Jason M. Heltzer
Adjunct Professor of Entrepreneurship
Biography
Jason Heltzer teaches the Private Equity and Venture Capital Lab as an Adjunct Professor of Entrepreneurship. Outside of academia, Heltzer is a Managing Partner at Origin Ventures, a venture capital fund with investments that include Grubhub, Cameo, Backlotcars, Tovala, Tock, and Veho.
Heltzer’s venture capital career began in 2001, and since then, he has been involved in 100+ venture transactions. Jason is currently a board member or observer for Tovala, Vivrelle, Prisidio, Blackcart, Controlrooms, and Idelic. Some of Heltzer’s previous investments include Tock (acquired by Squarespace), Cartavi (acquired by Docusign), Brightnest (acquired by Angie’s List), Alert Logic (acquired by Welsh Carson/Help Systems), TradeKing (acquired by Ally Financial), and FeeFighters (acquired by Groupon). Before his venture career, Jason spent three and a half years as a software engineer for Deloitte Consulting. He also led engineering and business teams at 1stUp, a San Francisco-based startup.
Heltzer earned his MBA in finance and entrepreneurship from Chicago Booth, graduating as a Wallman Scholar. While he was a student at Booth, Heltzer was selected as a Siebel Scholar and was selected for the Entrepreneurial Internship Program (EIP), where he won first place in the national Kauffman Case Competition. Heltzer was a guest lecturer in the Private Equity Lab for a decade before joining Booth as a professor in 2011.
Heltzer also holds a BS in computer science, with highest distinction, from the University of Michigan, where he founded a fraternity and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.
Jason has an interest in movies, and has watched every Best Picture movie from 1927 to present, plus about 300 documentaries. In addition, for most of his life, Jason has been addicted to video games, which is what prompted him to teach himself how to code when he was 13.
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