There have been 11 $100b+ businesses started in the US since 1990. There will undoubtedly be more over the next decades ahead - our mission is to partner with all of them. We believe that the best generational builders bring the following core traits:
Ruthless efficiency
Maniacal sense of urgency
10x product differentiation
Customer obsessed
Technically brilliant
Fearless, relentless, high pain threshold
Learning machine - voracious intellectual curiosity
See the future - predict huge wave of a platform shift
If accepted, teams have the opportunity to receive $100k in funding from Soma Capital at the most founder-friendly terms possible. Soma Cap has the firepower to keep supporting you across the full path to IPO and the early stages are just the beginning for us
If this is you, we want to support the mission!
The program consists of sessions over the course of a few weeks to get started with the building journey and scale enduring companies. The Soma team will become your best allies to establish company foundations and make a huge dent in the universe with a product that touches billions, leveraging our years of experience building and working with the top companies of our generation. The program also culminates in a demo day where founders get to showcase their products in front of potential customers, investors and the community. Programming activities are included but not limited to:
Our pitch
Best deal in the world: $100k uncapped, no board seats, no ownership targets, minimized dilution
We can help you swiftly incorporate and get set up
We’ll get you all your first customers. We have +700 portfolio co’s to start introducing you to, and unmatched Fortune 500 company connections (see below)
We’ll help you hire with unmatched talent network access. We have “scouts” on all the top undergrad campuses to help you cherry pick top talent
We can help put future rounds together as needed - we’ll bring you optionality, as we’re backed by key partners from places like Sequoia, NEA, Insight, Iconiq, IVP, DST, Tiger, Greenoaks, B Cap etc
How to apply
Any interested teams should fill out this link here which includes questions on your company, progress, founding team, and a short video pitch! Finalists will be interviewed and selected based on holistic review of interactions and materials
Timeline
April 12th - April 30th
Applications open
Rolling acceptances until start date
May 6th
Decisions
Most teams will be notified by May 6th
May 13th - June 22nd
Programming
Join sessions from May 13th - June 22nd
June 28th
Demo
TBA following programming completion
How are teams chosen?
We’re looking for technical, brilliant entrepreneurs: you’ve been building stuff your whole life, you have a unique ability to “see the matrix” where the world is heading, and you have ideas on major pain points and you’re fired up to solve them by building software. You have an ability to sell and articulate a crystal clear vision and inspire others to organize around you and you’re not hungry, but starving to relentlessly create and make the biggest dent in the universe imaginable. You’re fearless, confident, know how to balance taking feedback with being unshakeable in unique outlier views, you have strong and inspiring technical skills, a competitive “will to win” and you dream massive - because dreams are future realities.
Many of the most influential companies in human history raised 0 VC:
Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, Carnegie, Sam Walton, Henry Ford, Estee Lauder, Bernard Arnault, Emancio Ortega, James Dyson, etc.
Technologists like Bill Hewlett and David Packard, Bill Gates, Michael Dell, Larry Ellison, Marc Benioff, all raised $0 VC (small friends and family early rounds). Google and Apple raised very little (~20m), Amazon raised less than $10m. These are multi hundred billion to trillion dollar companies! And even today Midjourney (one of the top grossing Gen AI startups) raised $0 VC.
The VC job is to sell money, and convince LPs (their limited partner investors) that startups need a lot of capital so they can keep raising huge funds and take fat fees. VCs’ job is to also convince founders to take as much capital as possible - LPs force them to have “ownership targets” or they won’t invest, and VCs need to show they’re able to take big chunks of companies, take board seats, and exert lots of unique influence over direction and execution.
The next generational founders in the next decades ahead will think from first principles, they will see through this, and they will arise from constrained circumstances which breeds discipline, resourcefulness, creativity, customer obsessions, and 10x differentiation. They will be insanely efficient, capital efficient, and dilution sensitive.
Our goal is to give you the best deal in the world, $100k uncapped, minimize your dilution, help you protect your cap table, while then bringing completely unmatched second to none 0 to IPO connections and insights pouring fuel on the fire the entire trajectory. We will be your most uniquely connected, hardest hustling ally on the cap table, your “24/7 outsourced chief of staff,” and build lifelong partnerships and friendships. We believe in work-life harmony, and every detail of your life is a key component in your process to defining a category and building something massive and meaningful, hence there is no detail too small or large to send our way - give us your “impossible asks” and we will relentlessly execute for you.