Understanding – and Supporting – Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurs can face a multitude of challenges as they take their ideas from concept to startup, and Bill Boyle ’81 understands them all.

Boyle co-founded and operated FiberGate Inc., a Washington, D.C., area provider of dark fiber services. He exited the company in 2012, after 17 years at the helm. These days, he serves as donor and chairman of the advisory board at Maryland Smith’s Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship.

Thanks to a generous gift from Boyle, Dingman recently launched the pilot of the Terp Startup Fellows, the latest addition to the center’s venture programming portfolio, supporting entrepreneurs of all kinds across the university. It’s a continuation of Dingman’s Terp Startup summer accelerator, which provides teams with a competitive stipend up to $5,000, co-working space and a curriculum. And it comes with an added benefit: Boyle himself serves as venture mentor to the Terp Startup cohort and a coach in the Pitch Dingman Competition, the center’s student business competition.

“We’re hoping that we can help them get to the next level,” Boyle says. “My goal is to get them to where they can be a company producing some revenue, and then they can come to our angel group and get more funding and be successful in launching a company.”

Boyle currently works with several startups, many of which have come through the Dingman Center Angels investor network. Some of his investments include Card Isle, Divvy Cloud, Precise Target, Vitus Vet, Cybrary, ZeroFox, Pendo.io and Wild Kombucha.