The University of Arkansas Office of Entrepreneurship & Innovation announced Tuesday that founders of startups affiliated with the university will soon have access to its new Venture Mentoring Service program.
The program is designed to accelerate and support entrepreneurship across northwest Arkansas by matching founders with experienced volunteer mentors, including venture capitalists, serial entrepreneurs, business executives and finance experts.
Goals of the program are to support the entrepreneurs’ development and success, to strengthen opportunities for early-stage financing and to create jobs that retain entrepreneurs, engineers, software developers and product managers in the region.
A kickoff event earlier this month attracted more than a dozen potential mentors to the program. The first mentor meetings are planned for August.
Interested startups and mentors can apply to the program through the office’s website.
The startups must be less than five years old and will be held accountable to commitments they agree to during their mentor meetings, the office said. A team of three to four mentors, including a lead mentor, will be assigned to each startup. The office will organize and annotate meetings.
Mentors must not be seeking a business relationship with the startups they mentor and should expect to dedicate three to six hours per month to the program. They will also be invited to monthly mentors-only luncheons at the Brewer Family Entrepreneurship Hub in Fayetteville or at the UA’s new Bentonville location, the Collaborative.
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