Pathways
Venture Lab offers five unique pathways for students and alumni interested in entrepreneurship and innovation. Each pathways features tailored programming that intertwines with our collective programs and resources.
Goergen Entrepreneurial Programs
Endowed in 1997 by Robert B. Goergen WG’62, the program is distinguished by its ability to combine theory with practice, allowing students to gain access and insight from the entrepreneurial business community. His generous gift endows the teaching programs in entrepreneurship
The Venture Initiation Program (VIP) is where Penn’s boldest founders turn ideas into impact. Whether you're just starting out or scaling fast, VIP is your launchpad—a high-energy, founder-first ecosystem designed to help you build, test, and grow.
The Visiting Experts Program is a Venture Lab program that provides students with the opportunity to meet alumni founders, entrepreneurs, subject matter experts, and industry experts in one-on-one or small group AMA (Ask Me Anything) sessions. The program aims to provide insights into the practical, conceptual, and personal challenges of launching, acquiring, or growing a venture.
The Startup Challenge is Venture Lab at The University of Pennsylvania’s flagship event, which brings together successful entrepreneurial alumni and Penn student entrepreneurs to showcase the best student-founded ventures from across Penn’s campus. This comprehensive platform helps Penn student entrepreneurs and their teams progress their businesses, and competing teams have the opportunity to pitch to a live audience at the Startup Showcase to win cash and in-kind prizes from an award pool of over $150,000.
The Penn Wharton Innovation Fund exists to fund creative and meaningfully innovative ventures from the Penn student community while giving students on the investment team the opportunity to develop skills that will benefit them when pursuing a career in early-stage investing.
Additional Resources
The Bet on Entrepreneurship Program provides undergraduate Penn students who identify as First-Generation and/or Limited Income (FLGI) with opportunities to engage in the entrepreneurial ecosystem via de-risked experiential learning opportunities.”
Open to all of the Penn community, inclusive of undergraduate students, graduate students, and alumni. Financial award opportunities are open to all students who are enrolled full time in a University of Pennsylvania academic program.
This program is made possible via
This program is made possible via
Wharton Scale School, hosted in conjunction with Wharton’s Lifelong Learning initiative in San Francisco, is designed to guide Bay Area entrepreneurs making the crucial transition from successful startup to scalable enterprise. Our series addresses the critical challenges faced by rapidly growing companies and provides actionable insights and solutions from industry experts.
This program is specifically tailored for startup founders, industry executives, senior management, and leadership teams in the San Francisco/Bay Area who are committed to scaling their businesses effectively and sustainably.
This program is specifically tailored for startup founders, industry executives, senior management, and leadership teams in the San Francisco/Bay Area who are committed to scaling their businesses effectively and sustainably.
VIP-X is an intense, 3-month accelerator program for the most dedicated student entrepreneurs and the most advanced startups.
Startup Stories
Find out what's happening across the #entrePENNeur community! Want to tell your story? Contact us at venturelab@upenn.edu.
We are here for all Penn students. When students run their idea by me at Venture Lab, I tell them that entrepreneurship can grow big, but it starts small and anyone can start it.
Trang Pham, Executive Director of Venture Lab
The resources at Penn are unparalleled, and I am very appreciative of that. I was accepted into VIP-C and then VIP-X, the incubator and accelerator tracks in the Venture Initiation Program. VIP-X gave me the proper resources to launch Steignet.
A.J. Steigman (WG'18), Founder & CEO, Steignet