Our story
Four years, from six founders in a room to a fund.
A pilot small enough to be honest about
The Afghan Future Fund ran a week of programming in New York City for six refugee founders, in collaboration with Antler and Schmidt Futures. Six is not a cohort; six is a test of whether the format works at all.
It did, and it made clear which parts were doing the work — the in-person week, the mentor matching — and which parts were decoration.
Designing the model
The Refugee Entrepreneurship Program opened applications to anyone with experience of forced displacement, anywhere, and ran a second accelerator with in-person weeks in New York City, Toronto and Berlin. Every founder was matched with a mentor.
This is the year the two-stage model was designed and launched: a bootcamp wide enough to take anyone, and an accelerator selective enough to be worth reaching. That shape is still the shape of the program.
The program becomes an organization
Ventures Beyond Borders launched as a non-profit venture fund. The distinction matters: a program trains people and hands them on, and the handing-on is where most of them stall. A fund can follow its own conviction with capital.
Add what else changed this year — incorporation, the board, the first staff hires. A founding year with one sentence in it reads thinner than it was.
Four cities, and the first checks
Residency weeks in Washington DC, New York City, Toronto and Berlin. Founders graduate by pitching for investment of up to $100,000, in equity or grant form, to a panel that has watched them work for six months.
