Stage Zero VC

We focus on discovering and supporting entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs. Since 2012, 500 LatAm invests in Spanish-speaking Latin American companies through our investment program Somos Lucha. Benefits of Somos Lucha Investment: We will invest $USD80,000 in 10 companies, find out the terms of the investment here . Bases of growth: We will help you lay the foundations that allow the accelerated growth of your company. We will assign a member of our team with whom you will have biweekly meetings to take your company to the next level. Founder skills: We will work to professionalize you as a founder with tools and support to develop the skills you require for the next stage of your company. Preparation to raise capital: Start your capital raising process within Somos Lucha. You'll have training, pitching, and investor exposure at Demo Day, to potentially raise your next round of capital. Global 500 Community: Be part of a global community of founders. In addition to having the support of more than 400 mentors around the world.

We designed a unique VC model to serve student-founders. Wonder why? Student-entrepreneurs see the world through a unique lens. They are the most exposed to cutting-edge technology, innovations, and societal change. That’s why game-changing companies are consistently emerging from universities: Snapchat, Facebook, and Figma to list a few. Some people will argue you need 3 years of experience to start a company. They are wrong. With enough hard work and perseverance, you can start building a startup that will have an impact, today. If 25% of US-based unicorns are started at university, why couldn’t this be the same in the UK & EU? That’s why we exist, to select, support, and invest in high-potential founders. 10-100k investment: We know that small investments can make big differences. We help you get your product off the ground and set up your company. 12 weeks of intense support: We have our yearly accelerators, and hackathons. There’s no magic recipe but there some things you should know…We help you build your team, quickly test your ideas and create your company on solid ground. 80+ exports & mentors: A network is key when creating a successful company. We are building Initiator with the help of incredible experts, entrepreneurs and investors. Our network becomes yours.

A bespoke model for the early stage. Winning businesses require a focused strategy, a brand and product audiences love, and unique access to distribution. We’ve got it all. Experienced Leaders: From startup to IPO, our leaders have seen and done it all - and are ready to do it again. Exclusive Relationships: Unique and far-reaching C-level connections for unrivaled partnerships and unique distribution channels. Built-in Founding Team: We’ve assembled a nimble team of venture developers, strategists, product designers, and tech wizards – that together are your hands-on co-founders. Transformative Brands: More than great design - a branded experience that drives business value and accelerates growth.

+VC is a venture capital firm focused on investing in tech and tech-enabled startups across the MENA region and its diaspora, taking an early leadership role with founders to set them up for success. We invest our first check at the seed stage and can follow-on the best performing portfolio companies all the way through to Series A. Our Experience As fund managers covering the MENA region, we’ve been investing in the region since 2010. With over 200 transactions under our belt as a team, we know what works and what doesn’t. We’ve been the first money in, and we’ve seen companies through to exit. These collective experiences make us empathetic towards the founder’s journey and it’s why we say that we’re the ones that work for our founders, not the other way around. Our Investment Thesis Our investment strategy is quite unique, and for good measure, employing a two-pronged approach to balance investing early and often in the non-obvious emerging market entrepreneur. The first prong of our strategy involves targeting 100-120 initial investments for risk diversification, we invest an average size of $100k at the seed stage and our follow-on allocation can go up to $0.5m. Our initial fund allocation will be split 50% for initial investments and 50% for follow-ons depending on the final fund size. We’ve developed an almost intuitive rubric whereby, we’re not only fast to make investment decisions, we use processes that enable us to move faster – because we know that closing a funding round quickly can mean life or death for a young startup company. While investing at high frequency and high volume may seem less serious to some, we know that our selection and due diligence processes are still more rigorous than most. +Founders Founder focused is a term that gets used a lot. Through our collective experience starting our own companies, and working at top firms such as Google, 500 Startups, Admob and Tenmou, we understand what it means to create an environment in which our founders not only receive investment and guidance, but feel like they are part of a community dedicated to continuous development and growth. +Values Investing in startups is our mission and we love to back missionary founders. As true trailblazers in the MENA region, our responsibility to invest fairly in diverse and inclusive companies extends throughout our portfolio and we’re proud that a quarter of our previous investments have at least one female founder. As investors, we aspire to promote and enhance our portfolio of companies founded by people of all backgrounds and we recognize the need to build startup ecosystems with diversity and representation at the core. Our Future Together +VC goes beyond offering funding, to including operational resources and support through our unique growth model. +Growth will be available to all our portfolio companies to offer value-add at any stage throughout their startup journey, where they will receive curated coaching and mentorship from former entrepreneurs and a breadth of online resources.​ FAQs How are we different? We’re obsessed with building community with our founders, and helping you be a part of something bigger. Our team has worked together for 4 years now, and have invested in over 180 startups over the past 3 years with boots on the ground across 4 MENA countries. Most of us have been in your shoes before and always make an effort to treat founders the way we would want to be treated. Aside from an investment, you’ll get a lot more out of us, including in-depth training on the subjects that matter most at your stage, and availability of dry powder to help take you to the next level. Unlike most regional funds, our roots stem from Silicon Valley and we have vast networks in the US and across the entire region, not just one country or another. What do we have to offer? We typically invest around $200,000 at the seed stage, with follow on investments up to $1m in the next round up to Series A, in around 20% of our portfolio. We offer standardised, founder-friendly terms and legal docs, and do our best to help our startups raise their full rounds through introductions to our network. That’s the job of a lead investor. But being a part of +VC is not just about the investment – we know that there is a level of skill and knowledge that only experienced practitioners can impart, and that these skills can immediately improve the trajectory of most startups. Every startup we invest in gets to participate in our +Growth curriculum, with lectures, one-to-one mentorship sessions and community engagement aimed to accelerate their growth and impart a growth mindset on the company. Our mentors are world class, people who have built startups themselves and speak from experience and practical expertise. You’ll also be added to part of something bigger. Our +Community offers something more – with a big group of other founders in your sector and city – to network with, get and receive advice from, and just have other founders cheering you on during your successes and supporting you in the tough times. We also run an annual, invite only +Portfolio Summit, where we run workshops, community building activities, and invite investors and LPs from our network to attend. Who are we looking for? If you’re a team in the MENA region or from the MENA region, obsessed with execution, and have launched a product with users or customer traction, we want to talk to you. Especially if you’re working on something different not yet seen in our region. We invest across sectors so long as technology is the product, means of distribution or business model. We’re looking for founders tackling real problems for large markets. We also have a bias towards those tackling the UN’s sustainable development goals (SDGs) and with an lense on non-financial factors of environment, social and governance (ESG). There’s no single formula for success, but the ideal founding team would consist of 3 founders, the coder, the growth marketer and the subject matter expert. Of course, success comes in many forms, we simply feel this is the best combination for success and handling the multitude of functions and resources needed at the earliest stages. We don’t invest in ideas or products alone – we want to see that you know how to acquire users or customers first, and ultimately, that the market is responding positively to your solution.

Pioneer is a home for founders on day 0. We believe there are thousands (maybe millions!) of potentially great founders around the world who don't have the resources or opportunities to take the leap to start companies. We scour the Internet to find those people, bring them into our community of founders, help them incorporate, fund them, put them through a 2-month accelerator program, introduce them to experts in their field, and much more. In our 3 years since launching, we've funded 200+ founders from 50+ countries. Our Pioneers have gone on to raise from Sequoia, a16z, Y Combinator, Khosla Ventures, General Catalyst, Village Global, and many more VCs & angels. We're a small team of 5 who are optimistic we can find brilliance in places the world has overlooked. OUR CHALLENGES Pioneer isn't just an accelerator - it's a generator. We want to motivate people to become the best versions of themselves, to take their crazy ideas more seriously, and to make betting on themselves less daunting. If we do what we've set out to, we'll not just fund successful startups that might not have otherwise worked out - we'll fund ones that wouldn't have existed at all. We're constantly asking ourselves: How do you reach ambitious outsiders who aren't in any mainstream communities? How do you motivate people to take the leap to work on their own projects, and keep making progress? How do you correctly identify impressive progress at scale? What can we do to make our Pioneers as successful as possible? If these problems sound interesting to you, reach out: jobs@pioneer.app. WORKING AT PIONEER We value autonomy over consensus, speed over correctness, and being different & experimental. If given the choice between a known good and a project that has a small chance of being wildly successful, we'll pick the latter. We're data-driven on our high-level numbers, but trust our instincts. We care more about output than setting rules.

We are Nevada’s statewide startup accelerator & incubator. We enable entrepreneurs to develop and scale ideas from MVP to revenue-producing businesses, invest our own capital, then connect founders to additional growth capital. Get Help Funding Your Startup You have an amazing idea, and you’ve researched it and are positive there’s a market out there that’s waiting for this product or service. The only trouble is that you have no funding to get from Point A to Point B. You may not even know how to begin looking for investment sources. That’s okay because our accelerator makes an initial investment, then gives you the sales, marketing, development, and other tools to position yourself with early stage investors to raise additional capital. As you progress, we connect you with our network of angel investors and other capital sources. Become A Nevada Investor An idea paired with the right investor and mentor can become the next big industry disruptor. You’ve heard the stories, but you’ve never had the chance to do it yourself. You can change that by learning what it takes to successfully invest in business startups. Angel investing is riskier than other types of investments, but done properly, the rewards of making a great return while impacting our community makes it worthwhile. StartUpNV’s mission is to educate individuals on what it takes to be a good angel investor and make smart, successful investments. We’re establishing the angel investing ecosystem in Nevada, and you can be part of this bigger movement. Be The Good In The World. Ready To Invest While Making A Difference?