Three UMass Boston students ended 2010 by landing internships with leading startup companies, and another intern was hired into a full-time position.

Jonathan Puebla, College of Management, is the new IT Support Intern at ExaGrid Systems, Inc, a Westborough, Massachusetts based disk backup solution company backed by Highland Capital Partners and Sigma Partners.

Brian Nault, College of Management, is a new Marketing Intern at OutStart, a Boston, Massachusetts social business and learning solutions company backed by Sigma Partners and General Catalyst Partners.

Eric Pedersen, College of Science and Mathematics, is a new IT Support Intern at FableVision, a Boston, Massachusetts media, storytelling and technology solutions firm which helps all learners reach their full potential.

And Jen White, College of Management, previously a sales intern, now has a full time position at Brighton House Associates, a Southborough, Massachusetts company which improves the process by which funds are marketed to investors.

These companies are taking advantage of work being done by the VDC’s entrepreneur in residence, and director of the Entrepreneurship Center, Dan Phillips, a business mentor with strong ties to the local tech community, and the VDC’s Edel Freitas who helps Phillips reach entrepreneurial students.

These companies join 25 other venture-backed startups in the Boston area which have hired over 60 UMass Boston software and marketing interns.

The benefit to startups, according to Maria Cirino, managing director of .406 Ventures: “You have an incredibly seasoned, successful entrepreneur doing all the legwork, matching our companies’ needs with the students.”

“Every startup I’ve been involved in has been really hard, and you need people who can handle it,” Phillips says. “And those are the type of people who attend UMass Boston.”

The Venture Development Center is Boston’s leading startup incubator for technology and life science companies.