{"id":34639,"date":"2024-11-04T10:05:51","date_gmt":"2024-11-04T15:05:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/?p=34639"},"modified":"2024-11-14T11:06:50","modified_gmt":"2024-11-14T16:06:50","slug":"brief-angel-analyst-fellows-learn-investing-thanks-to-alumni-gift","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/brief-angel-analyst-fellows-learn-investing-thanks-to-alumni-gift\/","title":{"rendered":"Brief: Angel Analyst Fellows Learn Investing, Thanks to Alumni Gift"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Furman Angel Analyst Fellowship<\/strong> was made possible by a $1 million gift from Ken Clemens \u201987 and his son, Chase Clemens \u201922 \u2013 both business majors.<\/p>\n

The collaboration with VentureSouth, a Greenville-based firm that funds startups in the Southeast, offers students an in-depth exploration of venture capitalism, which provides funding for fledgling businesses.<\/p>\n

For Lynnea Parish \u201925, an applied mathematics major, the fellowship opened up a world she\u2019d never known before.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis whole world of venture capital and angel investing, I had no idea it even existed,\u201d she says. \u201cBut I fell in love with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Parish, 21, had no plans to major in math, but Furman\u2019s \u201camazing\u201d math department changed her mind, she says.<\/p>\n

And the fellowship \u2013 which she says focused on a variety of topics from analytical thinking and finance to interpersonal relationships and networking \u2013 was \u201ca pivotal moment\u201d in her life.<\/p>\n

\u201cI came into the program with not that much knowledge at all, just a willingness to learn,\u201d she says. \u201cComing out \u2026 venture capitalism is the career path I\u2019d like to pursue.\u201d<\/p>\n

Parish says she hopes to use the skills she is learning in the fellowship to evaluate startup companies.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you invest in companies, you\u2019re investing in a problem that needs to be solved,\u201d she says. \u201cIt helps solve problems for people in the real world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kyler Bailey \u201926 also characterized the fellowship as \u201ca great experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNot only did I meet and network with other Furman students,\u201d he says, \u201cbut also CEOs, CFOs \u2026 people who are venture capitalists.\u201d<\/p>\n

A native of Spartanburg, South Carolina, Bailey is majoring in computer science but also is interested in business.<\/p>\n

With an eye on a career in cybersecurity and, more broadly, investing in cyber-security companies, Bailey says he learned key principles for making a good investment, such as analyzing the team dynamics, cooperation and cash flow of a project.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce I reach a threshold economically, I can invest in other companies,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd you have to put in the effort if you want to make a good investment.\u201d<\/p>\n

What\u2019s more, he says, he\u2019d like to share what he learned with the African American community because \u201cthere are not a lot of people in this field who look like me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pedro Albuquerque Moreira \u201926 says the fellowship gave him an inside look into the world of angel investing, the profession he hopes to enter.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope to work in finance as an analyst for investment banking,\u201d he says, \u201cor for a private equity firm.\u201d<\/p>\n

Born in Brazil, Moreira attended high school in the United States before coming to Furman, where he\u2019s a business administration major on the finance track.<\/p>\n

And the fellowship, he says, was an \u201cawesome opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt taught me a lot about angel investing and return on investment,\u201d he says. \u201cEvery week, there was a different speaker from VentureSouth to talk about how to do due diligence on startups.\u201d<\/p>\n

The students learned how to analyze potential profitability, he says, and made pitches about possible investments to the VentureSouth teams, who offered their feedback.<\/p>\n

It all helped Moreira solidify his goal of working on Wall Street one day.<\/p>\n

The endowed eight-week fellowship emerged as Ken and Chase Clemens pondered ways to express their support for Furman.<\/p>\n

\u201cChase and I have a great passion and love for Furman and want to do everything we can to see it succeed,\u201d Ken Clemens has said. \u201c(The fellowship) will give the students an advantage that others don\u2019t have. And in the end, that\u2019s really what we\u2019re trying to accomplish.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A new fellowship at Furman University unlocks the secrets of angel investing for students.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":271,"featured_media":34770,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3057,3055,1963],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-around-the-lake-fall-2024","category-fall-2024","category-furman-magazine"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34639","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/271"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34639"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34639\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35243,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34639\/revisions\/35243"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}