645 Ventures is seeking an exceptional Masters/PhD student at Cornell Tech to join us as a VC Fellow. This role offers a unique opportunity to gain hands-on sourcing and investment experience with a leading early-stage venture capital firm while staying closely connected to the innovative technology and talent emerging from the campus.

645 Ventures seeded one of Cornell Tech’s most successful companies, Nanit, which was founded through the Cornell Tech Runway Startup Program. The firm also hosted NYC GPT//LLM Hackathon at Cornell Tech, judged Startup Awards, and hosted AI Salon conversations with Cornell Tech professors and PhDs. This commitment to the entrepreneurial success of faculty and students underscores the importance of our continued engagement with Cornell Tech.

As part of this initiative, the VC Fellow will serve as our on-the-ground scout and direct connection to the campus. The Fellow will play a key role in having regular conversations with the firm’s investment leadership team, focusing on sharing thoughts on current commercializable research being developed by faculty and PhDs, organizing lists of active on-campus startup ideas and companies, providing investment recommendations, identifying exceptional early-stage opportunities, and bringing them to 645’s attention for joint review. The VC Fellow will help the firm evaluate potential investments, ranging from $100K small check investments to $1M-$15M larger core investments from the firm into larger rounds.

A core focus of this role is expanding our network across Cornell Tech’s student and alumni communities, especially among talented founders, operators, and investors.

Program Details:

• Duration: Semester-long, with the possibility of extending into a second semester, full-time internship, or full-time job
• Location: Cornell Tech and 645’s NYC HQ
• Collaboration: Work closely with the founder of 645 Ventures and the Investment & Research Team

Key Responsibilities:

• Entrepreneurial Faculty and PhD Engagement: Speak with PhD professors and PhD students each semester to uncover emerging technology, identify startup founders in need of support, and keep us informed about key areas of research and startup formation relevant to potential 645 investments.
• Targeted Networking: Activate your deep knowledge of the Cornell Tech startup and tech ecosystem to enhance 645 Ventures’ presence on campus. Develop and execute engagement strategies that connect the firm with top entrepreneurial talent and innovation hubs. The Fellow will attend campus events focused on startups, venture capital, and commercialization, while also exploring hackathons or other activities where 645 should establish a presence or become a financial sponsor
• Deal Sourcing: Conduct targeted outreach within the Cornell Tech early-stage startup community. Build relationships across key touchpoints such as incubators, accelerators, entrepreneurship groups, and research labs. Additionally, the Fellow can deliver 3-5 new seed-stage company leads outside of campus every two weeks for consideration.
• Due Diligence: Collaborate with the Investment & Research team to gather information and assist in due diligence on startups you identify.
• Investment Committee Participation: Prepare briefing materials and participate in investment committee meetings for the companies you source and advance through our investment & research evaluation process.

Qualifications:

• Academic Excellence: Current Masters or PhD candidate at Cornell Tech with a strong technical background in computer science, AI/ML, cybersecurity, computational biology, systems engineering, or other deep tech fields.
• Research Literacy: Ability to read, interpret, and critically evaluate academic papers, patents, and technical research for potential commercialization opportunities.
• Technical Rigor: Proficiency in at least one technical area relevant to venture investing (e.g., AI/ML model architectures, distributed systems, security protocols, healthtech/biotech platforms, robotics).
• Analytical Skills: Demonstrated strength in quantitative analysis, including modeling market size (TAM/SAM/SOM), understanding unit economics, and evaluating competitive moats from a technical and business standpoint.
• Product/Engineering Experience: Prior experience building products, conducting applied research, or contributing to open-source/technical projects that translate research into real-world applications.
• Venture & Commercial Awareness: Familiarity with startup formation, spinout processes, venture financing, and IP commercialization, ideally with hands-on experience in a startup, accelerator, or commercialization lab.
• Campus Connectivity: Deep knowledge of Cornell Tech’s academic ecosystem, including labs, Runway Startup Program, accelerators, and entrepreneurial initiatives, with the ability to map research talent to market opportunities.
• Communication & Synthesis: Ability to translate complex technical concepts into concise, actionable insights for an investment audience (investment memos, diligence summaries, presentations).
• Network Builder: Track record of building relationships with faculty, PhDs, founders, or technical peers, and ability to serve as a trusted connector between 645 Ventures and the Cornell Tech community.
• Execution Drive: Capacity to independently source 3–5 high-quality startup leads biweekly, prepare diligence packages, and participate in investment committee discussions.

Additional Information

• Contract position starting January 2026 (6 Months, or longer based on interest)
• This is a paid position
• Hours can be flexible based on the Fellow’s schedule, but would like to request up to 5-10 hours per week

About 645 Ventures

At 645 Ventures, we help founders bring the invisible to life. With over $550 million in assets under management, our nine-year-old firm is expanding rapidly, backed by leading institutional investors, including the world's best university endowments, funds of funds, and pension funds.

Our goal is to back founders who aspire to build iconic businesses that transform industries and reach large scale M&A and IPO events. We are proud to have invested in several companies already advancing along that trajectory, including Goldbelly, Iterable, Overtime, Resident, Setpoint, and Shift5. We have over 70 active companies in our portfolio and typically invest between

$1 million - $15 million as lead investors or alongside other top-tier funds. Our portfolio spans enterprise SaaS, infrastructure software, and consumer technology.