Draft:1517 Fund
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| Type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Venture Capital |
| Founded | 2015 |
| Founder | Danielle Strachman and Michael Gibson |
| Website | https://www.1517fund.com/ |
1517 fund is an American privately held venture capital firm. It was founded in 2015 by Danielle Strachman and Michael Gibson, who had previously cofounded the Thiel Fellowship, with the goal to "expand the vision of the Fellowship”[1][2][3].
Investment thesis
[edit]The “1517” in the fund's name refers to the year Martin Luther published his 95 Theses, symbolising the fund's belief that higher education is due for a similar reformation[4]. The fund backs companies led by "college dropouts, renegade students, and deep tech scientists"[5] at the pre-seed and seed stages of fundraising.
Investments
[edit]Their notable investments include Luminar, a Lidar technology company[6][7][8], Loom a video communication software company[9][10], and Rainmaker Technology Corporation, which builds weather modification technology [11][12][13].
Medici grants
[edit]The 1517 Fund operates the Medici Project, which provides grants of at least $1,000 to high school students, college students, and dropouts pursuing independent projects in areas such as science, technology, mathematics, and the arts[14][15][16][17][18][19].
References
[edit]- ↑ "1517 Fund - Backing Dropouts, Students & SciFi Science". www.1517fund.com. Retrieved 2026-09-24.
- ↑ "Peter Thiel's 1517 Fund Is Out to Find the Next Mark Zuckerberg". Bloomberg.com. Archived from the original on 2025-08-30. Retrieved 2026-09-24.
- ↑ Miller, Claire Cain (2012-07-19). "Drop Out, Start Up". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2026-09-24.
- ↑ Murphy, Sean (2017-12-06). "Thirteen from 1517 Assembly's "New 95 Theses"". SKMurphy, Inc. Retrieved 2026-09-24.
- ↑ "Inside Thiel's Fellowship Spinoff, the 1517 Venture Fund". Bloomberg.com. Archived from the original on 2017-01-27. Retrieved 2026-09-24.
- ↑ Ohnsman, Alan. "Luminar Lands $100 Million Funding Boost To Ramp Up Lidar For Self-Driving Cars And Trucks". Forbes. Archived from the original on 2025-12-06. Retrieved 2026-09-24.
- ↑ Coldewey, Devin (2019-07-11). "Luminar eyes production vehicles with $100M round and new Iris lidar platform". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2026-09-24.
- ↑ Rao, Leena. "This Startup Could Power All Self Driving Cars". Fortune. Retrieved 2026-09-24.
- ↑ Li, Steven. "Nearly-Broke To $1.5 Billion: How They Built Loom And Grew It To 14 Million Users". Forbes. Archived from the original on 2025-07-25. Retrieved 2026-09-24.
- ↑ "Atlassian to buy video messaging provider Loom for nearly $1 billion". Reuters. 2023-10-12. Retrieved 2026-09-24.
- ↑ "Cloud seeding startup Rainmaker raises $6.3 million". Yahoo Finance. Archived from the original on 2026-06-06. Retrieved 2026-09-24.
- ↑ "Can This Army of Drones Solve the West's Water Crisis?". Environment. 2026-09-22. Retrieved 2026-09-24.
- ↑ News, A. B. C. "Drones hold secret to producing more rain, engineers say". ABC News. Retrieved 2026-09-24.
{{cite web}}:|last=has generic name (help) - ↑ "1517 Fund Medici Grant — $1k | Solo Grants Guide". sologrants.com. Retrieved 2026-09-24.
- ↑ "Medici Project". FundingCake. 2026-03-31. Retrieved 2026-09-24.
- ↑ CompetitionInfo.com. "Competition Info: 1517 Fund". www.competitioninfo.com. Retrieved 2026-09-24.
- ↑ Edmonds, Lauren (2026-07-08). "This 12-year-old founder created an AI-powered receptionist to help small businesses build clientele". Business Insider Africa. Retrieved 2026-09-24.
- ↑ "Meet Mana Jampala: 12-year-old who built an AI-powered receptionist to help businesses avoid missing calls and clients, learnt Python at 9 and won competitions internationally". The Times of India. 2026-07-09. ISSN 0971-8257. Retrieved 2026-09-24.
- ↑ Watson, Reese (2026-05-21). "Kyrylo Kalashnikov on Leaving Ukraine at 13, Judging Frontier Work, and Building Technology That Could Change Science". Distractify. Retrieved 2026-09-24.
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