Second annual Founders Week celebrates and grows Illinois entrepreneurship momentum

The second annual Founders Week at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign showcased the growing momentum within the entrepreneurship ecosystem, as faculty and students were joined on campus by alumni founders and investors from across the country and around the world on Oct. 8-11 to take part in Entrepreneurship at Illinois’s premier event.

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“I think Founders Week feels like homecoming,” said Jackie DiMonte, an Illinois alumna, Illini Angels founding member, and co-founder of venture fund Grid Capital. “When we started [the investing cohort] Illini Angels, a lot of it was online. You kind of see people in different boxes, you start to recognize names, you start to recognize personalities. Then you bring that to campus and you start to put all of that energy into one room, and I think it’s a really, really powerful and fun thing.”

The week-long event grew to just under 500 attendees, nearly 200 more than 2024’s inaugural event. In all, more than 60 students, faculty, and alumni founders were showcased, demonstrating the breadth of the ecosystem.

With participation and partnerships from across the state, Founders Week is a forum for sparking collaboration between founders, investors, and others advancing the broader startup community.

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“I think [Founders Week] is unmatched,” said four-time startup founder and Illinois professor Stephen Boppart, who is Director of Illinois’ Interdisciplinary Health Sciences Institute. “It’s the ideas, it’s the energy you get from the conversations and how you’re really resonating with people when you’re sharing ideas. Nothing can replace that in-person experience.”

Building on the foundations and energy of the first Founders Week, the program included an ‘Illinois Capital Forum,’ the return of the ‘TechRise Startup Pitch Competition,’ and 25th anniversary celebrations of Research Park, the Technology Entrepreneur Center, Illinois Ventures, and the Office of Technology Management.

Hand-in-hand with the celebration of the foundation of excellence that the future is being built upon, Founders Week 2025 marks a giant step forward in cultivating a community of innovators, founders, and funders to support and invest in the newest innovations coming out of Illinois.

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“We have big ambitions – to become the leading university entrepreneurial ecosystem in the nation,” said Gerald Wilson, U. of I. Director of Entrepreneurship. “Getting to where we want to go requires growth that can’t solely be powered internally. That’s the idea behind bringing everyone together at Founders Week. The growth from one year to the next depicts a real willingness on the part of our alums to engage in what’s next. That’s what has me really excited about the next 25 years of Entrepreneurship at Illinois.”