Venture-backed start ups continue to hire UMass Boston student interns. Venyu recently tapped Sunny Singh, College of Management, and Colby Ring, College of Liberal Arts, as sales/marketing interns. Venyu is a provider of data protection, availability, and delivery services.
Awareness builds online communities for companies that want to leverage social media marketing to engage with their customers and build their brands. The firm hired Nikhil Lakshminarayanan, College of Management, as a web performance intern.
These firms are taking advantage of work being done by the VDC’s entrepreneur in residence, Dan Phillips, a business mentor with strong ties to the local tech community, and Anna Tsui who helps Phillips reach entrepreneurial students. Phillips has helped run four VC-backed software companies in the Boston area over the past two decades, including Concord Communications Inc., which reached a $800 million market cap, and most recently SilverBack Technologies, where he was CEO until it was acquired by Dell Inc. in 2007.
Maria Cirino, managing director of .406 Ventures, in an interview with Mass HighTech, said her firm is in the process of placing UMass Boston interns into its startups. The draw, she said, is not only access to affordable, talented young people in a time of tight cash, but also having someone like Phillips behind the process.
“You have an incredibly seasoned, successful entrepreneur doing all the legwork, matching our companies’ needs with the students,” Cirino said.
The Venture Development Center is Boston’s startup incubator that gets you to the point where you’ve built something impressive enough to acquire customers and raise money on a larger scale.