500 Startups

500 Startups is a global venture capital seed fund with a network of startup programs headquartered in Silicon Valley and is the #1 most active seed fund in the world.

500’s mission is to discover and back the world’s most talented entrepreneurs, help them create successful companies at scale, and build thriving global ecosystems.

We believe that great founders come in all shades, genders, and nationalities. Since our inception, we’ve made it our mission to find and empower talented founders, whether they’re across the world or overlooked in our own backyard. Diversity has always been a core value at 500. We’re committed to being champions of the global VC community, not as it is, but as we’d like to see it.

Starting a company is not for the faint of heart. Founders must be audacious, innovative, and disruptive. At 500 Startups, we challenge ourselves to also embody those qualities in how we help startups through both our seed fund and our startup accelerator program. In no particular order, that means:

- Building best-in-class resources for usable design, customer-focused metrics, and online distribution
- Creating a diverse network of experienced and operationally-focused mentors.
- Partnering with key platform companies and services that will help our startups.
- Pushing the envelope on how we do investments.

We typically invest between $25K-$250K USD in our first check, however we also make selective follow-on investments at Series A/B of up to $1M USD. We also aim to be innovative in our investment model. Check out Moneyball for Startups, the inspiration for our investment thesis.

500 Startups is based in San Francisco, California but our companies, mentors, and advisers come from 60+ countries around the world. Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and more. Plus check out our blog for the latest updates! (https://500.co/blog)