Nafisa Istami

Innovation Manager

2024 - Current

Rice Innovation’s mission is to be a catalyst for innovation, discovery, and creativity by fostering an environment of academic excellence, interdisciplinary collaboration, and entrepreneurial spirit.

Senior Analyst

2023 - 2024

Mercury is an early-stage venture capital platform that seeks out transformative software startups, led by exceptional founders, in communities across America. To date, Mercury has created over $9 billion of value with an operationally-focused venture investment strategy helping startups achieve rapid, sustainable growth. Mercury partners with first-time entrepreneurs who require support and guidance, as well as seasoned founders seeking to leverage the assets and talent of our growth partner network.

Analyst

2021 - 2023

Venture Associate

2020 - 2021

The Houston Angel Network (HAN) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to developing the innovation ecosystem in Houston, Texas by supporting founders and startups with financial resources and mentorship. HAN is the most active angel network in the US.

Investor Relations + Community Lead

2021 - 2021

The first virtual student-led, student-built accelerator -- helping diverse founders build their companies.

Score3 Ventures Fellow

2020 - 2021

The Score 3 Venture Fellowship is an immersive experience offering Women, People of Color and LGBTQ members access to participate in the work of a venture firm. Participants in this program, Score 3 Venture Fellows, will have direct access to Venture network partners that will invest in and mentor the fellows. Focused on sourcing and diligencing deals for investment.

Rice University Lead

2020 - 2021

Introduced Rice University into the College Ventures Network- the first global network of student-run startup accelerators and venture capital funds in the world. We bring together 30+ organizations from three countries to share resources, advice and support the entrepreneurial ecosystems of college campuses across the world. We strive to increase access and diversity and help every student navigate the entrepreneurial space.

Managing Director

2020 - 2021

Rice Ventures is a student-led startup accelerator and entrepreneurship club that aims to foster the startup ecosystem at Rice and offer support to students building their own ventures at every step of the journey. At Rice Ventures, I revamped our model to offer two 9-week programs per school year, launched a newsletter on substack (https://riceventures.substack.com/), built a Notion page to host our resources, provided one-on-one guidance to founders, created and fostered connections with other student clubs at Rice, inducted Rice University into the international College Ventures network, and conducted outreach to add mentors (investors, entrepreneurs, tech leaders) to our community + lead workshops.

Republic Venture Fellow

2020 - 2020

Republic's mission is to democratize investing. Irrespective of your net worth, making an investment is casting a vote for the technology or change you want to see in the future. Competitively selected for the inaugural cohort of Venture Fellows, completed a 5-week training program, sourced + screened competitive deals to be hosted on the Republic crowdsourcing platform under RegCF and RegA+.

Investment Analyst

2019 - 2020

Texas Children’s Hospital, a not-for-profit health care organization, is committed to creating a healthier future for children and women throughout the global community by leading in patient care, education and research. They are consistently ranked as the best children’s hospital in Texas. TCH's endowment manages over $2.8BN in assets in both traditional and alternative investments.

Community Manager

2018 - 2019

Works within the OwlSpark team to serve as an outreach ambassador through social media, on-campus events, and events within the greater Houston business community.

Summer Intern

2018 - 2018

OwlSpark is Rice University's startup accelerator that provides participating startup teams fundamental entrepreneurship education based on the lean canvas, provides teams a mentorship network of industry experts and successful entrepreneurs, and furnishes teams with office space and a monthly stipend.