Venture Platform Intern

XPRIZE Foundation

1d•$18 - $22•Remote

About The Position

XPRIZE offers a meaningful part-time summer internship program spanning from June 15, 2026 - August 21, 2026 to undergraduate or graduate students looking to gain work experience in an exciting non-profit organization. Interns will participate in virtual social activities with their cohort, be provided with learning and professional development opportunities, and present a final research project to their department. We are seeking a highly motivated, self-driven Venture Platform Intern to build a matchmaking system that connects high-potential startups with the right venture capital investors. You will build a tangible, high-impact operational system from scratch, owning the architecture of a new internal system. During this internship, you will research VC criteria, build a robust Airtable-based database, and develop a process to facilitate high-converting introductions.

Requirements

Venture Experience: You have prior, hands-on experience in the venture ecosystem. You may have worked at a VC fund, an accelerator, an incubator, or you have gone through the process of raising capital yourself.
Independent & Self-Driven: You do not wait to be told what to do next. You take a high-level objective, break it down into steps, and execute.
Detail-Oriented: You understand that a database is only as good as its data integrity. You care about clean taxonomy, standardized formatting, and bulletproof systems.
Curious: You genuinely enjoy reading about investor theses, market trends, and what makes a startup fundable.
Technical Skills: Familiarity with Airtable (or a strong willingness to learn its relational database features quickly) and experience using AI tools for workflow automation.
Passion for solving global issues
Must be a rising Junior or Senior in an undergraduate program or higher in a related field (preference for business administration)
Availability to work 25 hours per week for the duration of the 10-week program

Responsibilities

VC Criteria Research: Conduct deep-dive research to define the specific quantitative and qualitative metrics top-tier VCs require when considering a potential investment.
Startup Intake Architecture: Design and build a comprehensive, user-friendly startup intake survey using Airtable.
Investor Database Building: Develop a robust investor database that maps out specific VC investment theses, check sizes, stage preferences, and dealbreakers.
Matching Operations: Design a query process to accurately match a startup’s intake data against the investor database to identify the highest-probability targets and support referrals.