Announcing RippleX 2.0 — The Founder Fellowship

Ripple Ventures

Published in

rippleventures

5 min readNov 10, 2023

Details on the new program and application link are here.

The History of the RippleX Fellowship

The first cohort of the RippleX Fellowship started back in early 2019 to bridge the massive gap in the ecosystem for underrepresented students to get access to education around building venture-backable companies and becoming venture capitalists. Since then, we’ve run 14 cohorts for over 500 students across North America. We’ve helped students who otherwise would not have access to funding raise over $60M in financing. We’ve also supported over 75 students who otherwise would have had a hard time finding VC jobs to secure roles at top-tier funds. We are very proud of the impact we’ve had, helping create the next generation of founders and VCs.

If you’ve followed our story closely, you’ll know that change is the only constant we have at RippleX. Just two years ago, we launched our free online course that serves over 2,000 students across 40 countries. Last year, we launched the Fellow Fund which backs student founders from underrepresented backgrounds building in Ripple’s thesis areas. To date, we’ve supported three companies through this initiative including Artemis, WaiveTheWait, and Asepha.

We’ve created a differentiated offering in the sea of venture fund run programming, going back to the core of putting underrepresented students first. As such, we’re doubling down on that ethos to find more ways to directly support the ecosystem.

RippleX 2.0: The Founder Fellowship

We are excited to unveil the RippleX Founder Fellowship, which we call the 2.0 evolution of the program. This starts with creating a highly targeted program specifically for underrepresented founders that we can directly impact with our knowledge, network, and capital. Instead of our formal generalist program, we are creating a central gravity to draw founders building companies in B2B software to join our program and get access to otherwise hard-to-obtain resources, customers, and capital.

The Founder Fellowship will focus on helping underrepresented founders identify the right problem, validate it with customers, and get their first dollars of revenue This means that we’re creating 100% new content for founders specifically in B2B, playbooks to get from idea to revenue and prepare founders for potential funding from the Fellow Fund.

So what about the old program? Our existing program will live on through the online course, which will remain totally free and accessible to anyone in the world. The selected cohorts in our flagship program going forward will be solely focused on the Founder Fellowship.

What about the aspiring VCs? Don’t worry — the same online course and materials will be still available on our online course as well. We are also working on a VC stream in the future to provide more hands-on and real-life experience for aspiring investors. Stay tuned for more.

Are the new materials going to be available to everyone? Yes, the new content will be available through a free online course in 2024.

RippleX Founder Fellowship Programming

This totally new program and content will be dedicated to helping underrepresented student founders building in B2B software learn how to prepare their businesses to be venture-backable. This is different from the original program in that it was a blend of content for both founders and VCs to understand key general concepts like markets, cap tables, and term sheets. This program will strictly cover practical concepts to get companies from ideas to their first dollars of revenue and funding.

How it will operate:

Two cohorts per year, starting with the H1'24 Batch
Six-month-long intensive programming
Up to 10 companies selected per batch

Here are some example workshops we’ll cover during the program:

Incorporation and structure
Setting up the right team
Problem space identification
Problem space validation with customers
Market validation and vision
ICP identification
Problem-solution-fit
Product-market-fit
Sales and monetization
Fundraising

What can founders expect in the program?

Weekly 1 hour calls with the Ripple team and cohort members
Biweekly content modules to complete that are in tandem with real business outcomes
Milestone setting for every month
Hands-on support and guidance from the Ripple team and mentors and alumni from RippleX
Deep community and support from other founders in the same stage
Demo day to present and potentially receive funding

Company and Founder Eligibility Criteria

This program is specifically dedicated to companies with founders that fit all of the following criteria:

Companies founded by current students, recent grads, or dropouts (within the past three years)
At least one founder must be from underrepresented backgrounds inclusive of: Women (femme-presenting / identifying); Indigenous Peoples; Racialized, Black and/or people of color (visible minorities); Persons who identify as LGBTQ2+ and nonbinary individuals; and Persons living with disabilities.
The company must have an idea in B2B software, meaning tools that are used in a professional or business setting (ie. Figma (design tool), Quickbooks (SMB accounting software), Supabase (backend development platform), to Amazon Web Services (enterprise cloud infrastructure))
Founders must be based in North America
The company must be incorporated in North America
No previous institutional venture capital funding raised

What if I don’t fit that criteria?

Don’t worry, we have you covered. Here are the resources that we have open-source for anyone who needs access to our materials:

RippleX 1.0 Online Course: https://ripplexfellowship.thinkific.com/
Tank Talks: https://tanktalks.substack.com/
RippleX Online Founder Course: Coming soon!

Value Proposition to Founders

Access to the Ripple Ventures and RippleX Alumni network for close mentorship, networking, and guidance on company building
An opportunity to receive an investment from Ripple Ventures through the Fellow Fund
A deep community of other founders who are in the same stage, as well as further stages (Series A+) to provide coaching and support
Highly tactical and structured programming to help get you from idea to first dollars of revenue and funding
Credits and discounts on core infrastructure and tools

Application Process

Applications open November 10th
Applications due December 4th (Final extension)
First-round interviews start December 4th
Final round interviews start December 11th
Batch selections finished by December 18th