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The founding institute is not only trying to help entrepreneurs launch new startups with new VC labs, Accelerator says it hopes to open capital funding for more than 1,000 new ventures.
Jonathan Greechan, co-founder of FI, described it as an attempt to bring more “alignment” into the startup ecosystem.” “The idea here is that if we can better align the ecosystem of startups and financing, we can create organizations that are truly positive for humanity,” Greechan said. In fact, FI has already held two sessions at the VC Lab, one in the spring of last year (which Greechan compared to the least usable product) and one in the summer-fall (which he compared to beta testing). Now the deadline to apply for the next team is February 14.
Greechan said 48 funds have come up from its most recent team and they are on track to raise a total of $100 million in the first quarter of this year.
Although most of these funds are in the process of being raised and have not yet been made public, he noted that one-third of these funds were created by background partners and more than half are focused on impact. In addition, he pointed to pacer ventures – a $3 million funding target in sub-Saharan Africa – as meant to support VC Lab-type firm.
“What we’ve found is that a lot of the problems that these new fund managers have are very similar to the issues that new entrepreneurs have,” Greechan said. “They don’t understand the sequence of steps to get them off the ground.”
VC Lab meant to help them understand those steps, along with a curriculum that includes webinars, virtual office hours, and conversations with Slack. Participants also need to embrace the Mensarius Oath, which is committed to many values, including “efforts to help create positive outcomes for all humanity” and “abuse of power that leads to unfair advantage, temptation, corruption or abuse”.
The program is free, although participants can also pay $500 per month for access to “premium office hours.” Founder Institute / VC Lab are not participating in the fund financially.
When I asked about the business model, Greechan said, “We don’t necessarily see it as the next phase of our business. We’re building attractive and influential companies in this community and now we’re sure we’re building a relational community of people financing influential companies.” It is not for charities, but there are long-term benefits that we see for all of our grades.”
