WANT TO CHANGE THE WORLD THROUGH ENTREPRENEURSHIP? BE UNREASONABLE. JOIN US!
THE CHALLENGE Our world is plagued by seemingly intractable problems - from poverty, to gender inequality, to lack of access to clean water, quality education, and affordable healthcare. At the Unreasonable Institute, we believe in the power of entrepreneurship to generate sustainable, long-term solutions to these urgent social and environmental challenges. And we work tirelessly to get promising entrepreneurs the resources they need to turn that vision into reality.
Photo courtesy of Solidarium, an Unreasonable venture linking millions of artisans in Brazil with global markets for their handmade products. solidarium.net
You want to change the world. We can help. OUR SOLUTION We design and run unique, issue- or geography-focused accelerator programs, bringing together game-changing entrepreneurs, world-class mentors, and dedicated investors - all working together to address a specific critical social or environmental challenge. Whether you care about improving access to healthcare worldwide, increasing school readiness in the U.S., or advancing urban revitalization in Detroit, we can design a program that makes a real, measurable difference. Through our highly customized accelerator programs, we help you accomplish the following: • Move the needle - Together we will powerfully accelerate the progress of a dozen high-potential social enterprises, maximizing their impact on the world. Our goal is for every venture we work with to scale their impact to one million people, making a massive dent on the issue we’re tackling. • Catalyze conversation - We will bring together a comprehensive network of leading entrepreneurs, mentors, experts, and funders - the brightest minds tackling the selected issue - to share learning and conversation and push the field forward. • Identify what works - Instead of investing directly in 1-2 promising organizations, you will be able to support a dozen game-changing social enterprises, each of them developing and testing innovative new solutions.
• Scale innovation - By scouring the globe for the best-of-the-best entrepreneurs tackling the issue we’ve selected, we will spark innovation and encourage out-of-the-box thinking so that promising new ideas can be scaled. • Demonstrate impact - We set clear impact objectives, bring together the best people in the world to help achieve them, and rigorously measure progress so you know that you’re making a difference.
HOW DOES IT WORK? We run programs ranging from 5 days to 5 weeks, but the core ingredients remain the same. Entrepreneurs: We work with the over 200 partners in our network to search the globe for the world’s most promising entrepreneurs tackling the selected social or environmental issue. From hundreds of applicants, we pick the 12 best-of-the-best. Curriculum: We customize the program to meet your needs and facilitate our tried-and-true acceleration curriculum, which has delivered dramatic, measurable results for 150+ startups to-date. Mentors: We bring together a powerful community of world-class mentors, drawing from our network of 260+ leading executives, serial entrepreneurs, best-selling authors, a TIME Hero of the Planet, an entrepreneur who has raised over $1B, and a development expert whose work has brought over 20 million people out of poverty. Convening: The program culminates in a high-profile convening of investors and other key stakeholders, in which the entrepreneurs pitch their ideas to the world’s best and brightest minds tackling the issue at hand. Investment: Drawing from our global network of 540+ active investors, we bring together leading funders to provide the capital necessary to scale the most innovative ideas.
“The Unreasonable Institute wants people who are willing to think big, even when skeptics scoff.” The New York Times
Photo courtesy of mDoc, an Unreasonable venture improving health care in Bangladesh by equipping rural pharmacists to facilitate telemedicine consultations with urban doctors. www.m-doc.net
ABOUT THE UNREASONABLE INSTITUTE The Unreasonable Institute exists to unlock entrepreneurial potential to solve the world’s greatest challenges. We are experts at scouring the globe for game-changing startups and providing them with the support and resources they need to scale their solutions to millions of people. O U R R E S U LT S • Worked with 150+ ventures to-date • Creating impact in 59 countries • Benefited over 8 million lives • 93% of ventures have raised funding, for a total of over $90M • 7.2x average increase in funding within one year of program participation • 9.6x average increase in revenues within two years of program participation • 95% of program participants have recommended Unreasonable to a fellow entrepreneur
“The Unreasonable Institute experiment has unequivocally demonstrated the power of an unlikely mix of factors—seclusion, immersion, authentic mentoring, and intense personal bonding—to yield profound individual and organizational transformation during a relatively short period.” Inc. Magazine
Photo courtesy of Yellow Leaf Hammocks, an Unreasonable venture empowering hill-tribe communities in Thailand through job creation. yellowleafhammocks.com
W H AT K I N D S O F S TA R T U P S ? Unreasonable works with the most innovative entrepreneurs in the world, addressing critical issues including health & sanitation, education, energy & clean technology, food & nutrition, financial inclusion, and women’s empowerment. Here’s just a small sampling of the ventures we’ve worked with: HEALTH: Biosense Technologies develops affordable, point-of-care, noninvasive diagnostics for the developing world. biosense.in EDUCATION: Eneza Education is reimagining education in Kenya, providing teacher training and student curriculum through low-cost mobile phones. enezaeducation.com WATER: Naandi Community Water Services developed an innovative system to provide clean, affordable drinking water to millions of people in India. naandi.org ENERGY: Mosaic brings clean, safe solar energy to homeowners across the U.S. through affordable solar loans. joinmosaic.com ARTISANS: Solidarium connects millions of artisans in Brazil to global markets for their handicrafts. soliarium.net FINANCIAL ACCESS: InVenture is unlocking trillions of dollars in purchasing power in the world’s fastest growing economies through mobile credit. inventure.com
“My company literally would not exist in its size, success, or possibly at all, without the Unreasonable Institute and the Unreasonable community.” Michael Wilkerson, 2012 Unreasonable entrepreneur
Photo courtesy of Village Energy, an Unreasonable venture building a network of franchised rural solar technicians in Uganda. newvillageenergyuganda.com
BE YOND SPONSORSHIP This is not philanthropy as usual. We want partners who are eager to roll up their sleeves and help us drive real impact in the world. We want partners who are committed to unlocking the power of entrepreneurship to address seemingly intractable problems. We want partners who are truly unreasonable. If this is you, we would love to talk. Please contact our VP of Impact & Partnerships, Leigh Fiske, at leigh@unreasonableinstitute.org.
“The reasonable (wo)man adapts to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man (or woman).� George Bernard Shaw
Photo courtesy of CoSchool, an Unreasonable venture redefining education and leadership development in Colombia. coschool.co