THE FUTURE OF INNOVATION
FOUNDERS
PROUDLY SPONSORED BY
Applications for the South Yorkshire Accelerator Open Now Apply Here
WE ARE FOUNDERS
OUR FOUNDER FOCUS
Our core effort is empowering people engaging in building venture businesses.
Venture.Community offers Founders free pre-acceleration through our Events. We offer community through our regional open groups, and deep acceleration through Full Membership.
Full Members share in ownership of our community, but only the most promising Founders are admitted to be Full Members alongside our Fellows. Admittance is based upon the potential of their startup and their work, and sponsorship from a Fellow – Founders can apply here.
Founders can also become Affiliate Members, to access benefits and enable a deepening relationship with our community.
EMPOWERING ENABLING COLLABORATING
OUR FOUNDER PHILOSOPHY
Our Philosophy is that the Founder is highly vulnerable on their early journey. At every stage you carry disproportionate risk, workload and uncertainty.
Our community works to mitigate the worst of these uncertainties, with the aim to reduce the failure rate of early stage companies. We have created a multi-faceted framework which securities and nourish our Founders at every stage.
Alone we are up against the odds, disempowered and exposed but in the collective of the Venture.Community we gain strength. Our focus is to protect, support, and empower and here is what we offer.
WE ARE FOUNDERS
OUR FOUNDER FOCUS
Our core effort is empowering people engaging in building venture businesses.
Venture.Community offers Founders free pre-acceleration through our Events. We offer community through our regional open groups, and deep acceleration through Full Membership.
Full Members share in ownership of our community, and the most promising Founders are admitted to be full members alongside our Fellows. Admittance is based upon the potential of their start-up and their work, and sponsorship from a Fellow – Founders can apply here.
Founders can also become Affiliate Members, to access benefits and enable a deepening relationship with our community.
EMPOWERING ENABLING COLLABORATING
OUR FOUNDER PHILOSOPHY
Our Philosophy is that the Founder is highly vulnerable on their early journey. At every stage you carry disproportionate risk, workload and uncertainty.
Our community works to mitigate the worst of these uncertainties, with the aim to reduce the failure rate of early stage companies. We have created a multi-faceted framework which securities and nourish our Founders at every stage.
Alone we are up against the odds, disempowered and exposed but in the collective of the Venture.Community we gain strength. Our focus is to protect, support, and empower and here is what we offer.
EMPOWERING
EVENTS & PRE-ACCELERATION
Education & Empowerment
We believe in empowering all Founders for the betterment of the Community and ecosystem. Our Events offer free, open, entrepreneurial education, community building and founder visibility. We use this avenue to address the knowledge asymmetry often prevalent in Founders, scout the best talent for acceleration, and connect communities of like-minded individuals in each region.
Our Events have often been described as an open-door, free Pre-Accelerator, offering information-rich lighting presentations, fireside chats, and workshops. We explore content crucial to the Founder journey, delivered by seasoned experts and venturers. Accessing this exposure to commercial expertise is something we think no Founder should pay for, let alone give away equity.
We deeply intertwine our events with our accelerator. Our Fellows will regularly attend, using the events to scout Founders they wish to accelerate. Admittance to acceleration requires the sponsorship of a Fellow and Fellows have the capacity to fast track Founders. Our events offer the best opportunity to develop meaningful relationships with your potential future mentors.
Attending our events puts you in a room full of both experienced and rising entrepreneurs. Overwhelming populated by Founders, our events have a strong community focus, allowing each region to build deeply interconnected networks of support.
Our events allow you to see others, receive support, and connect with people
Education & Empowerment
EVENTS & PRE-ACCELERATION
We believe in educating all Founders for the betterment of the Community and ecosystem. Our Events offer free, premium entrepreneurial education, community building and founder visibility. We use this avenue to address the knowledge asymmetry often prevalent in Founders, scout the best talent for acceleration, and connect communities of like-minded individuals in each region.
Our Events have often been described as an open-door, free Pre-Accelerator, offering information-rich lighting presentations, fireside chats, and workshops. We explore content crucial to the Founder journey, delivered by seasoned experts and venturers. Accessing this exposure to commercial expertise is something we think no Founder should pay for, let alone give away equity.
We deeply intertwine our events with our accelerator. Our Fellows will regularly attend, using the events to scout Founders they wish to accelerate. Admittance to acceleration requires the sponsorship of a Fellow and Fellows have the capacity to fast track Founders. Our events offer the best opportunity to develop meaningful relationships with your potential future mentors.
Attending our events puts you in a room full of both experienced and rising entrepreneurs. Overwhelming populated by Founders, our events have a strong community focus, allowing each region to build deeply interconnected networks of support.
Our events allow you to see others, receive support, and connect with people
ENABLING
OUR NETWORKS
Connection & Community
Our regional and overarching networks. Each region has a private LinkedIn Founders-only community allowing you to network with other link-minded individuals in your area.
This is in addition to the overarching centralised group where you can access and connect with all Venture.Community Founders around the world.
We use our Group to share information, networks, and resources. Through this, we create exclusive information documents, accessible to Venture.Community Members.
Join Our Central LinkedIn Community Here
COLLABORATING
TRUE ACCELERATION
Cooperative & Democratic
Each Venture.Community is a mutually-owned cooperative society of venture company builders; Founders, Specialists and Fellows. All Founders selected for acceleration will become part of the membership and participate in ownership and democratic governance.
A Venture.Community offers membership to Founders, Specialists and Fellows. For Fellows this is based on historic merit, but for Founders it is based on the merit of what you’re building and the sponsorship of a Fellow.
We have built the Venture.Community accelerator on a framework that maximises support for Founders and their start-ups. We start at proof of technology and look to accelerate to series A. Unlike other accelerators, Founders bestowed with Full Membership receive lifetime access to the complete array of Venture.Community benefits, and we expect you’ll return later as a Fellow to start your portfolio career.
Application & Admission
Our application process contains two stages. The first is the written application where Founders detail their company, focus, motivation and ambition. Second is an in-person ValRes workshop, where we assess venture potential by exploring the potential uncapped global value your product or service can provide vs the resistance to its adoption.
Unsuccessful Founders can take away the experience of this workshop and use it to guide their future approach, reapplication is encouraged.
For successful Founders, the sponsoring Fellow will be expected to become a NED or Chair, providing continual support, network access, mentorship, fundraising and company building.
Additionally, based on the ValRes assessment and the recommendations of the Fellow, each organisation will be offered a series of Interventions. These are workshops or the supply of training or services from the Membership, focusing on specific facets or obstacles to be built or overcome on the journey from Venture Potential to Investment Readiness.
As part of acceleration, companies will be given substantial lines of credit to invest in getting ready for investment. Then a sophisticated approach to fundraising will be provided to networks of funds and investors connected by warm introductions and endorsements from our Fellows. On success only, and on a non-exclusive basis, we each share a small percentage (at market rate) of our raise with our cooperative to help fund these services and networks.
Finally, each Founder will be connected to our Supporting Funds and invited to present at Venture.Community showcase events. This exposure and the community’s close relationships with early-stage capital and angels streamline fundraising, allowing you to focus on traction over continual raising.
Because of the increased chances of success in our community, our Fellows, Angels, and Supporting Funds typically invest significantly into accelerated businesses and historically multi-million £ rounds have been closed, and multiple rounds per company are typical.
In our cooperative accelerator, it is fair, everyone buys in and everyone becomes a beneficiary on equal terms:
* All our Fellows and Specialists buy-in for £20k in cash, funds which are used to help fund activities to get start-ups right-shaped and funded;
* Founders are discounted by virtue of a contribution of equity from their start-up of a similar quantum (£20k worth of equity at last round price or 2.7% where a round has not occurred).
All funds, fees and equity contributed (shared is a better term) to the cooperative are part of “The Rising Tide” to which all members are beneficiaries, and this drives our purpose of supporting our members, their community and their start-ups.
Full terms and further details will be provided at offer.
COLLABORATING
TRUE ACCELERATION
Cooperative & Democratic
Each Venture.Community is a community-owned cooperative society of venture company builders.
All Founders selected for acceleration will become members and participate in ownership and democratic governance.
A Venture.Community offers membership to Founders and Fellows. For Fellows this is based on historic merit, but for Founders it is based on the merit of what you’re building and the sponsorship of a Fellow.
We have built the Venture.Community accelerator on a framework that maximises support for Founders and their startups. We start at proof of technology and look to accelerate to series A. Unlike other accelerators, Founders bestowed with Full Membership receive lifetime access to the complete array of Venture.Community benefits, and we expect you’ll return later as a Fellow to start your portfolio career.
Application & Admission
Our application process contains two stages. The first is the written application where Founders detail their company, focus, motivation and ambition. Second is an in-person ValRes workshop, where we assess venture potential by exploring the potential uncapped global value your product or service can provide vs the resistance to its adoption.
Unsuccessful Founders can take away the experience of this workshop and use it to guide their future approach, reapplication is encouraged.
For successful Founders, the sponsoring Fellow will become a NED or Chair, providing continual support, network access, mentorship, fundraising and company building.
Additionally, based on the ValRes assessment and the recommendations of the Fellow, each organisation will be offered a series of Interventions. These are workshops focusing on a specific facet or obstacle to be built or overcome on the journey from Venture Potential to Investment Readiness.
Finally, each Founder will be connected to our Supporting Funds and invited to present at Venture.Community showcase events. This exposure and the community’s close relationships with early-stage capital and angels streamline fundraising, allowing you to focus on traction over continual raising.
Because of the increased chances of success in our network, our Fellows, Angels, and Supporting Funds typically invest significantly into accelerated businesses and historically multi-million £ rounds have been closed, and multiple rounds per company are typical.
As part of acceleration, companies are expected to pay a fee to the cooperative of 6% of any funds raised from members, and companies accelerated issue 2.7% or £20k (whichever is lower) of their equity to be shared in the cooperative “The Rising Tide”. Full terms and further details will be provided at offer.
COMMUNITY, VALRES, PACT & ENTREPRENEURIALISM
VENTURE.COMMUNITY FOUR DIFFERENTIALS
Community Ownership
Member ownership of a cooperative society of venture company builders. Each Founder and Fellow Member is entitled to one vote, democratising our community approach to unlocking innovation.
Through this structure, each Founder’s risk is diversified while allowing them to share in the benefits of our members. We are all motivated to support each other through the cooperative structure and shared equity – we call this The Rising Tide.
ValRes
Our understanding that valuing Tech company’s pre-revenue is about Venture Potential not Investment Readiness. We value you on the uncapped potential value your innovation offers the world. Too few hatchling companies with transformational technologies survive the treacherous journey of scaling. We are here to support that early-stage, in turn investing in the collective future of Venture.Community and the world.
The Pact
A central ideology of Venture.Community is the focus on Founder-Chair Relationship. A toxic relationship between these two leads to distrust and can often cripple the creativity of the Founder, leading to a fractured business.
We run with the idiom, “sooner resign than undermine” and curate a safe environment where the Founder-Chair can flourish or fail without damaging the organisation.
Liberating Entrepreneurialism
Every facet of the Community is about empowering and distributing the skills and knowledge of Founders. We protect and guide our early-stage Founders though our Fellows who are seasoned venturers. We are creating a collective of true entrepreneurs who support each other in the name of uncapping innovation and value. Venture.Community pools our resources and capabilities to secure each Member. At every level this is enacted, by Founders, for Founders.
Through our multi-faceted approach, we ensure the highest quality of support for our startups as they scale. Combining vertical and horizontal expertise whilst leveraging and growing relationships with external funds will maximise the potential success of raises. We have structured our approach to offer exceptional acceleration as we usher our hatchling companies across the treacherous sand.
For any inquiries fill out our contact form.
INQUIRE HERE
Looking to ENGAGE WITH THE COMMUNITY?
For any collaborations, inquiries, or proposals please reach out to us through our contact form here or book a Calendly meeting below.
We aim to respond to all requests within 5 working days.