Venture for America Fellows announced its 5th Innovation Fund crowdfunding campaign in partnership with Indiegogo and sponsored by Barclays, gives access to $50,000 per year in grants for eleven Fellow-led projects.
“We are grateful to Barclays and Indiegogo, who have offered up their expertise and resources to help our Fellows strategize for their crowdfunding campaigns and help them to find the people who believe in their products or mission,” commented Jackie Miller, Senior Director of Partnerships. “We are excited to give our Fellows a chance to test market viability for the side projects or businesses they are working on outside of their full-time jobs with VFA Partner Companies. Their campaigns have the potential to make a positive impact in emerging cities and Innovation Fund projects have a history of going on to become self-sustaining businesses.”
In the last week, the eleven VFA projects have generated more than $41K with the help of the crowd. A snapshot of the campaigns are below, with Bikes ORO raising more than $20K of that sum:
Pinch Crawfish Kitchen: Vietnamese culinary experience in San Antonio
All About that Paradigm Shift: encouraging people to engage in meaningful conversations
Climb-A-Sutra: a hot and humorous book of sex positions, inspired by rock climbing
Al Dente by Simple Kitchen: rice cooker for healthier rice
VegCycle: modern growing techniques and affordable greens coming to Cincinnati neighborhoods on a rolling garden.
The Redge: online personal registry for all your favorite items on the web
Forge: Detroit art residency & coffee shop for emerging artists
Native < > Newcomer: network connecting Detroit newcomers to Detroit natives
Women Rising: women’s networking platform
Wakeable: the anti-snooze alarm clock
“The Innovation Fund is an integral part of the suite of resources we make available to Fellows who want to build something with Venture for America,” continued Miller. Participating in a crowdfunding campaign is a fantastic way to test market viability for a side project or emerging business and provides the opportunity for Fellows to get customer feedback and iterate on their ideas.”
More about Venture for America:
VFA, a nonprofit program that helps young people become business builders and entrepreneurs, recruits America’s best and brightest recent college grads and trains them to be assets to startups and early-stage companies in emerging cities. The non-profits currently counts 300+ Fellows working at startups in 15 US cities.- VFA’s aims that a substantial portion of VFA Fellows will become successful entrepreneurs, preferably rooted in the communities to which they are assigned. Venture for America’s purpose is job generation with the immediate goal to generate 100,000 new U.S. jobs by 2025 by helping companies expand and training a critical mass.
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