A unique, 100-day incubation program for founders who are in the early stages of developing their next big idea.
Information on upcoming programs coming shortly
Notify MeLaunch your business. Keep your equity.
During our 100-day no-equity program, you’ll leverage the resources and support of the Human Ventures community. You’ll transform ideas and concepts into fundable startups, ready for a pre-seed institutional investment round—including the potential for investment from Human Ventures at the end of the program.
Build alongside a curated group of entrepreneurs at the same stage
Tailored 1:1 strategic advice each week on launching your startup
Guest speakers and office hours with industry experts
Access to the Human Ventures network of tech entrepreneurs
Our Spring 2021 Humans in the Wild cohort brought together 11 amazing entrepreneurs—and though it was unintentional, we’re proud that our application process brought us an amazing cohort of solely female founders. As the Covid pandemic presented unique mental and physical health challenges throughout society, opportunities for new consumer-focused startups in healthcare exploded. Founders in this cohort are building innovative companies in women’s health, sexual health, mental health and health & wellness technology.
The traditional professional journey will change drastically in the next decade, as individuals search for place and purpose in an increasingly competitive, technologically-altered, and fast-paced labor market that’s been upended by a global pandemic. The Fall 2020 cohort of Humans in the Wild brought together entrepreneurs innovating in the Future of Work, developing innovative approaches to help consumers and businesses adjust to new emerging workplace realities. These founders are building companies in four areas of opportunity, positioned to serve the human side of work: New Work Environments, Lifelong Learning, Redefining the Resume, and Worker Wellbeing.
Transformational changes in technology, consumer attitudes, and cultural values are driving profound shifts in behaviors around healthy lifestyles, fitness, nutrition, food & beverage, and mental health. The Spring 2020 cohort of Humans in the Wild are passionate about bringing innovation and vision to these broad areas and are building solutions in a wide range of categories including physical health, mental health, women’s health, skin care, nutrition, and sleep.
Read about the success of our first health & wellness cohort.
Human Ventures offers a valuable set of experiences to make your 100-day journey enriching and productive, with the aim of empowering you to exit the program with your startup in a fundable state, ready for a pre-Seed institutional investment round.
Humans in the Wild will help you get there through 4 key program elements:
Founder Community: Founders enjoy access to a rich peer community of fellow entrepreneurs who serve as thought and accountability partners, spanning your cohort, previous Humans in the Wild cohorts, and the wider circle of Human Ventures portfolio company founders.
Strategic Advice: The core of Humans in the Wild is weekly 1-on-1 “co-pilot” meetings, strategic mentoring sessions from a Human Ventures executive who serves as an advisor and accountability partner. Facilitated peer review sessions also provide a forum for joint problem-solving and strategic planning. At a minimum, each week you’ll meet with your peer group, consult with your Human Ventures co-pilot advisor for work planning and strategic guidance, and attend a learning workshop led by Human Ventures staff or outside experts.
Program participants also benefit from the input of a set of external VC advisors, custom selected for each cohort program based on relevant industry expertise. Former external VC program advisors have included Binoy Bhansali (Sandbox Industries), Zal Bilimoria (Refactor Capital), Ally Tam (VMG Catalyst), Anna Whiteman (Coefficient Capital), Abby Levy (Primetime Capital), Manish Patel (Highland Capital), Jason Spinell (Slack Fund), Jarrid Tingle (Harlem Capital), and many more.
Unique Programming: Humans in the Wild programs weekly guest speaker sessions, led by a mix of Human Ventures team members, industry experts, investors, and peers. Topics cover customer discovery, product strategy, go-to-market, fundraising, leadership, and other aspects related to early-stage builds. Previous speakers have included Carolyn Witte, (co-founder & CEO, Tia Health); Zack Weinberg (co-founder & CEO, Flatiron Health); Akash Shah (co-founder Care/Of), Katie Stanton (Founder and GP, Moxxie Ventures); Shiva Rajaraman (product lead, Spotify, WeWork), Kathyrn Minshew (co-founder and CEO, The Muse), and Isaac Oates (Founder and CEO, Justworks), to name a few.
Valuable Connections: Founders gain access to Human Ventures’ high-quality industry network to support concept development, mentoring, recruiting, and fundraising. All VCs brag about their networks, but former Humans in the Wild grads will attest to Humans’ particularly unique network-mindset and above-and-beyond efforts to make value introductions for our cohort participants.
We are looking for extraordinary individuals with demonstrated entrepreneurial and leadership experience. The ideal profile encompasses second-time start-up founders, emerging leaders who have managed product development or business functions at high-growth startups, executives who have propelled dynamic functions at larger companies as an ‘intrapreneur,’ or leaders who have built non-profit or other types of organizations from scratch.
We build a dynamic class of 12-15 founders for each Humans in the Wild program, thoughtfully designed to include a rich diversity of professional experiences, personal backgrounds, and skill sets. We welcome both technical and business-oriented founders in the program.
Human Ventures is committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion. These are values we apply not only to our application screening but also within our team, portfolio, and entrepreneur communities.
Humans in the Wild is designed for early-stage entrepreneurs who have an MVP or a strong hypothesis on what they want to build.
Applicants should be able to articulate a core product or service idea that addresses problem spaces that they are eager to solve, assess unmet consumer demand, or identifies legacy services that need to be blown up and redesigned from scratch.
At the end of the program, we hope to offer a few participants pre-Seed investment funding of at least $250K to support the next stage of their journey. These entrepreneurs will also be invited to continue working with Human Ventures by engaging in ongoing collaboration with our in-house business design, product design, talent, and finance/administrative team resources. Accepting Human Ventures funding at the end of the program is not required.
Human Ventures is a business creation platform comprising a venture fund and startup studio. We go beyond the business model and seek opportunities to build Model Businesses with ambitious founders who are innovating around human needs. By unlocking access to a powerful network of founders, investors and corporate partners, we are creating a blueprint for the future of business to be built on purpose®.
Human Ventures has been a long-standing supporter of entrepreneurs innovating in the Human Needs Economy. Examples of startups we’ve helped build and fund include Spora Health, Current, Tiny Organics, Paloma Health, Village, Lupii, Weldon, Tia, Electra Health, Hazel and Milo. We are proud of our rich portfolio of businesses creating value in the world.
Although most program participants are solo founders, we are open to co-founders jointly participating in the program if they are truly co-leading overall company strategy. If you are a team of two co-founders, please submit one application and include both of your names and profiles in the application.
We can help founders the most if they are targeting US-based customers. If you are based outside the US, your company must be targeting US-based customers to be considered for the program.
Throughout 2020 and 2021, Humans in the Wild ran almost entirely online, with occasional social drink/dinner meet-ups. Nonetheless, we were pleased with the very strong sense of community that developed in each program. Plans moving forward are dependent on pandemic safety conditions, but we hope to offer a hybrid of in-person and online experiences, with most programming occurring virtually but with real-world office space in Manhattan available to cohort members who are seeking workspace.
The next Humans in the Wild cohort will run in Spring 2022. Please check our website in early 2022 for information on theme, program dates, and application deadline. Additionally, feel free to subscribe to the Human Ventures newsletter (via our website) to ensure you are notified of the next cohort's application deadline.
Any other questions? Please reach out to wild@human.vc