Yuliya Chernova

Excited to see the Start Fund covered in the Wall Street Journal this morning. For half of the major cities in the world to have thriving venture capital ecosystems, there needs to be ~20,000 more VC firms worldwide, roughly three to four times the current number. There are great entrepreneurs everywhere. When venture capital ecosystems take hold in a city or country, this is when these entrepreneurs start building billion-dollar companies that disrupt incumbents and create modern offerings that make the world a better place. Here is the problem. Currently, between 400 and 550 new firms launch per year. Most of these are replacements for the firms that close down or go into zombie mode, so the annual VC growth rate is very low. We launch between 200 and 300 of these firms every year, including the first funds in many countries and regions. The number of new VC firms has been growing, and we have been growing, but not fast enough. We face real problems as humans living on this planet, and entrepreneurs play a major part in the solution. Yet, without funding, entrepreneurs working on meaningful challenges have little chance of scaling or succeeding at the level we need. So, at the beginning of 2025, we set out to make it dramatically easier to launch a venture capital fund. We were constantly told, "it's not possible", or "you can't do it this way," or "it's too risky for you." We powered through, anyway. We ended up taking a process that costs over $100,000 and takes over 6 months on average, and brought it down to free and less than one business day. We were able to lower the minimum fund size from $5 MM+ to $150K and the minimum investment from $100K+ to $10K. There was a lot of demand and excitement internally, but we had no idea what was coming. One of my team members mentioned this new Start Fund on LinkedIn, and the post went viral. I quickly followed, and that post went viral, as well. We have been inundated with demand ever since. There are literally thousands of people worldwide who want to launch a venture capital fund right now, many more than we ever suspected. And this is great, because we need them. We are working around the clock to launch Start Funds. I am personally pulling 18 to 20-hour days, 6 to 7 days per week, reviewing applicants, optimizing workflows, coordinating with team members, and streamlining systems. It's intense. Finally, we are starting to see a path for every major city worldwide to have a thriving venture capital ecosystem and for great entrepreneurs everywhere to get the funding that they need to make this world a better place.