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.
There simply are few (if any) books that walk entrepreneurs step-by-step through the complex process from having an idea to having an operational, revenue-generating company. The Next Step series of books does just that. We use this book series in Fledge as the core of our curriculum. It’s the same curriculum our founder, Luni, uses to teach MBAs. And its also the core material covered by...
The following is based on a blog post from Right Side Capital. For fist-time entrepreneurs, investor updates are thought of as a big challenge, when they don’t have to be. Too often founders put them off until there is good news to share and/or put too much effort into making them look as good as their fundraising materials. Investors meanwhile are busy, and just a few statistics and a few...
It’s a good idea to look at your website every few years, look to see if it’s starting to feel dated, if its missing the look-and-feel of the latest websites. Last week’s Fledge website had a nice front page, but it wasn’t rendering well on smartphones and the overall structure needed a refresh to handle accelerators for both startups and co-ops, as well as handling...
Co-ops are commonplace, but not commonly understood. REI, Ace Hardware, Land’o’Lakes, Ocean Spray, Blue Diamond, Bob’s Red Mill and every credit union are cooperative companies. The applicability of the co-op business model is vast. From worker-owned companies to producer and purchasing cooperatives, these distributed ownership organizations create economies of scale, and...
“We are very thrilled to anounce our strategic partnership with Lenovo which will enable us to have a Latam presence once we start selling our services “ said Geraldine Guzmán cofounder of Feelsgood. The company received seed capital from a strategic investor in Brazil and launched of its first VR health related product to the health professional community in Lima, Peru. At today’s event...
BURN designs, manufactures and distributes super fuel-efficient cooking products that save lives and forests in the developing world. BURN has revolutionized the global cookstove sector by proving the business case for selling high-quality, locally manufactured and unsubsidized cookstoves. Since 2013, BURN has sold more than 425,000 cookstoves in sub-Saharan Africa, which have helped two...
Eight new fledglings have started The Nature Accelerator, powered by Fledge at the University of Padova in Italy. Central Park Bees Limited partners with smallholder farmers and beekeepers to strengthen their income through sustainable beekeeping by giving them access to free beekeeping training, equipment loans, extension services and guaranteed markets that offer competitive prices for...
Africa Business Radio is headed to Harvard.
Founder Soji Akinlabi has been invited to be a
Neiman Journalism Fellow for the upcoming school year
If you are based in or around Boston,
and would like to help create “The Bloomberg of Africa”
please contact us and we’ll connect you to Soji.
Diloo delivers just about anything to anyone in Lima, Peru with a smartphone. In that growing city of 10+ million, with a fast-growing middle-class, and traffic like you can’t imagine, deliveries are a popular service. Over the past year, Diloo’s usage has grown 707%, and to keep up with that growth, the company has just closed a $400,000 investment round. Co-founder/CEO Jose ignacio...
So, a quality brick without fire? It’s possible! Ecobuild is on its way to producing a new brick for Malawi, a country that uses 1.7 billion brick every year, that doesn’t require firing or cement. Additionally, this method is able to put waste from broken and misshapen bricks that was previously thrown away, back into the supply stream for new bricks. Construction materials are in high demand...