SPC’s Founder Fellowship is a different way for entrepreneurs to start a high growth, venture-scale startup. We give founders their first outside investment, help them ideate and iterate to a viable product, and assist them in raising from the best VCs in the world. As a founder fellow, you become a lifetime member of the South Park Commons community.
We take a boutique approach to helping founders. Our cohort sizes are small, with one partner for every two companies. We do not have a demo day, and when the time is right for you to raise, we’ll make introductions to the best investors. We do not force strict timelines.
We offer $400,000 in exchange for 7% equity via a SAFE, plus $600,000 guaranteed in your next venture round. We help you identify the right market, support you as you build your first product, find your first customers and teammates, and help you raise follow-on funding.
We group Fellows into two cohorts a year, with applications deadlines ahead of the cohort start date. Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis while the application is open. We fund teams immediately on acceptance to the program, even if the official start date isn't for a while.
Slope instead of intercept
Pre-idea investing is founder-centric investing. We are more interested in potential than we are in traction.
Founder-market fit
The low-hanging fruit has been picked. We set founders up for category-creation, not digital co-option.
Long-term partnership
Great ideas take time. We embrace the messiness of ideation, don’t rush founders, and partner with founders longer than any other investor.
It takes a community
-1 to 0 takes you unexpected places. We take a whole-team approach to supporting the journey—and embed founders in a community dedicated to it.
We offer $400,000 in exchange for 7% equity via a SAFE, plus $600,000 guaranteed in your next venture round.
After two years of private sponsorship, we looked for the best way to make SPC financially self-sustaining. We decided that raising a venture fund to invest in members’ companies had the greatest chance of success while also leveraging our strengths as a community. We believe that the fund model, as opposed to a paid membership or consulting model, creates the strongest incentives for a transformative and enduring community.
Our fund invests in companies started at SPC as well as companies referred to us from outside SPC. The management fees generated by the fund cover the operational expenses of the community. Ultimately, we want to build a sustainable community that can last many decades. As part of that, a portion of the fund’s eventual profits will exist in a permanent endowment for the community.
The fund exists to make the community financially self-sustaining, and our community supports the fund. Membership is non-transactional (fee-free and equity-free). As founders build conviction in starting a company, we look forward to partnering with them to accelerate their journey as pre-seed or seed investors.
Joining SPC as a member is non-transactional. You do not reserve any right for SPC to participate in your fundraise, but you do commit to pitching our Partners if you decide to raise capital while you’re a member.
San Francisco, California, United States
Team of SPC can be found here
Pre-seed