For the past decade, SCADpro has incubated and accelerated ideas with hundreds of Fortune 500 companies from across the globe. In any given week, multiple results-oriented creative partnerships are at work within our innovation studio. Students from more than 40 design majors and over 100 countries, unlock key insights and create impactful results for the world’s leading brands. SCADpro students learn to push past the most obvious “good” ideas to create bolder, unexpected, and more impactful experiences.
Three years ago it was only natural that we’d begin incubating our own new ventures. As a pioneer in the alternate reality industry and a $75B gaming market growing month over month, our first entrepreneurial initiative, SCAD+, focused on helping first-time alumni develop commercial gaming and VR products. What began as pre-seed capital and mentor resources, has grown into a $2MM Seed Fund.
Never before have creative business leaders been in more demand to improve the world. SCADpro Fund invests in early stage SCAD alumni entrepreneurs solving problems through innovation by design. As the preeminent source of knowledge in the fields we teach, SCAD’s graduates are entrepreneurs that lead. SCADpro Fund is driven to accelerate our diverse founder’s impact on industry and the world.
Manifestors
SCADpro is investing in ‘manifestors’. The world needs creative business leaders that can see through surface problems, envision a new future, and summon the strengths around them to manifest that alternate future.
We’re currently looking for SCAD alumni that are launching and growing investable businesses. We’re interested in diverse problems that cut across industries, if not even intersect one another. Physical, digital, and service-based product companies are welcome to apply. Not mandatory, but the ideal founder has previous experience in a growing company — preferably in a leadership role.
Join us in welcoming this amazing group of entrepreneurs!
Fund 2020 Cohort
Deepr®, founded by Austin Webster (B.F.A, Industrial Design, 2006) and former Motown Records executive Darrell Thompson, is an Atlanta-based music discovery app that provides a patent-pending platform for users to create, import and share unique personalized playlists based on the creators behind the music they love. Apple Music, Spotify Premium and YouTube users can quickly explore and organize music, with a simple, clean and user-friendly interface that presents song credits and biographies using music metadata. Together, they want to give fans a new way to collect and discover songs, and new ways for those who make the music get the attention, respect and credit they deserve.
Liist, founded by ex-Instagram Creative Director Allan Holmes (B.F.A., Advertising Design, 2011), is changing the way people organize and share their favorite destinations. Liist auto-magically converts your screenshots from Instagram to a personal map using machine learning, turning the no-go screenshot folder on your phone into a go-to map of all the places you intended to save for later. It also has an algorithm that lets folks import their saved locations from Google Maps and organize them neatly into ‘Hit Lists’ they can share with friends. With the support of SCAD Liist plans on becoming everyone’s home for storing and sharing recommendations.
Q4SPORTS, co-founded by Quintin Williams (B.F.A., Industrial Design, 2011), is an innovative athletic company committed to athletes at all levels of “Working 4 Yours”. Headquartered in Los Angeles, Q4 was founded on the four principle elements needed to succeed in any game — Purpose, Passion, Commitment, Focus. Their innovative business model includes creating and designing patented technologies to improve performance of all athletes regardless of where and how they play. Their signature Player Edition shoes (PE’s) give professional athletes the opportunity to customize, wear and sell their own shoe. Through digital and social media channels, athletes are able to capitalize on their professional athlete status when strategically used as an asset, allowing them to share in the success of the brand. They make athletes business partners, allowing them to share directly in the success of Q4 while simultaneously being incentivized for global promotion and distribution of their own shoe.
The Big Favorite, founded by Eleanor Turner (B.F.A., Fashion Design, 2008), is reviving a cotton workwear company once led by her great grandfather as a sustainable and zero waste undergarments brand. Starting with Pima Cotton undershirts and underwear for men and women, she’s aiming to engineer recyclable clothing, create circularity, and a market from post-consumer textiles. Eleanor brings her experience from over a decade working for brands like J.Crew, Tory Burch and Tommy Hilfiger, and co-founding her first successful DTC company, women’s workwear brand, Argent, backed by Peter Thiel’s Founder’s Fund. Look for The Big Favorite this fall!
Fund 2021 Cohort Application Timeline and Info Sessions
Applications for our Fund 2021 cohort are open! Any interested can apply now via our contact form here. We’ll be reviewing submissions and signing deals on a rolling basis through the remainder of the year.
In addition, we’ll be hosting monthly info sessions about the Fund via Zoom. Follow us on LinkedIn and Instagram and stay tuned for more details on where to sign up.
