Stepping up: Silicon Valley Partnership: The Innovators Fund

by Craig Newmark - 04/30/10 12:18 PM ET

The Department of State has entered in a non-exclusive partnership with The
Innovators Fund (IF), a new Silicon-Valley based venture capital fund that will
launch in Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Turkey, Russia and Malaysia.

The Innovators Fund is being launched in part as a result of President Obama’s
June 2009 Cairo speech and its call to action, and in part as a result of a
discussion that Secretary Clinton had with leading U.S. technology entrepreneurs
and innovators at the Department of State in January 2010, in which the IF’s
Founder participated.

IF will collaborate with a number of existing funds and raise a series of
country-focused seed Funds that will provide angel and seed financing and
mentorship to promising young entrepreneurs. It will have a strong emphasis on
mentorship and will send leading Silicon Valley executives to the countries in
which it will operate to provide intensive mentoring as well as continued online
mentoring and collaboration.