What Is Purple Arch Ventures?
A smart, simple way for Northwestern alums and friends of the community to add venture capital to their portfolio. We are also…
- A full-time alumni investment team. Meet our Managing Partner, David Beazley NU ’96 ’98 in his recent podcast
- An Investment Committee with broad professional, investing, and entrepreneurial experience
- 29k subscribers and community members
- Private, for-profit, and not officially sanctioned by the university
Follow the Fund
Why You May Want to Add Venture Capital to Your Portfolio

Benefits of Venture Investing
- VC returns have been strong over many periods1
- VC returns are largely uncorrelated with other asset classes2
- A great way to be an impact investor
Footnotes:
1. Cambridge Associates, Venture Capital Benchmarks
2. Top Tier, The Inverse Correlation Between Venture and Public Markets
Investment Strategy
Smart, Simple Venture Investing
Diversified Venture Portfolio
~20 – 30 deals per fund, diversified by stage, sector, and geography
Co-Invest with Established Lead Investors
We exclusively invest alongside established VC investors
Deal Access via Alumni Connections
Entrepreneurial teams desire our investment because we are a meaningful check, low friction, and have a large rolodex
Co-Invest Alongside Established Venture Firms
Invest In Deals Most Individuals Never Know About or Get Access To
- 3M New Ventures
- 500 Startups
- Accel Partners
- Accomplice
- Alsop Louie Partners
- Andreessen Horowitz
- Arena Ventures
- Aspect Venture Partners
- Atlas Ventures
- Benchmark
- Bessemer Venture Partners
- Bezos Expeditions
- BlackRock
- Blockchain Capital
- Borealis Ventures
- Comcast Ventures
- CrunchFund
- DFJ Capital
- Drive Capital
- Flybridge Capital
- Elephant Partners
- Founder Collective
- Foundry Group
- F-Prime Capital (Fidelity)
- General Catalyst Partners
- Golden Seeds
- Goldman Sachs Ventures
- Google Ventures
- Greylock Partners
- Highland Capital
- Javelin Partners
- Khosla Ventures
- Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
- Lightspeed Venture Partners
- Link Ventures
- Maveron
- Menlo Ventures
- ML Capital
- New Enterprise Associates (NEA)
- Nokia Growth Partners
- Norwest Venture Partners
- NXT Ventures
- Obvious Ventures
- OrbiMed
- Pelion Venture Partners
- Relay Ventures
- Resolute Ventures
- Sequoia Capital
- Summit Partners
- Space Angels
- SV Angel
- Thiel Capital
- Venrock
- Winklevoss Capital
- Y Combinator
AVG has invested alongside the firms listed above, but they are listed for illustrative purposes only. There is no guarantee that a particular fund or deal will invest alongside one of the firms listed above.
How does Purple Arch Ventures assemble a great portfolio for me?
- Full-time investment team wakes up every morning dedicated to delivering a diverse portfolio to investors
- An Investment Committee with broad professional, investing, and entrepreneurial experience
- We use our Northwestern alumni and broader Alumni Ventures Group network to access deals that simply are not available to most individuals
- We only invest in deals with an established lead investor, often combining their due diligence with our own
Extra Benefit:
Purple Arch Fund Venture Club
- Venture Club exclusively for Purple Arch Fund investors
- Access Syndications: opportunities to invest in single deals from AVG (See Below)
- Lower “per deal” minimum for Syndications shown through the Venture Club: $10K for Venture Club members, $25K for non-members
- 6-10 Syndications a year; opt in as you wish
- Learn more about venture, engage with other members, and overweight your portfolio on investments you like
- Lifetime membership; lower minimum investment renewed by investing annually in Purple Arch Fund
The AVG Syndicate
Syndications are opportunities to invest in single asset funds that give you more exposure to a specific company you may be excited about and in which one or more of our AVG Funds will also be investing.
How it works:
- Investors can opt into Syndications as they wish.
- Opportunities are sourced by our 40+ full-time investment professionals and our Office of Investments.
- All opportunities have passed our diligence process and are being invested in by one or more of our funds.
- Minimums are typically $25K per opportunity, or $10K for opportunities offered through your Venture Club(s).
- Typically, only about 5-10% of our investments are offered to our Syndicate - normally when we are able to acquire a larger investment allocation.
RECENT DEAL Rigetti is a full-stack quantum computing start-up. It focuses on designing and manufacturing superconducting quantum integrated circuits, building software to enable quantum computing, and integrating its systems into a cloud infrastructure. Co-investors include Andreessen Horowitz, Data Collective, and Y Combinator. |
RECENT DEAL Tembo Health provides a telemedicine platform connecting nursing home residents with specialized care providers through an intuitive video chat platform. This enables patients to access convenient, high-value specialty medical care at a safe distance. Co-investors include Bloomberg Beta Founder and General Partner Karen Klein. |