Daniel Egger, managing partner of Eno River Capital, has been selected as the first entrepreneur in residence for the Markets & Management Studies Program and the Enterprising Leadership Incubator at Duke University.
The position, funded by a $75,000 grant from the Howard Johnson Foundation, provides entrepreneurial assistance and mentorship to undergraduates.
The Markets & Management program is focused on financially driven entrepreneurship, while the Enterprising Leadership Incubator, part of the Hart Leadership Program in the Terry Sanford Institute of Public Policy, concentrates on social entrepreneurship.
Egger, who has served as an organizer, lead investor, board member and/or interim CEO for more than a dozen venture-backed technology startups, said he is excited by the prospect of working with students.
“It combines an academic program with the real, practical orientation of helping people find the resources they need,” Egger said. “I’ve always been interested in how to make things happen…how to start with nothing and end up with something of value–.”
Egger is the founder and chairman of Open Source Risk Management, and has more than 10 years of commercial software development, risk management and finance experience. He founded Libertech, a venture-backed database search technology company, in 1992.
Four years later, after selling Libertech, Egger joined Eno River Capital, an early-stage venture capital fund in Durham. The firm has funded local companies like Artecel Sciences, Bloodhound, Blue292, Cogent Neuroscience and Elcatech.
While with Eno River, Egger also helped start Wake Forest University’s Babcock Elevator Competition, in which students have two minutes to present their plan while riding in an elevator with the judges. The competition, held in the Wachovia Center in downtown Winston-Salem, recently was won by teams from Wharton and Mississippi.
During the spring semester at Duke, Egger is guest-lecturing and mentoring students; he will begin teaching there on the Durham campus in the fall.
“We are excited to have Daniel join us at Duke. He is a world-class entrepreneur with a genuine interest in the education of young people,” said Kenneth Spenner, a Duke sociology professor and director of the Markets & Management Studies Program. “He will nicely complement our already strong entrepreneurship group.”
Duke: www.duke.edu
Eno River Capital: www.enorivercapital.com
