This week I’m incredibly proud to celebrate hitting an important milestone in our journey at Outlier Ventures. Not only are we the most active Web3 accelerator, but as of Q1 this year, we are also the most active investor globally in the space. A big part of that growth came in the last 12 months alone, when we consciously decided to scale operations not just despite the wider market but because of it.
As we saw the markets and wider macro environment in tech change in early 2022 we felt early stage founders were going to need us more than ever. It was going to get harder for them to raise capital if they couldn’t get from zero to one, launch products and build traction, and there would be more not less regulatory risks to navigate. Equally, as we passed 100 startups we felt we now had enough data and learnings to make many aspects of what we do in acceleration more repeatable.
That led us to invest in the people and processes to make it happen, putting in place a new leadership team of seasoned scale-up veterans, bringing in new and more institutional members into the partnership, and growing the team to 100 full-time staff. Whilst we have developed some physical hubs to work out of, because we are committed to working with the best founders wherever they are in the world, we continue to work primarily virtually with founders with all the challenges this brings.
We’ve now doubled the throughput of the business with the capacity to work with twice as many founders, up to 50 founders a quarter, 200 a year. But at the same time have increased our reach and ecosystem at the same rate meaning we are still highly selective, working with sub 3% of all applications to help our partner network filter the best founders to deploy their resources to.
Not only have we scaled, but we’ve improved the quality of service we offer with 95% of founders scoring us at the highest possible satisfaction rating on exiting the program. Don’t just take my word for it, see some of the amazing feedback we get that brings a great pride to our work.
“If anyone is a Web3 founder who doesn’t know about OV, it’s the best accelerator in the world. It was intense but I suspect our company grew twelve months in three because of it”.
Jerome Faury, Founder and CEO, Immersive
“OV enable founders to think bigger with support from day one, all the way through and ongoing”.
Esther O’Callaghan, Founder and CEO, Hundo
We are nearing a decade in the space and have weathered multiple market cycles; we’ve seen competitors and major institutions rise and fall. As we look forward, we’ve never been more excited for our collective future. But I want to first say a big thank you to the staff, leadership, mentors and partners; YOU the ecosystem that have made this possible, and for your continued and deep commitment to our shared mission of advancing Web3 and supporting the founders who will forge its future through blood, sweat and tears.
