In this keynote at FounderX 2022, Adeo Ressi reflects on the post‑pandemic moment as a catalyst for bold climate and biodiversity goals, asserting that by 2030 the world can reverse climate change, increase planetary biodiversity, and run entirely on renewable energy. He outlines the Founder Institute’s role in nurturing impact‑oriented entrepreneurs through the “For Progress” designation, which provides measurable impact metrics and public reporting. Recognizing a shortage of capital for such innovators, Ressi describes the creation and rapid growth of VC Lab—a spin‑out accelerator that aims to build 1,000 new venture‑capital firms worldwide by 2025, already responsible for 60‑70% of all new VC firms created. Participants in VC Lab must publicly sign the Mensarius Oath, an ethical code for investors emphasizing fairness and societal good. The program is free, and Ressi invites prospective investors to apply to the upcoming cohort, positioning VC Lab as a vehicle to turn venture capital into a force for global good.
Chapters
Thank you, John. Thank you, everybody. It's— thank you for being here today. It's an exciting time at the Founder Institute, at VC Lab, and in the world. We're coming out of a pandemic. The whole world came together in this moment and really worked to save the sick and the weak among us, taking really big measures to protect our fellow human beings. And it was a beautiful thing. It was difficult for us to do. The pandemic is now in a different phase. We're coming back. And I think it's a really beautiful time. So I wanna talk to you briefly about a beautiful future and a bright future. So when I look at the world today, we had this moment where we all came together and did something. And some things that we thought were impossible, like the price of oil going to zero, happened, right? It actually went negative. And, you know, if you had asked anyone at any time in the last few decades, would the price of oil go to zero, uh, I don't think anyone would plausibly believe that. And it happened. As well as many other things. So we're at an important time of change where I think by 2030 we can, number 1, reverse climate change, number 2, increase the biodiversity on this planet, and number 3, do this all powered by renewables. Okay. And 2030 is now less than 10 years away. It's under 8 years, but we can do it because we have innovators that are coming up with solutions that will empower this vision to be possible, right? We have supporters like the Founder Institute and other organizations helping those innovators to make the future possible. And we're gonna be talking with an innovator, Phil Libin, and a funder, James Joaquin, next. So we'll hear both sides. And they're aligned with a lot of what I'm talking about. And last but not least, you have money coming in to fund the whole thing. We've been working on this because we have the Founder Institute, right, which is helping the innovators in the supporter category. And we have something called VC Lab, which is helping to create investment and bring more money to the table so the innovators can make this change possible by 2030. So, uh, I want to talk a little bit about the history of, uh, the Founder Institute and VC Lab because it's not really well known. A lot of people are still confused. So the Founder Institute is designed to help founders launch companies all around the world. And as John laid out the stats at the opening, we're everywhere today. And we've implemented— we want to help entrepreneurs, whether they're trying to make the world a better place or just trying to optimize things that need improvement. But we want to encourage as many people as possible to work on things that are going to improve the lot of humanity, improve biodiversity on the planet, reduce climate change, and the like. So we created a For Progress designation a few years ago, and you can look up things to work on as an entrepreneur and find metrics to use to, to measure your impact on making the world a better place. And then you can publish those metrics for everyone to see the contributions that making. And that's really the basis of what we've tried to do with For Progress. And we're trying to encourage as many For Progress entrepreneurs as possible. And while we were doing that, we realized there was another big problem. There wasn't enough money in the world today for the amount of innovation that's needed. And we see this firsthand. We're in way more countries in the world and way more cities in the world than there are venture capital markets. So within the Founder Institute, we created a program called VC Lab. We name everything like Funding Lab, VC Lab, et cetera. And the purpose was to really create more venture capital firms all around the world to back the innovators that are gonna make the change that we need to see in the world. Now, as it turns out, it proved to be very successful. We were a significant double-digit percentage of all the new funds created almost right away. And right now in 2022, a mere 2 years after we started the program within the Founder Institute, we're going to probably accelerate somewhere around 60 to 70% of all new venture capital firms created worldwide. So as a result of the growth of that particular line of business, we decided to spin it out as a separate company. So VC Lab is a separate company And our mission is to create 1,000 new venture capital firms by 2025 who are going to power the change that we want to see in the world. So every firm that goes through our program, and we have an accelerator program and it's free, agrees publicly to the Mensarius Oath, which is an ethical code of conduct for— designed specifically for investors. You are encouraged— you take an oath to treat everyone fairly, to work on for the good of yourself and others. And you can read the oath if you're interested, but it is a requirement for everyone that joins our programs that they publicly agree to it because we want the next generation of investors to do good in the world. And we're building the entire venture capital market over from scratch. We're reinventing every document, every agreement, uh, everything. And so we plan to turn venture capital into a force for good in the world, funding the innovators in every city and in every industry so that they can make the world a better place. And then that by 2030, we can live in a world where we've reversed climate change. We can live in a world where we've increased biodiversity, and we can do all of this while powered on renewables. So that's it. Thank you very much. If you're interested in VC Lab, please, you can go apply. We have a next cohort starting in a, in a few weeks' time. And we'd love to have anyone who really thinks that they can be a positive contributor in the world by allocating capital to join the program. It's free and we're here to help.
