A startup or start-up is a company or project initiated by an entrepreneur to seek, effectively develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship refers to all new businesses, including self-employment and businesses that never intend to become registered, startups refer to the new businesses that intend to grow large beyond the solo founder. Startups face high uncertainty and have high rates of failure, but a minority of them do go on to be successful and influential. Some startups become unicorns, i.e. privately held startup companies valued at over US$1 billion.
Social venture capital is a form of investment funding that is usually funded by a group of social venture capitalists or an impact investor to provide seed-funding investment, usually in a for-profit social enterprise, in return to achieve a reasonable gain in financial return while delivering social impact to the world. It deviates from the traditional venture capital model, which focuses on simple risk and reward. However, there are various organizations, such as venture philanthropy companies and nonprofit organizations, that deploy a simple venture capital strategy model to fund nonprofit events, social enterprises, or activities that deliver a high social impact or a strong social causes for their existence. There are also regionally focused organizations that target a specific region of the world, to help build and support the local community in a social cause.
Michael Jones is an American entrepreneur and investor. Jones is currently the CEO of startup studio Science Inc. In 2017, Jones was named one of Los Angeles’s 500 most influential people by the Los Angeles Business Journal.
The California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences (QB3) is a nonprofit research and technology commercialization institute spanning three University of California campuses in the San Francisco Bay Area: UC Berkeley, UCSF, and UC Santa Cruz. QB3's domain is the quantitative biosciences: areas of biology in which advances are chiefly made by scientists applying techniques from physics, chemistry, engineering, and computer science.
The Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology (MEST) is a Pan-African training program, seed fund and incubator in Accra, Ghana. The three-phase school and incubator program were founded in 2008 by Jørn Lyseggen to provide training, investment, and mentoring for aspiring technology entrepreneurs with the goal of creating globally successful companies that create wealth and jobs locally in Africa.
HackFwd was a German pre-seed company started in 2010 by Lars Hinrichs. HackFwd only planned to invest in developers with prototypes or demos for a fixed timeframe of 12 months. The timeframe was used to get to beta and create a viable business case. HackFwd claimed to provide a support structure doing all administrative work helping with finding advisors. Of the 30% equity stake that HackFwd takes, 3% were given back to the founders to distribute to advisors and mentors. HackFwd's headquarters were in Hamburg and the company intended to invest across Europe.
Startup accelerators, also known as seed accelerators, are fixed-term, cohort-based programs that typically include seed investment, connections, sales, mentorship, educational components, and culminate in a public pitch event or demo day to accelerate growth. Most startup accelerators in Silicon Valley and globally are privately funded as an investment fund that take equity and focus on a wide range of industries. Accelerators are considered a new model of providing assistance to entrepreneurs, and have essentially evolved from business incubators. However, they display important distinctions from incubators. Further, factors affecting the survival of accelerated firms are different from factors affecting the survival of incubated firms.
Blueseed is a Silicon Valley-based startup company and a seasteading venture to create a startup community located on a vessel stationed in international waters near the coast of Silicon Valley in the United States. The intended location would enable non-U.S. startup entrepreneurs to work on their ventures without the need for a US work visa (H1B), while living in proximity to Silicon Valley and using relatively easier to obtain business and tourism visas (B1/B2) to travel to the mainland. After the conclusion of their incubation on the vessel, successful startups may relocate to Silicon Valley and employ a local workforce. The project received wide media coverage and the promise of funding from venture capitalist Peter Thiel, who also supports the Seasteading Institute, who ultimately did not invest in the seed round. Blueseed later obtained US$300,000 in seed funding, Bitcoin investments, and $9M from an undisclosed investor, and planned to lease a ship for its platform. Launch was planned for summer 2014, provided that $18M more was raised.
AngelList is a U.S. website for startups, angel investors, and job-seekers looking to work at startups. Created in 2010, the platform has a mission to democratize the investment process and to help startups with their challenges in fundraising and talent. It started as an online introduction board for tech startups that needed seed funding. Since 2015, the site allows startups to raise money from angel investors free of charge.
Matt Fellowes is an American financial technology entrepreneur. He is the founder and CEO of United Income, a retirement-focused online investment management and financial planning company based in Washington, D.C. He previously founded financial planning technology company HelloWallet, which was acquired by Morningstar, Inc. in 2014 for $52.5 million.
Rachel Haot is an American businesswoman and entrepreneur. She is currently Executive Director of the Transit Innovation Partnership, a public-private initiative of the Partnership for NYC and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. From 2016-2017 she was Managing Director at 1776. Haot was previously the Chief Digital Officer and Deputy Secretary for Technology of New York State for two years under Governor Andrew M. Cuomo. Prior to this role, Rachel served as Chief Digital Officer for the City of New York for three years, from January 2011 to December 2013. She also founded GroundReport and Upward between 2006 and 2010.
Founder.org is a nonprofit foundation in San Francisco, California, United States that invests in student entrepreneurs. The organization features a company building program for student entrepreneurs at major research institutes and universities. Operated by a group of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, Founder.org supports teams across various industries including sensors, sanitation, influencer marketing, biotechnology, health and transportation.
OurCrowd is an investment platform built for accredited investors and institutions to invest in startups and venture funds. Based in Jerusalem, the company launched in February 2013, with overseas branches in the United States, Canada, Australia, Singapore, and Hong Kong.
Glints is an online talent recruitment and career discovery platform headquartered in Singapore. It is a platform for young talent to build up their career readiness through internships and graduate jobs; developing skill sets required in different careers.
M12, formerly Microsoft Ventures, is a corporate venture capital subsidiary of Microsoft. Founded in March 2016, its mission is to be an active, strategic partner during a startup's growth, typically investing between Series A and D. The fund is managed by Nagraj Kashyap, formerly of Qualcomm Ventures.
Urgent.ly is a roadside assistance and mobility assistance technology company that was founded in May 2013 and is based in Vienna, Virginia. It develops, markets and operates a global digital platform that powers roadside assistance solutions for companies in the automotive, insurance, telematics and other transportation-focused vertical industries, including new mobility segments, in North America, Europe, Asia and Australia.
Hardware Club is the first community-based venture capital firm for hardware startups. It has offices in San Francisco, Paris, and Tokyo.
FiscalNote is a privately held software, data, and media company headquartered in Washington, D.C. The company was founded by Timothy Hwang, Gerald Yao, and Jonathan Chen in 2013. FiscalNote provides software tools and platforms, data services, and news through the FiscalNote Government Relationship Management (GRM) service, its core revenue-generating product.
Atlanta Tech Village is a technology incubator complex located in the Buckhead community of Atlanta, Georgia.
Polis is an American app company.
