For philanthropy, foundations & funders
You can only back what reaches you.
Right now, that means only those who know how to ask. See the work that doesn’t apply for your grants. Bring co-funders onto your deals. Stay across your projects, together.
Base-editing correction in patient-derived cells
The correction was still there at passage six. That’s the longest we’ve held it.→
Find · the field
Understand the people and the work.
Read what a team is doing in the fields you fund, whether or not they are already funded and whether or not anyone has thought to send them to you. You judge it from what they are doing, not from a pitch about it.
your team
Today · what is in the way
Venture philanthropy doesn’t yet scale.
The capital exists, the willingness exists and the researchers exist. Three things stand in the way.
01
Signal
What you’re shown is where they’ve been
A researcher knows what their project is worth. You see rank, publications and grant history, which describe where someone has already been.
02
Coordination
Going together costs more than going alone
Every foundation runs its own diligence, structure and reporting. So everyone goes alone, and the capital is spread thin.
03
Distance
You back people, then hear from a document
Once you commit, the relationship runs on reports. You have no view of how the team is actually going, and no way to stay close to what you’ve backed.
Record · how it works
A record that is already current when you read it.
The researcher
Posts an update
A couple of minutes to camera, between experiments.
We make it legible
It becomes a clear record. Their words, checked against their own transcript.
You
Back it, together
Follow it, syndicate it, and stay across it as it matures. One deal, one record.
Fund · together
Lead the syndicate.
You set the coverage. Co-funders come onto one deal with the same memo, the same terms and the same diligence. The decision stays with each of you.
The round
Immune atlas · Round one
$3.0m / $3.0m
- YouLead · sets the terms$1.2m
- A disease foundationCommitted$900k
- A family officeCommitted$450k
- A research instituteIn diligence$450k
One round, one deal. Bilateral until they commit, so nobody sees who else is looking until you say so.
The pack is already built
The record, the memo and the questions others have asked are there from the start. You still run your own diligence, on better inputs.
One set of terms
Milestones, reporting and tranches are agreed on the deal, not renegotiated with each funder.
Co-funders you can find
See who else funds this kind of work and bring them in, rather than hoping to meet them at a conference.
Follow through · staying close
The relationship keeps going.
The record does not stop when you commit. You keep hearing from the people doing it, so you release against what you can see rather than after a report you had to ask for.
2d
Dr Kwame Osei · 2d
Cohort 3 screening closed at forty-one patients.
✓
Cohort recruited · milestone met
1w
Dr Mara Ellison · 1w
Switched the panel after the batch effect showed up.
3w
Dr Elena Vasquez · 3w
First read across all three sites lines up.
Find. Fund. Follow through.
Three jobs on one system. First signal to an outcome, and the decision stays yours.
What changes for you
Find it, fund it together, follow it through.
Start where you already lead. Prove the market clears in one disease, and it clears for the rest.