On October 7, 2026, we closed out VC Lab Cohort 21 and crossed a milestone on the way. Cohort 21 took us past 1,000 venture firms launched through the program, across more than 90 countries.
Kelly Schricker hosted the showcase and three graduates came up to talk about how they got there.
Watch the full session: Cohort 21: Final Showcase and Closing Ceremony
What the funnel looks like
Kelly shared the shape of it on the call, so you can see what you'd be applying into.
Roughly a thousand people applied to the cohort. A few hundred were accepted. Around seventy finished.
We keep it competitive on purpose, because the aim is to work with the people willing to put the work in week after week rather than to hand every applicant a fund.
Kelly's read on who makes it through comes down to two traits, and neither is what people expect. Curiosity, because you'll be learning in public for a long time. And a bias toward action, because nothing about raising a fund rewards waiting.
She also had a useful way of framing what goes wrong. Standing still does more damage than failing does, and the managers who don't finish mostly stalled rather than lost.
Michael Hoy
Michael is a three-time founder who loves sales, which he admits is a strange thing to love.
The way he helps the companies he backs is by getting into the trenches on go-to-market and scaling sales teams. That's what he did as an operator and it's what he's good at.
His wife, a SaaS CEO, pushed him into actually launching. Her line was to stop talking about the thing and do the thing.
What he learned in the cohort wasn't fundraising, because he'd raised for startups before. It was the business of running a fund. How to stage it, how to build a back office professional enough that people trust you with their money, and how to handle LP objections about fund economics.
His closing line was that you get out what you put in, and he still feels like he has more to put in.
Fadi Antaki, BitRoot Ventures
Fadi spent 25 years growing and scaling companies across Egypt and the MENA region, including co-founding the VC firm A15, where he did corporate venture capital, a management buyout and several exits.
Then in his mid-40s he went and did his own startup, during COVID and a currency devaluation. He called it humbling, and it taught him what real support at the early stage is worth.
That's where BitRoot came from. At a portfolio retreat he told founders he wanted to build an accelerator that gets early-stage founders ready for VC funding, and he sent round a form. Enough interest came back from people who trusted him that he needed a structure to put it in.
He had no idea what to do next. A friend who'd been through VC Lab pointed him at the program, and Fadi showed up two months before it started, asking every week when things began.
He expected an education program. What he got was closer to a fast current, and his advice is don't overthink it.
BitRoot's accelerator launches in November. Founders come in for six days to build with AI tools, then the strongest move into a three-month program with investment and follow-on after that.
Leo Lam
Leo opened by thanking the team for helping a total introvert turn into at least a mass extrovert.
He's a scientist founder. He was a professor at the University of Washington, started three companies and sold two, and he's also a fashion photographer.
He'd been angel investing for about 11 years when his co-investors told him he should start a fund, because he could run diligence better than they could. He couldn't figure out how, and he didn't believe he could sell himself.
So where Fadi arrived two months early, Leo arrived a week late. A friend pushed him into it on the grounds that finding out whether he could do it wouldn't hurt him.
In the cohort he used structure as his advantage, and he spent a good part of it sharing deal flow with his peers.
The oath
Everyone who comes through our programs signs the Mensarius Oath. It's about integrity, respect, dignity, transparency and excellence, and it's the standard we hold each other to.
Kelly's point was that venture occasionally gets a bad name from a small number of bad actors, and the community we're building is the answer to that.
Why we run it this way
VC Lab exists because of one conviction. Venture capital done right is one of the most powerful tools we have for solving the biggest problems we face.
The programs are free, with no fees and no equity, because the industry gets better when more people can get into it rather than fewer.
For most of its history the route in was a decade of apprenticeship inside a firm that already existed. The VC Lab firms now running across more than 90 countries are what replacing that route looks like so far.
What to take from the three of them
- Michael didn't need fundraising training. He needed to learn the business of running a firm, and that's most of what the program teaches.
- Fadi arrived with interest from people who trusted him and no structure to put it in. The structure is the part we provide.
- Leo arrived late, convinced he couldn't sell himself. He finished anyway, which says more about what the program is for than any of our marketing does.
Watch the session
Cohort 21: Final Showcase and Closing Ceremony, recorded October 7, 2026. More sessions are on the VC Lab YouTube channel.
Launch your own fund
Cohort 23 opens in the new year, and there's work you can start on now to arrive ahead of it.
VC Lab is a free 14-week accelerator, no fees and no equity. Apply at govclab.com. If you want to learn how venture works before raising anything, start with Venture Institute, and if you're raising funds two through four, look at the Emerging Institute.