Launching the Venture (LTV) is a four-part series of courses designed to teach, empower and inspire entrepreneurial teams at UNC to launch commercial businesses and social ventures.

Teams may comprise any mix of students, faculty and staff at UNC. Courses combine lectures, workshops, guest speakers and hands-on expert coaching and mentoring.

LTV is a signature venture-creation program sponsored by the Carolina Entrepreneurial Initiative and offered jointly by Kenan-Flagler Business School's Center for Entrepreneurial Studies and UNC's Office of Technology Development. It has helped launch more than 50 commercial and nonprofit ventures since inception.

The LTV course content and model form the core of other venture-creation offerings at UNC:

• SoftLaunch for students in Kenan-Flagler's Executive MBA Program.
• The venture-creation sequence of the Graduate Certificate in Entrepreneurship program offered by CEI for UNC graduate students, post-docs and full-time faculty and staff.
• Carolina Launch Pad, a collaboration between the Renaissance Computing Institute, OTD and Kenan-Flagler that targets aspiring technology entrepreneurs who are part of the UNC community and have not yet developed their business ideas into funded startups.