With the backing of a group of impact investors, Singularity University, a global community with a mission to educate, inspire and empower leaders to apply exponential technologies to address the world’s most pressing challenges, has launched SU Ventures, a program designed to address the more long-term needs of impact-focused startups.
SU Ventures places significant emphasis on sustained engagement and will help startups on their journey to becoming high-growth, sustainable businesses with support in the form of early and ongoing funding, rapid and iterative customer testing to inform product development and connections to a global network of domain experts and potential partners.
Targeted entrepreneurs are working on developing technological solutions, such as AI, virtual reality, digital biology and nanotechnology, to issues relating to water, food, disaster resilience, climate change, health and education.
“SU Ventures is the first and only program developed to encourage more, successful impact entrepreneurs to solve humanity’s challenges. SU has the global network of corporates, development organizations and experts to open doors to early customers and partnerships,” said Monique Giggy, Managing Director of SU Ventures.
“We also have an arsenal of boot camps, sprints, retreats, labs, summits and other tools to ensure these startups deliver impactful breakthroughs. We go well beyond traditional accelerators and incubators to give them an ‘all-you-can-engage’ format for the lifetime of the startup.”
SU offers boot camps focused on teaching entrepreneurs how to raise and leverage the types of capital they need to create growth, scale and sustainability. The program also teaches them how to raise and blend sources of early seed capital from government grants to angels, VCs and social impact investors.
The program will also help startups design field-trial pilots to test their innovations and get feedback. By setting clear metrics and receiving fast, iterative feedback, startups are able to accelerate the product development lifecycle and time to market. SU brings together corporations, startups and development organizations in its Impact Partners program to ensure these trials are successful. Through the Field Exchange Program (FIX), the organization pairs startups with global nonprofits to put solutions into action in real-world situations. The FIX program is designed to increase user testing and feedback loops that will accelerate product development efforts.
SU has a community of 200,000 across the globe that includes impact investors, corporations, industry, market and technology domain experts, government agencies and NGOs, foundations, alumni and faculty. The Venture program pulls from its network to help participants address specific challenges, scale their impact and understand market fit. SU also curates Boards of Advisors with relevant domain experience to support entrepreneurs on their journey to market.
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Published Sep 29, 2017 1pm EDT / 10am PDT / 6pm BST / 7pm CEST