Fledge

Conscious Company Accelerators

Fledge is a global network of conscious company accelerators and investment funds, helping entrepreneurs create impactful companies and co-ops at scale through intense, short programs filled with education, guidance, and a massive amount of mentorship.

Each city runs (up to) one session per year. Each city’s program is a bit different from the others’, but all are focused on mission-driven for-profit companies, and all invest in their fledglings.

Th educational curriculum is based on The Next Step books and online classes, taught to fill in any gaps in the key skills entrepreneurs need to know to succeed: strategy, financials, marketing, sales, funding, etc.

All our cities share a global network of hundreds of mentors, who share their experiences, advice, and connections in 1-on-1 meetings with participants.

Every day, week after week, we push the participants forward, iterating business strategy, financial models, marketing and sales plans, funding options, and investor and sales pitches, plus we put a special focus on storytelling. The result is intense and creates lasting value for years after the companies return home.

We have been refining this service since 2012 and, to date, have helped hundreds of companies from dozens of countries. We’re eager for more. Our goal is to help foster a wave of companies that make a measurable impact in the world, collectively improving the lives of everyone on the planet.

We invest $15,000 (Peru), €15,000 (Europe), or $20,000 (U.S.) into each company we invite to participate, using revenue-based equity, which aligns our interests with the founders, avoids any pressure to “sell out”, and lets us invest in just about any market segment and most any country in the world. Plus, we make introductions to impact investors and make follow-on investments from our family of seed funds.

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Video Overviews

Latest stories

VC4Africa, Zamgoat, and Fledge

In Africa, Fledglings
September 18, 2015
1 Min read
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Investors and entrepreneurs in Africa increasingly find each other online. Zambia based startup company Zamgoat recently secured a 20K investment deal from the US based accelerator Fledge, who found them via the online VC4Africa platform. We had a chance to catch up with both the entrepreneur and the investor.
Read the story of entrepreneur Paul Nyambe.

And the story of how Fledge found Zamgoat.

The Social Innovation Benchmark 2015 Results

In Conscious, Interviews/Articles, Startup Ecoystem
July 31, 2015
2 Min read
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Based in Stockholm, Sweden, UBI Global is a thought leader in performance assessment of business incubators around the world where more than 400 business incubators and accelerators in over 70 countries participate. Through their international benchmark, UBI Global helps business incubators and accelerators become more efficient and competitive. For 2015, UBI benchmarked “Social...

Thank you mentors!

In Conscious, Seattle, Startup Ecoystem
June 8, 2015
2 Min read
T

As the sixth session of Fledge nears completion, it’s time to remind the world that the program would not be as useful without all the visitors.  In the world of accelerators, we call all these people “mentors”, whether they meet with the team every week or just stop by to share some advice. Having that one single accolade keeps everything simple and egalitarian, but...

The Law of Startups #11 — Fledge

In Advice, Interviews/Articles, Startup Ecoystem
May 11, 2015
1 Min read
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 Joe Wallin and Michael Schneider, two inquisitive Seattle startup lawyers interview
Fledge founder and Managing Director Luni Libes on “The Law of Startups“.
What is Fledge?  What do the fledglings do?
How is Fledge different than the typical accelerators?

Listen here

Best for the World

In Conscious, Startup Ecoystem
April 14, 2015
1 Min read
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The B Corp ‘Best for the World List’ sets the gold standard for high impact companies and demonstrates any type of company can use business as a force for good For 2015, Fledge has been honored as “Best for the World” How did we make the list?  We earned a score in the top 10% of all Certified B Corporations on the B Impact Assessment, a comprehensive assessment of a company’s...

Introducing the Fledge6 fledglings

In Africa, Fledglings, Seattle
March 15, 2015
1 Min read
I

Fledge6, as in the sixth session of Fledge, the conscious company accelerator. 170 applications from 45 countries arrived.  We invite just seven to participate.  And this seven are incredibly existing.  For the first time ever, the invitees include not only no teams from Seattle, but no American teams at all.  Seven startups hailing from five different countries: As always, seven impactful...

What doesn’t make it into Fledge?

In Advice, Fledglings, Investment
February 27, 2015
6 Min read
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After hundreds upon hundreds of applications reviewed by Fledge, there are a series of common patterns that lead to rejections, no doubt frustrating the applicants, and similarly frustrating the screeners. 1. Team, lack thereof The number one criteria that Fledge seeks out is a strong team.  If you’ve can’t even convince a friend to call themselves a member of your team, then you are...

Introducing FledgeX

In Conscious, The Next Step
February 24, 2015
2 Min read
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The worst part about running Fledge has been turning away the hundreds of entrepreneurs seeking help.  For Fledge6 (Spring 2015), this would have been more than 95% of all applicants, over 150 teams including hundreds of entrepreneurs from 45 countries. To fix this problem, Fledge is announcing FledgeX.  Our new Autumn program, bringing our full-scale, best-of-breed conscious company accelerator...

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