Who Should Apply?

We focus on early stage technology companies. We avoid service businesses, consulting companies and lifestyle businesses.

Apply Here

What is the Cost?

Leap Ventures receives a small common stock equity stake in your company under founder-friendly terms.

Who are the Mentors?

Mentors are still being added and we expect to have 10 when the program starts.

How We Help

  • Up to $20,000 in cash.
  • Regular mentoring sessions.
  • Investor introductions.

Additional Resources

  • Basic IT infrastructure for email, website set up.
  • Company formation and legal documents.
  • Trusted relationships with service providers and
    co-working space.

The Philosophies That Drive Us

We do this because we want to.

All of the mentors are successful entrepreneurs or angel investors who have many options about how to spend their time. We mentor startup companies because we enjoy it. Having an equity stake in our companies makes it more fun but our primary motivation is meeting enthusiastic entrepreneurs, not squeezing as much money out of each deal as we can.

Up and coming entrepreneurs want to ask questions of successful entrepreneurs. Successful entrepreneurs like investing in energetic entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs of all kinds thrive on each other's passion.

More with less.

Dropping hardware costs and maturing open source software has dramatically lowered the costs of starting and operating an Internet-based business. Recent economic challenges have made early stage capital harder to obtain.

Successful startups in the next few years will be lean and efficient. They will achieve profitability early without raising multiple rounds of funding. Many won't take a formal series A investment at all.

Our goal is to provide enough capital to build a good demo and mentors to help you figure out the path to profitability.

The Leap Process

Leap plans to sponsor and invest in 10 to 12 concepts per year. Each concept will receive $10,000 to $20,000 of funding support as well as mentoring support from the Leap founding members and mentors. Over a period of 3 to 6 months, the concept and a working prototype will be developed and tested. From there, a go/no-go decision is made to formally launch the company based on this validation.