Moon Creative Lab

Pioneer Square Labs exists to build the next generation of world-changing companies, bringing together exceptional founders, big ideas, and investment capital.

Our vision is to leverage tech entrepreneurship to disrupt traditional markets, and advance social and economic change. Mission To create the ultimate roadmap for startup growth and success by building a global community of industry leaders, subject matter experts and investors that can support Founders at any given stage of their journey Guiding Principles Supporting the Journey Providing the resources and relationships necessary to foster growth and drive innovation for every entrepreneur at any stage. Building Community Building up the tech ecosystem with an international platform for disseminating ideas and facilitating collaboration. Igniting Innovation Helping Founders and corporations alike, prioritize and cultivate innovation for continual success. Prioritizing Diversity Recognizing that diversity in thought and background are the true catalysts to success and innovation, and ensuring that diversity is reflected within our company and all the work we do. History 2010 Purchased Packard Place in Uptown Charlotte creating one of the country's first entrepreneurship center and campus. 2012 RevTech Labs launched out of Packard Place in 2012 with a focus on accelerating general tech entrepreneurship in the city of Charlotte. 2015 By 2015, we pivoted to Queen City Fintech with a singular focus on the fintech industry. With the rapid success of this pivot, we exclusively used the QCFintech brand to talk about our work. 2019 In 2019 we were hired by IBM to launch and run their global Hyperprotect Accelerator program targeting global fintech and healthtech startups. That launch coincided with the launch of our RevTech Labs Healthtech program which produced the first ever Healthtech Summit and Healthtech Demo Day in Charlotte in November 2019. Also in 2019, we launched RTL Insurtech to increase our emphasis and focus on the insurance innovation space. While we have always considered insurtech part of our QCFintech world, this allows us to do a more focused call for applications and has allowed us to bring on new mentors and partners from some of the world's leading insurers. With the launch of these new programs and our venture into new verticals came the need to pivot back to RevTech Labs as the umbrella brand recognizing all our work across verticals, and reflecting our work from early stage to growth stage. RevTech Labs also encompasses our events arm which includes our annual marquee events: Fintech Generations, Health Innovation Summit Venture 135 and Charlotte Startup Awards.

In 2007, I was working as a junior trader at Lehman Brothers. I hated it - the dehumanizing culture, lack of creativity, and singular focus on transactions and money left me feeling uninspired and lost. I didn’t know it then, but Lehman’s bankruptcy in ‘08 was a gift, and I left in search of a calling. I spent a few years meandering - writing, working odd jobs, grad school in Hong Kong - ultimately ending up back in NYC in 2009, having stumbled upon a young, passionate group of misfits that folks were calling “founders.” These founders felt more like artists than assets, more obsessives than executives. They were avant garde, they were building the things they wanted to see in the world, and to my surprise, people called venture capitalists gave them money to pursue their dreams. I was in love with their fringe eccentricity, extraordinary craftsmanship, and wild ambition. I was in love with the beautiful new works of art they called startups. For the next 15 years, I dedicated my life to working with founders – first at betaworks, and then over three funds at Notation with my partner Alex Lines. A lot has changed. The venture ecosystem went from cottage industry outsider to institutional insider – from a nascent practice to a consensus component of institutional portfolios. The result has been the industrialization–and bankerization–of venture. Firms that make dozens or even hundreds of investments per year, relentlessly focused on assets under management, using the same copy-paste transactional language, all drowning in a sea of sameness. Similarly, what was once a risky leap of faith has become a credentialing factory: accelerators churn out 1,000s of startups per year and fundraising rounds are the new requisite bullets in Linkedin resumes. The environment today feels eerily similar to the one I left on Wall Street so many years ago. Into the Asylum I’ve always believed the best early-stage founders are artists – they're obsessive about new and unusual things, they feel compelled to bring creation into the world, and they are often misunderstood for long periods of time–even lifetimes. Building businesses is their art. The good news is that as the new “banks” in venture continue to expand their tentacles, they also enable new alternatives. What if we treated founders like artists, instead of like assets? We plan to spend the next decade trying to answer this question. We think it means: A firm that’s small by design, that makes a handful of investments per year, and that eschews board seats and administrative control. A small team of partners moving mountains to help when asked and otherwise getting out of the way. A place for founders to tune out the noise and focus on making something truly great. A source of calm, trust, and support for founders who are manifesting beauty through one of the hardest things you can do: starting a company. The path forward We believe there are exceptional founders who, like us, want to win their own way, who want to work with VCs who care more about them and their companies than assets under management. If this sounds appealing to you, please get in touch. Whether you're a founder or in between things, we’d love for you to come visit us at our studio in Brooklyn. And if you would like to join a small team dedicated to the art of venture rather than the business of banking, contact us at hiring@asylum.vc.

Transform your innovations into market-ready solutions. Our comprehensive acceleration programs, funding support, and startup studio services help entrepreneurs build sustainable businesses.

Global Brain is an independent venture capital firm that aims to bring new industries to the society through extensive hands-on support for startups and open innovation with large corporations. Going Beyond Global Brain’s mission is to “bring unimaginable innovation into society through business creation”. Our surrounding environment is significantly changing due to global risks including extremely intense global competition, pandemic, and global warming. We believe that in such a time of uncertainty lies the greatest opportunity. The power of startups is vital to overcome the unprecedented situations. The global economy is now largely led by many companies created right after the financial crisis. For startups to achieve rapid growth, the existence of corporations is also crucial. Driving open innovation by combining startups’ technologies and corporations’ insights will more likely to bring about transformation. Global Brain will aim for achieving the unimaginable in the society and continue to support business creation by working together with global startups and corporations, while also creating our own businesses. Be a prime mover in business creation Global Brain will continue to be a prime mover in business generation and innovation, especially through serving as an innovation-hub for global startups and corporations. Values In Global Brain, under the motto “Further Strengthening Individual and Organizational Capabilities”, we have established 11 guidelines. Play it straight: Always be fair and polite to work on social transformation from a long-term perspective. Affirmation: Start with affirmation for creating new values. Focus on human: Pursue transformation generated by people. Customer first: Strive to attain entrepreneurs’ and LPs’ ideals and solve their issues. Speed and carefulness: Make decisions promptly and carefully, and follow them through. Ownership: Be a self-starter who acts with responsibility. Innovation: Think outside the box and carry it out. Self-improvement: Build knowledge and experience proved by continuous self-improvement. Collaboration and contribution: Contribute to the team to maximize its performance instead of pursuing individual achievements. Knowledge sharing and mutual growth: Bring expertise to the organization for development of the entire team. Cost-effectiveness: Aim for maximum benefits with minimum capital and resource.

We partner with the world’s best founders and corporates to build, fund and scale ambitious startups worldwide. Started by Brent Hoberman and Henry Lane Fox, Founders Factory has received investment from some of the world's most influential companies, to build and invest in exceptional founders solving global problems using technology. Combined with unparalleled access to our corporate partners, we invest cash and deliver bespoke support with our team of 100+ specialists. We run two programs across London, New York, Paris and Johannesburg - our Accelerator invests in founders and their teams who have a product in market and are ready to leverage our expert team and global partners to scale. Our Venture Studio builds start-ups from scratch, investing in founders who know what it takes to turn bold ideas into venture backable businesses. We are proud of our commitment to making diverse and ethical funding decisions. That means investing in startups that can make a positive impact globally, and powering diverse founders and their teams. To date, we have backed and built almost 200 companies.