for Innovation and Entrepreneurship
at Davidson College

Davidson Venture Fund

Davidson Venture Fund

Virtual Pitch Competition

Virtual Pitch Competition

Davidson Venture Fund logo

The Davidson Venture Fund, established through generous support of Marian Nisbet and Chip Nisbet ’86, provides Davidson College students and recent alumni capital to fuel the expansion of their innovative ideas through the Hurt Hub@Davidson.

2021 Finalist Teams

4ever Curly

4ever Curly provides sustainable, accessible, and high-quality hair products for world traveling kinks and curls.

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Lorena James headshot

Lorena James ‘21

Grant Bleecher headshot

Grant Bleecher ‘02

Grant graduated from Davidson in 2002, and since then has worked in non-profit and for companies large and small including: Disney, Pepsi, Unilever, Hershey, a brand innovation consultancy, and a cannabis start-up—mainly in marketing, strategy, innovation, and brand roles.
David Danielson headshot

David Danielson ‘19

David is the CFO/Co-Founder of Lucid Drone Tech, a Charlotte, NC-based drone startup. Lucid won the 2018 Davidson Venture Fund and has gone on to participate in Y Combinator, raise millions of dollars of venture capital, provide drones to NFL, NBA, & NCAA teams, and hire incredibly talented people.
Alex Hanken headshot

Alex Hanken ‘12

Strategic Innovation Executive, Salesforce Ignite. I’m a self-proclaimed “INtra-preneur,” a frustrated former nonprofit fundraiser, a champion of deliberate growth, and an avid seeker of new models of “doing good.” I’ve worked within a variety of nonprofit, education, and commercial settings, creating and executing strategic initiatives that foster growth and innovation in line with the objectives of each organization.
Jeffrey Mann headshot

Jeffrey Mann ‘84

35+ years in technology in product and as an analyst for Gartner Research covering Microsoft and Software as a Service. Advisor to many startups and other entrepreneurs.

Hawk.io

Hawk.io provides automated release verification and policy compliance for your CI/CD pipelines.

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Micah Brown headshot

Micah Brown ‘16

Courtney Cochrane headshot

Courtney Cochrane ‘16

Martin O’Brien headshot

Martin O’Brien

Brodie Bauders headshot

Brodie Bauders

Hurt Hub@Davidson
Co-Worker

I am a marketing and business development leader with a talent for building high-performance teams, a passion for community responsibility, and enthusiasm for continuous learning. 
Athena Kalamaras headshot

Athena Kalamaras ‘18

Athena is a Strategy and Operations Lead at a pre-seed startup in the Future of Work space. She specializes in strategic planning, messaging, and process optimization amongst many other things. She enjoys languages, traveling, yoga and world cuisines, and is currently living in Maui, Hawaii.”
Jean Pierre Lejacq headshot

Jean Pierre Lejacq

Hurt Hub@Davidson
Co-Worker

Chief Technology Officer at Quoin Inc and Owner, Quoin Inc With 30+ years as an expert technologist, Jean Pierre has been keeping the company at the leading edge of the fast-moving software field while developing practices and tools that ensure the best results for Quoin’s customers.
Brian Russell headshot

Brian Russell ‘12

Brian (’12) is an attorney at Gunderson Dettmer in New York City, whose practice focuses on general corporate counseling, venture capital financings and mergers and acquisitions. Brian represents a wide variety of technology companies from consumer internet, software, telecommunications and entertainment technology industries, as well as a number of leading venture capital firms.

FinSiteful

FinSiteful develops habit-forming and behavior-changing mobile financial wellness software for young adults and recent graduates.

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Jack Clary headshot

Jack Clary ‘20

Tea Rankin-Williams headshot

Tea Rankin-Williams ‘20

Axel Fries headshot

Axel Fries ‘20

Dax Cross headshot

Dax Cross ‘98

Proud to lead an incredible team at Revenue Analytics, and to partner with customers across multiple industries to create value and enrich lives. Working together, we have driven over $1 billion in revenue growth!
Mbye Njie headshot

Mbye Njie ‘04

Mbye Njie was an Anthropology Major at Davidson. Since he graduated in 2004, he’s been an activist and founder of Legal Equalizer, a mobile app that allows users to capture police encounters after being pulled over, automatically notify loved ones in real-time, provide information on legal rights involving that encounter, and receive legal advice at the scene. He is originally from Gambia, West Africa and moved to the US in 1990 when he was just 9 years old. He is also a member of the Cox Enterprises Social Impact Accelerator Powered by Techstars 2021 cohort.
Jim Patterson headshot

Jim Patterson ‘89

CEO Patterson Advisory Group. Startup Advisor and over twenty-five years of leading change in the telecommunications and information services industries.

Orion Consulting Solutions, LLC

Orion Consulting Solutions, LLC is an integrated software platform that increases efficiency in the process of master strategic planning.

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Owen Bezick headshot

Owen Bezick ‘21

Nico Bracco headshot

Nico Bracco

Dayton Simenz headshot

Dayton Simenz ‘21

Calvin Spencer headshot

Calvin Spencer ‘23

Drew Prickett headshot

Drew Prickett ‘04

Drew is an expert in strategic growth and market development, namely helping launch, grow and scale profitable businesses. He started his career at the Corporate Executive Board (ultimately sold to Gartner) where he managed a research team in CEB’s financial services practice; he has since worked in-house at both private-equity and venture-backed companies during high growth phases. In his current role as a Managing Director at Hanover Research’s Corporate Practice, Drew helps align customers’ market intelligence gaps and growth objectives with the various skills and services afforded by Hanover’s team of 300+ data scientists and market researchers. Drew graduated from Davidson College (History) and the University of Southern California’s Marshall School (MBA), where he focused on Entrepreneurial Management.
Ana Henriques headshot

Ana Henriques ‘05

Ana Henriques (she/her) leads global business strategy, operations, category, marketing and partnerships for more than 50+ beverage brands distributed across the Americas, Africa, China and the United Kingdom. As Global Vice President & Head of Non-Alcoholic Beverages (NABev) at Anheuser-Busch InBev, her focus is on building a beverage industry disruptor that helps consumers celebrate wellness their way — no matter their lifestyle, location or socioeconomic situation. She also serves on the ABI Foundation board of directors. Henriques graduated with an M.S. in Marketing from Northwestern University and a B.A. in Political Science and Spanish from Davidson College. She also holds a certificate in Management and Entrepreneurship from the London School of Economics.
Eli Kahn headhsot

Eli Kahn ‘13

Eli is the Sr. Manager, Enterprise Strategy at Lowe’s Companies. He graduated from Davidson with a BA in History and Spanish and has an MBA from the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University.
Bennet Waters headshot

Bennet Waters ‘94

Bennet is a Partner at R64 Capital. He has more than twenty years of senior leadership and C-suite experience in operations, finance, strategy and M&A roles in Fortune 500 and privately-held companies. He also served in the US Dept. of Homeland Security from 2005-2009.

Pomegrana

Pomegrana manufactures jewelry focusing on sustainable and equitable solutions to the pressing issue of fast fashion.

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Emma Bueher headshot

Emma Buehrer ‘24

Michelle Lim Warner headshot

Michelle Lim Warner ‘02

Michelle is responsible for the overall vision and growth strategy of DCanter, including its technology strategy, marketing, merchandising, and business development. She also establishes and maintains strategic partnerships that further the exposure of DCanter’s brand. She is responsible for all aspects of marketing, including public relations, advertising and digital media efforts.
Mike Murphy headshot

Mike Murphy

Hurt Hub@Davidson
Co-Worker

CEO and Co-Founder of ProctorFree, a technology company that uses machine learning to improve the quality of education, Mike has a passion for innovation and mission-driven businesses. Prior to starting his own business, Mike worked as marketing director for Everblue Training Institute, a startup focused on marketing environmental sustainability and green building. Earlier in his career, Mike served in the Army and as a defense contractor where he completed three tours in Iraq.
Allen Ogburn headshot

Allen Ogburn ’95

With 25+ years of business experience, Allen put his Davidson work ethic and critical thinking skills to work and built a successful marketing career that spans sports, real estate, alcohol and coffee/tea, home improvement and ecommerce and companies like MillerCoors, Lowe’s Home Improvement, S&D Coffee & Tea, and Brown-Forman. He’s built brand and company go-to-market strategies and marketing platforms, as well as customized national marketing to need local sales needs in the field. Besides his marketing success, Allen also been a successful project manager and leader of a brand-new customer call center.

4ever Curly

Hawk.io

FinSiteful

Orion Consulting Solutions, LLC

Pomegrana

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Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Davidson College