BoxGroup partner Claire Smilow secured roughly $1 billion in returns from an early bet on AI coding firm Cursor. She now scouts for future founders at elite US universities, focusing on trends like brain-computer interfaces and frontier tech.
01Summary
- 01Smilow first met Cursor founder Michael Truell while conducting case study interviews for Dorm Room Fund when he was an MIT sophomore.
- 02BoxGroup invested $750,000 in Cursor and later put in follow-on checks; SpaceX acquired Cursor for $60 billion in 2026.
- 03The deal is estimated to have generated a roughly 650-fold return on BoxGroup's original investment.
- 04Smilow is planning another visit to Harvard and MIT, having already visited twice this year, to find young talent.
- 05A July analysis by Stanford professor Ilya Strebulaev found that 588 US alumni from Harvard and MIT have built billion-dollar companies, representing about 13.1% of all US unicorn founders.
02Why it matters
This story matters because it shows how venture capitalists are sourcing the next generation of tech founders directly from college campuses, potentially shaping which technologies and startups receive early funding.
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