USC students have an ally in their search for venture capital investment. Alsop Louie Partners Campus Associate Alex Banayan is an SC student tasked with finding and funding startups at the school.
Alex met with Aslop Louie Associate Ernestine Fu earlier in the year. Immediately after that meeting Fu suggested that Alex apply to Alsop’s Campus Associate program. Two months later Alex, a junior at the Marshall school, had secured an offer letter from the firm.
Alex joins a team of Campus Associates that include Ernestine Fu at Stanford, Rohit Turumella at Berkeley, Romi Kadri at MIT and Michael Akilian at UT Austin. Alsop Louie’s Campus Associate program represents an innovative and aggressive push on to top tier campuses in search of the next best startup. The search has already paid off for the firm with several companies being added to their portfolio coming off leads generated by their Campus associates.
As the Alsop Louie Campus Associate for USC, Alex’s responsibilities include meeting with student startups, reviewing their pitches and offering them advice along with reporting in regularly at the firm’s San Francisco headquarters on the latest startup happenings on campus.
This is a huge development for the SC startup scene as Alex provides student entrepreneurs with access to a top tier Silicon Valley VC firm. This means student founders are able to get feedback on their ideas much earlier and are able to get access to capital without having to go through the hoops of travelling to the valley.
Recently Alex became the youngest person to sign a business book deal with Crown Publishers, a division of Random House. Alex’s book will explore the secrets to success of 25 of the world’s leading figures.
Of course Alex is no stranger to accomplishment; in high school he founded a successful social business company which in our opinion makes him a prime fit for “Social Business U” as we like to call USC here at the Dish Daily. Alex is also a “Price is Right” winner which means he knows at least a little about valuating products.
The Dish Daily will be interviewing Alex in the near future to offer SC startup founders a glimpse inside the mind of the young man that may help many of them close their next round.
To find out more about Alex check out this speech he gave at UP on “hacking success”:
The UP Experience 2011 - Alex Banayan from Alex Banayan on Vimeo.