Frequently Asked Questions
The ICAN Podcast showcases real stories from student entrepreneurs who are building startups while still in school. We dive into their journeys—the highs, the lows, and what they’ve learned along the way.
Selected ventures will receive:
🎙️ A dedicated episode on the ICAN Unicorn Hunt Podcast—an opportunity to tell their story, pitch their vision, and attract investor attention.
🚀 An exclusive invitation to apply to the 2025 ICAN Unicorn Hunt, a global competition connecting high-potential startups to capital.
💡 Access to top-tier screening—ventures will be reviewed by an elite panel of entrepreneurs and investors.
🌍 Visibility to a global investor network—the Top 20 ventures will be showcased to Dealum’s 250+ Investor Groups, representing 25,000+ investors worldwide.
This is not just another pitch event. This is about getting your campus ventures in front of the investors who matter.
We feature student-led startups that meet the following criteria: ✔ The founder(s) must be students or recent graduates (within 2 years of graduation). ✔ The startup must have a scalable, innovative business model with real potential for growth. ✔ The venture must be seeking at least $150,000 in funding. ✔ The startup must have a reasonable path to a billion-dollar market, meaning it has the potential for massive impact and scalability.
If your startup meets these criteria, nominate it here!
We spotlight student-led startups with unique, scalable, and impactful ideas. We’re especially interested in ventures that have real-world traction, innovative solutions, and compelling founder stories.
You can find the ICAN Podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and all major streaming platforms. 🎧 Listen Now
Yes! If you’re a campus leader, professor, or entrepreneurship director, you can nominate a student-led startup for a chance to be featured. We love hearing about promising ventures making a difference.
While the podcast itself doesn’t provide funding, startups featured on the ICAN Podcast gain exposure to investors and industry leaders who may be interested in supporting them.
We focus on innovative, high-potential businesses across various industries. Whether it’s tech, sustainability, consumer goods, healthcare, or social impact, if it's a scalable venture with strong founder vision, we want to hear about it!
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Angel investing is a major part of capital markets worldwide. Angel investors play a vital role by providing capital to startups in the critical gap between launch and rapid growth. University and college campuses are active incubators of student- and faculty-led ventures around the world. Entrepreneurship programs on campus provide vital instruction, mentoring, and other services to assist nascent ventures. However, only a few campuses address the funding gap through dedicated angel groups. ICAN provides a low-cost, yet professionally powerful platform for establishing a dedicated angel investor network for your campus. The ICAN platform provides you with online tools to ensure that your investors can evaluate ventures, collaborate to assess risk and reward, and invest or not with confidence. With ICAN campus’s of any size can provide a forum for their student- and faculty-led ventures to gain access to the angel capital that fuels early-stage growth.
You may invite anyone into the deal room, but it is recommended that you only invite individuals that you are reasonably sure exceed the accredited investor threshold established by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The information in the box below comes directly from the SEC website (1.2.25):
Your deal room will consist of two groups:
The student- and faculty-led ventures nurtured on your campus. Promising ventures should be invited to post information about who they are and what opportunity they represent.
Supporters, boosters, and alumni that you invite to assess and, possibly, invest in the ventures featured in your deal room. These include friends of the university that are being cultivated for donations; prospects whom you believe will become interested in the university if they were able to get closer to its active support for student and faculty innovation and entrepreneurship; and supporters that you believe are seeking ways to engage more deeply with students and faculty in the advancement of innovation and technology transfer.
There are virtually no risks for alumni and others that you invite to your deal room. They are free to invest, or not, according to their own interests and timetables. Once invited, they also are free to join and to leave the deal room at their discretion. There is no minimum amount to invest, and there is no legal obligation to fulfill the pledge signed on joining the ICAN platform.
The university will also minimal risk as ICAN provides the necessary disclaimers and other documents that are standard for accredited investors. The ICAN platform is based on Dealum, a leading provider of services to some of the largest angel groups and venture capital firms in the world.
It is entirely up to each campus to decide if they want to charge a fee to those invited to the platform. For reference, angel groups charge member fees ranging from $500 to more than $5000 per year. These fees pay for the administration of active angel groups. The more active the group, the greater is the volume of paperwork to manage transactions.
ICAN endeavors to keep costs as low as possible for campus participation. It is recommended that campuses offer invitations to selected supporters, alumni, and others as a means of showcasing the entrepreneurial energy of their students and faculty. In this spirit, ICAN recommends inviting your supporters to your unique deal room for free or at a very low fee.