Quarterly Update: July 2023 Edition

Behind the fund, success stories, first investments, & more.

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Quarterly updates are when we share noteworthy news, events, opportunities, & success stories from the fund and our portfolio companies.

In this (very first!) edition:

  • About our parent fund, CEAS investments

  • The first Honors success stories

  • University highlights

  • Our investment criterion

  • How to host an event with us

  • Quarterly ‘Fun Find’

The Genesis of Honors Fund

The Honors Fund parent fund, CEAS, is an investment vehicle within a single-family office that operates with the capital of a top venture firm. We are based in Delray Beach, Florida, and we invest in North American companies. We are unique in that CEAS has complete flexibility on stage and check size underlying a very aggressive risk appetite. Our fund maximizes total return over liquidity or LP/GP constraints. Our primary focus is enterprise software which we support with early first check investments. We continue to support our promising companies with further investments to unlock their full potential. Specific areas of focus within our thesis include B2B SaaS, Data Infrastructure, Cloud, Logistics, APIs, Dev Tools, Supply Chain, Robotics, and Automation.

About Honors Fund

We find the university setting to be the perfect intersection between our flexibility and aggressive risk appetite. Honors Fund was born of this vision. We seek to invest  $25M into 100 student-funded software startups - or 100 checks for 100 ideas guided by our philosophy that it is never too early to support a founder’s vision.

Success Stories

Although Honors Fund only just launched, CEAS has been actively engaged with the entrepreneurial efforts at universities since its early days. We have invested in companies through meeting with various groups within universities, pitch competitions, judging competitions, 1x1 sessions, referrals from venture groups, leading course discussions, and other channels of introduction. We are proud that multiple current CEAS portfolio companies were identified out of the university setting. We have supported those companies both by our initial investments and continued support through their growth trajectory.

Since officially launching in the Fall of 2022, we have invested in four university-affiliated startups. These companies came to us from across the nation, including the West Coast, Midwest, and East Coast. We take great pride in announcing that we are heading up an accelerator, powered by our fund with CUNY, to take place this summer, Fall of 2023, and Spring of 2024.

Late-stage CEAS company we sourced from a university

FourKites was sourced as a pre-seed investment from Northwestern University — and we have invested in every subsequent round.

Early-stage CEAS companies we sourced from universities

Investments this Quarter

Universities represented by our portfolio

Requirements to Apply

We work with founders at any point in their journey. Whether you just have an idea or a full MVP, we make our program work for you.

Invite us to your event!

We are eager to travel to your university! Let us know in advance when these occur — we’d love to attend as an observer or judge and are open to opportunities for supporting events with funding, workshops, keynotes, and more. Drop us a line below.

Quarterly Fun Find

TLDR: It is never too late to start a company. As Jared Friedman suggests — start with your friends who are startup-inclined to locate a co-founder. A startup can be a complement to your university experience and post-grad years.

Thanks for reading. See you next quarter.

Stay sharp,

-The Honors Fund team