Announcing the Fellow Fund
The Fellow Fund
We are excited to share a huge announcement at the RippleX Fellowship! As an extension of the program and platform initiative, we have launched the Fellow Fund.
Through this initiative, we will be investing $25–50K checks into student-led and first-time founders building across our verticals of interest at Ripple Ventures. Founders that we back do not have to be formally a part of the fellowship. More details on the investment strategy are below.
Founders, get in touch here: https://airtable.com/shrQbOrdDYfSfRki2
Why We Launched the Fellow Fund
Over the course of the past ~4 years at the RippleX Fellowship, we’ve helped nearly 300 underrepresented students on their journey to becoming venture-backed founders and venture capitalists at some of the top firms in the world. In each of our cohorts, we’ve achieved at least 50% gender diversity and 90% ethnicity diversity.
To date, our alumni fellows have raised over $50M in cumulative funding after going through our program and we have helped place 30+ students into part-time or full-time roles in venture capital!
We have always supported our students with a different approach to other initiatives in the ecosystem led by venture firms; we focus on providing education and community for underrepresented students.
We don’t ask students to find the coolest companies on campus (even though they do end up sharing them naturally). The only thing we ask of students is to come with questions, an open mind, and a positive attitude.
We teach students a strong set of fundamentals for building companies and investing in them. This includes material on teaching how to conduct customer interviews, securing your first customers, creating your first startup budget, reading through term sheets, and more.
As our program has seen so much success over the years, we’ve decided to extend what our platform offers. On top of education and community, we aim to provide our diverse ecosystem with investment.
Our goal is to democratize access to capital to founders building the next generation of companies that otherwise would not have access to funding at the earliest stages.
Key Goals of the Fellow Fund
- Support student-led startups and first-time founders in the ecosystem with investment and access to the Ripple Ventures network, platform, and resources (templates, playbooks, partner discounts, talent, etc.)
- Democratize access to capital and building venture-backable businesses to underrepresented founders who others aren’t willing to take the chance on because they are “too young”, “too inexperienced”, or lack a strong network in the industry
- Provide an end-to-end platform with the RippleX Fellowship, supporting students from ideation, to building, to funding.
How it Works (2-Week Process):
- Founders send info: https://airtable.com/shrQbOrdDYfSfRki2
- Fellow Fund team reviews
- If there’s a fit with our investment focus, we will reach out to book a time to discuss the opportunity
- Partner meeting with the Ripple Ventures team
- Term sheet (standard Fellow Fund terms)
- Final diligence and investment memo
- Funded + Ripple helps syndicate the remainder of the round
The RippleX Fellowship program is sponsored by RBCx, the technology and innovation arm of the Royal Bank of Canada, powering Canada’s most daring innovators and idea generators.
If you’re interested in learning more, or if you are a founder looking to raise with us, feel free to reach out to our team:
- Ripple Ventures: https://www.rippleventures.com/
- RippleX Fellowship: https://fellowship.rippleventures.com/
- RBCx (Program Sponsor): https://www.rbcx.com/
- Sponsor the Fellowship: https://airtable.com/shrhKh1uD85ZGEoBY
- Work with us: https://www.rippleventures.com/get-in-touch
