I’m very pleased to announce a new startup investment program today called The TechFellow Awards in partnership with Founders Fund. The goal is to honor technology innovators and stoke new investment in great early stage ideas.
The TechFellow Awards program will grant at least twelve fellows $25,000 each to invest in an early stage startup of their choice. Founders Fund will invest an additional $25,000 alongside those investments and request an additional right to invest another $250,000 when the company raises its next round of financing. In all, Founders Fund expects to devote around $3.6 million to the program.
The fellows will have few restrictions on the companies they invest in. The fellows will be selected from four categories of experts: engineering leadership, product design and marketing, general management and disruptive innovation.
Nominations for TechFellow Awards are open to everyone; information on submitting people you think would be excellent award candidates is available here and on TechFellow.com (self nominations are welcome). Nominations will be open until Friday, May 8, 2009.
We’ve also gathered an amazing group of people to help select winners of the TechFellow Awards, which will be formally granted at an awards dinner in June:
- Marc Andreessen, Co-Founder and Chairman, Ning
- Michael Arrington, Founder / Editor TechCrunch
- John Battelle, Chairman, CEO, Federated Media
- Ron Conway, Special Partner, Baseline
- Chris DeWolfe, Co-Founder and CEO, MySpace
- Esther Dyson, Chairman, EDventure
- Caterina Fake, Co-Founder, Flickr
- Shawn Fanning, Co-Founder, Napster, Co-Founder SNOCAP, Co-Founder Rupture
- Reid Hoffman, CEO and Co-Founder, LinkedIn
- Joi Ito, CEO, Creative Commons
- Max Levchin, Founder and CEO, Slide, Co-Founder, PayPal
- John McKinley, CEO and Founder, OurParents
- Jonathan Miller, Chief Digital Officer, News Corp
- Tim O’Reilly, Founder, O’Reilly Media
- Sean Parker, Co-Founder, Napster, Plaxo, Facebook; Managing Partner, Founders Fund
- Geoff Ralston, CEO, LaLa and former Chief Product Officer, Yahoo!
- Terry Semel, Chairman and CEO, Windsor Media and former Chairman and CEO, Yahoo!
- Danny Sullivan, Editor-in-Chief, SearchEngineLand.com
- Peter Thiel, Managing Partner, Founders Fund, Former CEO, PayPal
- Jeff Weiner, Executive-in-Residence, Accel Partners and Greylock Partners
- Michael Yanover, Business Development, Creative Artists Agency
- Mark Zuckerberg, Founder and CEO, Facebook
The full press release is below:
TECHCRUNCH, FOUNDERS FUND LAUNCH FIRST ANNUAL ‘TECHFELLOW AWARDS’
$50,000 “Genius Grants for Geeks” to Invest in Emerging Companies
SAN FRANCISCO—April 16, 2009—TechCrunch, a leading technology blog, and Founders Fund, a Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm, today announced the TechFellow Awards, a new annual program honoring technology innovators for achievement and excellence in high-tech entrepreneurship.
The twelve initial TechFellow recipients will be chosen from a pool of candidates contributed by the nominating committee with the help of the readers of TechCrunch. This open nomination process starts today on the TechCrunch website. Final fellowship selections will be made in June 2009 and announced at an awards dinner for the honorees.
The awards will recognize individuals for their critical role in developing breakthrough products and services in four categories: 1) Engineering Leadership, 2) Product Design and Marketing, 3) General Management, and 4) Disruptive Innovation.
Each TechFellow will be awarded $25,000 to invest in a new startup of their choice. Founders Fund will match each investment, for a total of $50,000. Founders Fund may also provide additional future investments in these companies.
“Even in a down market, the innovation and entrepreneurship of Silicon Valley continues unabated,” said Michael Arrington, Founder of TechCrunch. “The TechFellow Awards recognize and reward current role models of our industry.”
“In challenging times, focusing on innovation remains a good bet,” said Sean Parker, Managing Partner at Founders Fund. “It’s time to double-down on the future of technology by encouraging the next generation of innovators.”
Public TechFellow nominations launch today on TechCrunch via a Webform available at http://www.techcrunch.com/techfellow and will be open until Friday, May 8, 2009.
The 2009 TechFellow Awards Nominating Committee members are:
• Marc Andreessen, Co-Founder and Chairman, Ning
• John McKinley, CEO and Founder, OurParents
• Michael Arrington, Founder/Editor, TechCrunch
• Jonathan Miller, Chief Digital Officer, News Corp
• John Battelle, Chairman, CEO, Federated Media
• Tim O’Reilly, Founder, O’Reilly Media
• Ron Conway, Special Partner, Baseline
• Sean Parker, Co-Founder, Napster, Plaxo, Facebook; Managing Partner, Founders Fund
• Chris DeWolfe, Co-Founder and CEO, MySpace
• Geoff Ralston, CEO, LaLa and former Chief Product Officer, Yahoo!
• Esther Dyson, Chairman, EDventure
• Terry Semel, Chairman and CEO, Windsor Media and former Chairman and CEO, Yahoo!
• Caterina Fake, Co-Founder, Flickr
• Danny Sullivan, Editor-in-Chief, SearchEngineLand.com
• Shawn Fanning, Co-Founder, Napster, Co-Founder SNOCAP, Co-Founder Rupture • Peter Thiel, Managing Partner, Founders Fund, Former CEO, PayPal
• Reid Hoffman, CEO and Co-Founder, LinkedIn
• Jeff Weiner, Executive-in-Residence, Accel Partners and Greylock Partners
• Joi Ito, CEO, Creative Commons
• Michael Yanover, Head of Business Development, Creative Artists Agency
• Max Levchin, Founder and CEO, Slide, Co-Founder, PayPal
• Mark Zuckerberg, Founder and CEO, Facebook
For additional information about the TechFellow awards please visit http://TechFellow.com.
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About TechCrunch
TechCrunch is a leading technology media empire dedicated to obsessively profiling and reviewing new Internet products and companies. Founded in 2005, TechCrunch and its network of websites reach 5.5 million unique visitors and have more than 15 million page views per month. TechCrunch operates a global network of websites including TechCrunch Europe, TechCrunch France, and TechCrunch Japan as well as specialized industry websites including MobileCrunch, CrunchGear, and TechCrunchIT. TechCrunch is also home to CrunchBase, a leading data resource about start-up companies, people and investors, as well as industry events including TechCrunch 50 and The Crunchies, and various meet-ups worldwide serving as community platforms for industry conversation and collaboration. TechCrunch is a privately held company located in Palo Alto, CA. For more information, please visit http://www.techcrunch.com.
About Founders Fund
Based in San Francisco, Founders Fund is an early-stage venture capital firm created in 2005. Founders Fund is run by entrepreneurs who have started and managed their own companies, and is committed to innovation in venture capital using a non-traditional, founder-focused approach to investing. The FF team is comprised of people with engineering, product, design, and online marketing experience from companies like PayPal, Facebook, and Google. If you’re solving a big and interesting problem, we’d like to hear what you’re doing. For more information visit http://www.foundersfund.com.
Interesting social twist on VC. Rather than hiring a schmuck out of MBA program to be an assoiciate VC let the social graph nominate the best person and give them limited money to manage a new start up .
Brilliant!!!
Great idea, in this economic time I’m pleased to see more funding opportunities rising up–TechFellow seems to be a refreshing take on how to do it.
Best of luck to all those nominated!
I’m going to self-nominate. Would love votes, anyone. I’m an ex-TechCrunch writer, a serial web entrepreneur that is currently working on my InSeconds startup, and have given away 100 start-up ideas on my website Techquila Shots.
FAIL
All the best to TechFellow awards contestants. All about Social Networking @ http://search.m...;sa=Search#1375
yezzir
very cool.
I think this is great way to spurn new creativity in the industry, some positive outcome for both investors and start-ups.
would it be a problem to be both an investor and startup…
This is cool
I nominate Jeff Hawkins, Joshua Schachter, and Evan Williams.
good picks erick
The press release refers to it as a “grant”, the article refers to it as an “investment”.
Which is it?
Huge difference.
The awards go to the TechFellows.
To my understanding, each on these well-connected guys will be awarded $25,000 for finding ‘TechFellow Awards’ a good investment opportunity.
The name of this venture is somewhat misleading.
Yongfook (hi Jon!) -
1) Founders Fund awards $25k to TechFellow winners (= “grant”)
2) they in turn, direct the $25k to the startup of their choice, and receive equity for that money (= “investment”)
3) FF then matches with another $25k to that startup (= “investment”), and also gets an option to invest up to $250k at a future financing round.
so we are doing both. sorry if a little confusing, however we think the structure provides benefits to all 3 parties. however it’s our first iteration, and I’m sure we’ll learn some interesting things along the way, and adjust as needed in the future.
thanks for clearing that up
About time
Clarification…are you seeking “fellows” looking to use the investments for their own new company?
Or are you seeking entrepreneurs you believe are best positioned to identify new stealth start-ups to invest in…ones that they are not directly involved with?
Or to simplify my question: are the chosen fellows investing in their own ideas or in the ideas of others?
Sorry, feeling a little foggy this morning. At first I thought it was the latter. But from some of the buzz I’m reading, some seem to think this is an opportunity to apply for money for themselves (not that that’s a bad thing, but its a different thing).
both. the awardees can choose their own venture, if they happen to be starting one, or someone else’s.
Curious. Nobody from Google on your list. Any reason why?
Very nice!
i would never trust Mark F@ckerberg with any ideas.
Good idea for the brilliant and motivated entrepreneurs. I’m impressed with group of judges.. I wish a committee of such leaders takes on broader economic/social issues influencing government and inspiring millions to grow and succeed beyond tech and innovation.
Reid has been pretty vocal about changes recently, butt with Op-Ed piece in the NY Times (or Washington Post?) recently, as well as on the Charlie Rose show.
Esther has pretty much been active her while life on a number of intl & social entrepreneurship issues.
Joi’s full-time job (one of them anyway
is running Creative Commons, which itself is a vehicle for enabling access & fair use to intellectual property by a large audience. and Joi is also incredibly involved in helping shape business, tech, and social policy in Japan.
I could go on further: Tim O’Reilly & John Battelle are outspoken advocates & visionaries for using technology for civic good & advancement. Michael Arrington has taken strong public stances on his blog in issues like gay rights & marriage, and our own Sean Parker spends much of his time with the Causes team (and Facebook app), which enables people to educate & evangelize social missions by using Facebook.
we are very inspired by the work done by our nominating committee both in the for-profit and non-profit sector. they absolutely rock the house.
(btw I’m probably not aware of all our nominees activities, so I apologize if I overlooked other efforts… I already realize I forgot Ron Conway is incredibly activen in the philanthropic community, as are like many if the others on our list. wasn’t trying to be comprehensive, just provide a few examples of those I knew about)
Seriously, if they’re already that successful. Why would they care about the tiny grant? It is an insult not award.
I would love to be able to leverage these guys (and I am a successful entrepreneur) – the money is icing on the cake and doesn’t force any pre-determined valuation on me, so it is a harmless option!
Max, have you ever tried to buy anything without money. Regardless the amount, its a real positive step forward for people without money.
Silicon Valley China Entrepreneurship Forum(SVCEF) knows lots of early stage startups, which are active in Silicon Valley. SVCEF has relations with Stanford as well as China, might be a good place for TechFollow program to start its search.
Ito, Conway, Hoffman, Levchin, Andreessen?!?!… wow what a roster. minus zuck.
Very impressive nominating group! However, most of their California companies could never have been “technology innovators,” and would not even exist as we know them, had the impending California Assembly Bill 178 already been in place. If it passes, many may move out of state.
It is being voted on soon – Monday, April 27th, at 1:30 PM. They need to get busy and fight it quickly. Even if the big companies buy their individual exemptions/loopholes, there will be a lot fewer “technology innovators” to choose from in California and other states considering these new individual state Internet tax laws.
This is a great idea and could eventually help the biggest problem in our economy, unemployment. But while Internet startups are working on the things that the media thinks is “cool” (and gives a lot of attention), there are those of us that are working on innovations that are not as “obviously cool” but to those that are helped by them, think we are the coolest.
I am co-founder of a site called The Layoff Support Network. The LSN is basically a Social Website for people that have been laid off. It was designed to fill a need that was not being met by any other resource. It addresses issues that are faced when a person looses his job. It’s not a job hunting site, it’s for “layoff survival”. All those ugly little things you don’t want to think about until you have to.
The site is totally non-commercial, not even Google ads. There is nothing on the site to distract the user from accessing the resources. My partner and I both were programmers for 25+ years and there are some small innovations in the architecture, but nothing the media would report on. We do have a section called “Rescue” where people can either ask for help or offer help. Kind of a “matchmaking service”.
So, will 600,000 newly unemployed people each month for the past three months, why have you not heard of us? We just don’t meet the coolness factor. Plus we are two very low profile guys. We also were laid off half way through the project, and fund the entire thing with out own limited resources.
I do applaud your efforts and think you are on the right track. But why not have a category for the not-so-obviously cool efforts that are directly helping many people?
If you are reading this and are unemployed, check us out at http://www.layo...portnetwork.com
maybe we can help you.
Warmest Regards,
Craig Brown
This is a wonderful idea. Thanks to both TechCrunch and Founders Fund. Hopefully this will motivate others to start a few more initiatives to accelerate innovation.
I want to nominate Dave McClure but wait…he is on the other side now
Cheers,
Raj
This can only help to raise the bar on some of the outstanding platforms already available, the disruptive innovation will be particularly entertaining I’m sure. With millions unemployed this category should be put to good use
Sounds like a great spin on the current “Dragons Den” or “Angel Investor” craze – but instead of “professional business men” providing the VC, it’s being done by people with real, relevant experience in the industry.
Will be watching how this pans out with great interest!