer 2025 & Member Updates
*Our members have been keeping busy this summer! This is what we’ve been up to:*
Some summer CVC meetups!
Class of 2026
- Lillian (Hotel ‘26) - Investment banking at RBC, Power, Utilities, and Infrastructure group
- Ram (CS ‘26) - Intern at DE Shaw; currently working this semester as an intern at Goodfire AI
- Grace (Dyson ‘26) - Core operations at Etched
- Emily (Dyson ‘26) - Equity research at Bank of America
- Hanae (CS ‘26) - Strategy at Accenture, supporting a national health insurance payer
- Michael (Econ ‘26) - Analyst at FT Partners
- Abhi (CS ‘26) - SWE Intern at SIG; currently working this semester as a SWE at NVIDIA
- Saksham (CS ‘26) - SWE at Powder; currently working this semester as a SWE at Console
Class of 2027
- Ava (CS ‘27) - Founded Paygent (Bain Capital Ventures Lab), selected to build in the FoundHer House (featured in USA Today and NYT)
- Sam (CS ‘27) - SWE at Amazon, built an MCP Server for S3 Console engineers
- Elaine (CS ‘27) - SWE at Blueprint Equity
- Naveen (CS ‘27) - SWE at Amazon, this semester, founding engineer at Theta (YC X25), a CVC startup!
- Catherine (Arch ‘27) - Architecture at Populous
- Tina (CS ‘27) - GTM at Rho; currently working this semester as a fellow at Pear VC
- Nihaal (CS ‘27) - SWE at Coinbase
Class of 2028
- Ashton (CS ‘28) - AGI at Amazon: Won firmwide hackathon, improved agentic tool use in Amazon Nova Sonic (SOTA speech-to-speech voice model); this semester, founding engineer at Theta (YC X25), a CVC startup!
- Arsh (Dyson ‘28) - Summer analyst at Dakota, Healthcare, TMT, and Industrials team
- Willie (Dyson ‘28) - Construction: Plumbing, drywall, carpentry, and electrical repairs
- Aarav (Dyson ‘28) - Private equity summer analyst at Aslam Capital
- Sasha (E&S/Info ‘28) - Summer analyst at Anthropocene Ventures (one of our former clients!) and Seed Round Capital
- Jenny (Bio ‘28) - Summer analyst at TSW Investments, Domestic and International Equities team
- Jack (Hotel ‘28) - Intern at Arrival Capital Management, Equity Research + Learned to drive!
- Arrth (BME ‘28) - Private equity summer analyst at Villarica Partners
- Sushila (Dyson ‘28) - Summer intern at Kernel Solutions
- Rohit (CS ‘28) - SWE at Floqast
We’re also missing our 2025 seniors…
Our dearly departed seniors and their fun shirts!
Post-Grad Destinations:
- Abhinav Goyal: Software Engineer at Bloomberg
- Aditya Syam: Engineering Analyst at Goldman Sachs
- Alisha Veera (President): Investment Banking Analyst at UBS
- Bradley Wang: Product Management at American Express
- Ezra Goodman: Growth Equity Analyst at Sixth Street
- Rayan Garg: Co-Founder & CEO at Theta (YC X25)
- Gurvir Singh (Internal Dev): Co-Founder & CTO at Theta (YC X25)
- Owen Rector: Software Engineer at Google
- Valentine Houri (COO): Investment Banking Analyst at Natixis CIB
Spring 2025 Campus Events
This past semester, we hosted two public diversity fireside chats with VCs Eva Lau and Avoilan Bingham!
Fireside Chat w/ Eva Lau Founding Partner, Two Small Fish Ventures; ex-Wattpad
- What we learned:
- Community is a moat. Early-stage founders often underestimate the value of authentic community-building.
- Women in VC still face credibility challenges, but Eva emphasized that perseverance, networks of support, and differentiated perspectives are key to breaking through.
- Canadian VC has unique strengths in global talent and emerging markets, though scale and fundraising remain challenges compared to Silicon Valley.
- She encouraged students to think critically about outdated VC wisdom and to embrace unconventional or “weird” ideas that could turn into billion-dollar opportunities.
Fireside Chat w/ Avoilan Bingham Investor & GM, Drive Capital; backed Duolingo, Udacity, Gecko Robotics
- What we learned:
- Non-traditional backgrounds can be a strength in VC, offering unique perspectives on people and markets.
- Diversity remains a challenge, but he emphasized persistence and creating inclusive communities as ways to shift the industry.
- At Drive, he’s most excited about emerging opportunities in sectors like AI, robotics, and education, with a heavy emphasis on founder quality over just the business idea.
- Relationship-building with portfolio companies is central to Drive’s model, going beyond capital to provide long-term support.
- Students shouldn’t feel pressured to follow a rigid “path.” There are many routes into venture and tech, and individuality can be an advantage.
Retreat
CVC held a spring retreat! Members traveled to an Airbnb, played family feud (editor’s note: Bestlin swept per usual), celebrated member birthdays, grilled burgers, roasted marshmallows, and even did a themed cook off the morning following!
Hanging out in the woods (using alumni money)!
BIG shoutout to illustrious, sparkling, multi-talented Ben Wu (Internal Dev, Class of 2024) for the generous $1,000 dollar donation this past semester :) We used the money to fund retreat!
Spring 25 Projects
Lightspeed Venture Partners PMs: Grace Qi, Michael Hoang Analysts: Ava Poole, Nihaal Konda, Ashton Chew, Arsh Aggarwal
The CVC team conducted an in-depth analysis of founder traits and early career patterns to identify characteristics that most strongly predict breakout success. We studied 20 prominent founders and found that technical backgrounds (85%) and early side projects or startups (80%) were leading indicators, while VC experience and thought leadership typically emerged later. Building on this framework, we developed case studies and sourced high-potential individuals across applied AI, research, and student ecosystems, highlighting those who mirror these traits and may represent the next generation of impactful founders.
Harpoon Ventures PMs: Abhi Vetukuri, Hanae van Wingerden Analysts: Arrth Mittal, Elaine Dong, Jack Chasen, Tina Tewari
The CVC team worked with the team at Harpoon to conduct in-depth research to support their exploration into the nuclear fusion space. The team’s research centered on its market potential, commercial viability, and bringing a comprehensive understanding of nuclear fusion to the firm. We developed an overview of the nuclear fusion space, a market map, identified market drivers and barriers, technical challenges, and a commercial viability timeline. Additionally, we identified key players and startups in the space spanning various approaches to nuclear fusion.
“It was really fascinating and eye-opening to delve so deep in a very ‘hardtech’ space, coming from someone who did materials science research this project felt like a great bridge between my technical knowledge and understanding the real-world market viability of a physical technology. It gave me a clearer perspective on parallel approaches are being developed to bring energy technology like nuclear fusion to commercial use in the future.”
- Elaine Dong (CS ‘27)
Citi Ventures PMs: Lillian Li, Naveen Ramasamy Analysts: Catherine Zhu, Sam Shridhar, Vansh Bherwal, Aarav Kumar
The CVC team partnered with Citi Ventures to explore AI integration opportunities within the insurance brokerage space, mapping workflows across the front to back office from prospecting and acquisition to claims and relationship management. We developed market maps, sourced companies across each category, and analyzed how AI is reshaping the broker’s role as liability shifts toward intermediaries. Our research highlighted cybersecurity insurance as a particularly compelling segment, while also distinguishing between companies automating routine tasks and those addressing mission-critical functions with higher risk profiles.
Anthropocene Ventures PMs: Emily Zhou, Saksham Sood Analysts: Jenny Chen, Sasha Masson, Sushila Rau, Rohit Vakkalagadda
The CVC team conducted an analysis of sustainable energy technologies for industrial heat, evaluating solutions that could realistically compete with conventional energy on cost and scalability. Our research identified industrial heat pumps and thermal energy storage systems (TESS) as the most promising candidates, offering efficiency and reliability for low- to medium-temperature processes across industries like paper, food, and chemicals. We found that cost, not technology, is often the biggest barrier to adoption, leading us to approach recommendations through a financial lens while also assessing global policy landscapes, with Europe emerging as the clear leader due to strong regulation and innovation-friendly incentives.
State of the Union and looking forward; a word from our F25 Management Team
Grace (President), Emily (COO), Lillian (Internal Dev)
Think back to the late nights in eHub, the exhausting rounds of project edits, or the inside jokes that somehow made even the toughest deliverables lighter. For us, those memories are inseparable from CVC. It’s been an absolute honor to be part of this organization through the majority of our college experience, witnessing not only its seasons of bloom, but also the winters and falls that have pushed us to become something steadier and more enduring. All of these moments have shaped our deeply personal vision for the future of this organization.
Fifteen years have likely not always been easy. Even now, as one of the most established business clubs at Cornell, we’ve continued to face real challenges. This semester, for one, we have very few active members (21 students, with newbies arriving soon). But what might seem like a “shortage” is actually a reflection of the kind of people we recruit: students ambitious enough to step away from campus to launch startups, join co-ops, build personal projects, or study abroad (not members going inactive).
CVC has also been, admittedly, a demanding master. The work we do takes up a significant portion of our analysts’, PMs’, and management’s personal time. But more than ever, we’re striving to ensure that the work carries meaning, choosing clients that align with our goals, being more intentional in the engagements we take on, and growing a base of paid partnerships. Today, the majority of our work is with paying clients, a shift that validates the quality of our output and strengthens our ability to keep CVC sustainable for future generations.
As our work has matured, so has our community. From encouraging lin hangouts, to celebrating members in the small ways that matter, we’ve emphasized direct mentorship and the importance of giving back. As of today, we can proudly say that the community we’ve built goes far beyond a group tied together solely by title or situation. We’ve become a circle of friends, bound by shared effort, shared laughter, and a shared commitment to leaving CVC better than we found it. (And yes, the current management team also happen to be roommates :D)
Before (2023, at Purity Ice Cream) vs Now (2025, in our shared apartment, writing this newsletter). We feel old.
We are so proud to remain a nexus of talent at Cornell, united by optimism for the future of technology, strengthened by humility, and grounded by a simple love for even the worst jokes. Over the years, CVC alumni have gone on to leading VC firms, big tech, unicorns, consulting, and banking, with nine YC founders in total and more than $50M raised in venture funding in the past year alone. When one of us wins, we all win. Our hope is that the spirit of this era of CVC continues to be one of connection: a thread linking alumni and current members. As you continue through your careers, we hope you’ll remember the guidance, encouragement, and signposts that once helped you here, and pass along that same support to the CVC students who come after you.
In the years ahead, we hope you’ll continue to stand with us, whether as mentors, collaborators, or simply as members of the CVC family. Together, we can make sure the next 15 years of CVC are even more meaningful than the last.
If you feel at all compelled to support our work, please reach out to glq2@cornell.edu. Your generosity helps us ensure accessibility for all members, subsidizing club expenses so students can attend eShip and take part in everything CVC offers without barrier (and you get a tax write-off, which is very awesome in our opinion).
This newsletter was contributed to by these lovely folks! Elaine Dong, Sam Shridhar, Jenny Chen, Sasha Masson, Emily Zhou, Lillian Li, and Grace Qi.