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Illini

Investing in breakout founders from Midwest universities

Capitalizing on an under-invested talent pipeline

Stakehouse backs founders with ties to hundreds of universities across Missouri and its neighboring states whether they're alumni, educators, dropouts, postdocs, PhDs, or current students.

News and noteworthy

2025-11-16

T-REX's first investor-in-residence sees St. Louis as 'the gateway to innovation'

Downtown incubator T-REX has named venture capital investor Vikram Lakhwara as the nonprofit’s first “investor-in-residence.” Lakhwara will provide mentorship and help teach company founders how to raise funds with confidence and build sustainable growth. As investor-in-residence, he will also lead T-REX’s new program that pairs educational programming with direct investor insights to support founders.

2025-11-04

“Venture Capital Is Not an Asset Class.” Good. It’s Time to Build Where Others Aren’t.

Venture capital has been treated like an industry that scales with dollars, an allocation exercise rather than an act of discovery. The problem isn’t that there’s too little capital. It’s that too much of it keeps going to the same place.

2025-02-25

Velocity Returns in 2025 at The Wedge in Alton

In a move to invigorate the bi-state region’s entrepreneurial ecosystem, the popular startup workshop series, Velocity, makes its return in a reimagined format and at a new location on March 10th. The TechSTL application-only program will now be led by Vikram Lakhwara and Danielle Deavens of Stakehouse Fund and be housed at the Wedge - a 55,000 square-foot social impact, research lab, think tank, and workspace in downtown Alton, Illinois set for its own grand opening in April.

2025-02-10

WashU Skandalaris Undergraduate Team Wins Regional Venture Capital Investment Competition, Advances to Finals

WashU Skandalaris Undergraduate team has secured first place in the Venture Capital Investment Competition (VCIC) Midwest Regional Finals...[with] support of their mentors, including Jeremy Degenhart (Professor of Practice in Finance at Olin Business School), Dave Kanoff (Principal, Venture Growth at the Skandalaris Center), and Jeroma Boo (Venture Growth Analyst at the Skandalaris Center). Additionally, industry experts and advisors—Vikram Lakhwara (Stakehouse Fund), Buddy Foster (Mudiata Ventures), Bobby Niehaus (Boeing Ventures)

2025-01-14

The St. Louis startup ecosystem is held back by hard-to-find investment capital

“Arch Grants is an amazing organization — we need 100 times more,” said venture capitalist Vikram Lakhwara. “They’ve kind of [borne] an outsized portion of this burden for a long time because investor tastes have changed and investors have become a little bit more risk averse.”

2024-11-15

Alton innovation center will advance tech sector in Illinois, St. Louis region, Pritzker says

As part of the tour, Pritzker met with Vik Lakhwara, leader of St. Louis-based venture capital firm Stakehouse, which plans to occupy part of The Wedge when it opens and advance the region's venture capital atmosphere.

2024-11-14

Stakehouse team tours Alton's Wedge Innovation Center

Last Thursday, the team and I had the wonderful privilege of touring the Wedge Innovation Center in Alton, Illinois alongside leadership from across the bi-state region in business, education, and government, including Governor JB Pritzker, SIU System President Daniel Mahony, and Chancellor James T. Minor.

2024-11-13

Vik Lakhwara wins STL Startup Week's inaugural "Investor of the Year" award

This one is special not because we picked up our first piece of 3D-printed hardware (that's pretty cool too), but because the accolade was decided by founders in the St. Louis startup community. It's incredibly humbling and validates how important it is to participate in our local ecosystem.

2024-10-09

Inside one man's mission to revive a Metro East city

AltonWorks is bringing all the elements of the innovation ecosystem together in one space, including universities, investors, corporations and founders, said Vikram Lakhwara, a former Silicon Valley-based venture capitalist who relocated to St. Louis and created a new firm called Stakehouse.