Gies College of Business at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is proud to announce the launch of the Origin Ventures Office of Entrepreneurship, a central hub for entrepreneurial activities at one of the premier public business schools in America. The Office is supported by a nearly $5 million gift, originally initiated in 2018, from The REAM Foundation. That investment was provided in honor of Gies Business alumnus Steve Miller (BA, ’87), and additional support was generously provided by Gies alumnus Bruce N. Barron (ACCY, '77), who co-founded Origin Ventures with Miller (right). 

“The Origin Ventures Office of Entrepreneurship will simultaneously elevate a number of our programs and help us continue to pursue our commitments of innovation and excellence,” said W. Brooke Elliott, Josef and Margot Lakonishok Professor in Business and Dean of Gies College of Business. “We have some of the world’s top rising, young entrepreneurs and a number of leading scholars specializing in the science of entrepreneurship; both will benefit greatly from this new office.”

The REAM Foundation is a private family foundation, which since 2007 has awarded more than $30 million in grants supporting education and healthcare. Origin Ventures is a leading venture capital firm that collaborates with ambitious founders to build high-growth, innovative, category-defining technology companies. Best known for being the first investors in Grubhub, Miller and Barron have been raising and providing seed and early-stage money for entrepreneurs and startups for more than 25 years.

“Our work at Origin Ventures is perfectly aligned with the excellence happening every day at Gies College of Business,” Miller said. “Every day we’re directly investing financially in young entrepreneurs, and we’re thrilled to support more startups and knowledge creation at this university that means so much to us.”

In 2018, thanks to the gifts from The REAM Foundation and from Barron, Gies Business opened the Origin Ventures Academy for Entrepreneurial Leadership. In the seven years since, the Academy has helped infuse entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial thinking across every academic discipline at Gies, supporting hundreds of students and budding entrepreneurs.

That mission is being expanded further through the creation of the Origin Ventures Office of Entrepreneurship, which will more broadly support the entrepreneurial activities of learners, the knowledge creation and dissemination of top faculty in the field, and the curricula needed to bring that knowledge into the classroom. Programs include iVenture Accelerator, which supports student entrepreneurs with knowledge, funding, and access to a vast network of alumni; EntreCorps, which provides strategy consulting to early-stage ventures and startups; the Faculty Entrepreneurial Leadership Program, and more.

Dr. Melissa Graebner, the Robert C. Evans Endowed Professor in Business and Associate Dean for Entrepreneurship, will lead the Origin Ventures Office of Entrepreneurship. Also the director of the Initiative for Qualitative Research in Innovation and Entrepreneurship (INQUIRE), Graebner is an internationally recognized expert in the fields of strategy and entrepreneurship. Her award-winning research focuses on mergers and acquisitions, strategy in entrepreneurial firms, and qualitative research methods. She is a Fellow of the Strategic Management Society (SMS) and the Academy of Management. In addition to her world-renowned scholarship, she is also deeply committed to student success in the classroom. Her name regularly appears on the List of Teachers Ranked as Excellent by their Students.

“We have a tremendous opportunity right now to further establish Gies Business as a world leader in educating and preparing future entrepreneurs,” said Graebner. “This includes not only those who have breakthrough ideas for new startups, but also those who aspire to fulfill their purpose by working within and alongside early-stage ventures. I want to thank Steve Miller, Bruce Barron, Origin Ventures, and The REAM Foundation for their belief in our College, our faculty, and our learners.”