Questions we get asked.

Young people with top 1% ambition who are working on world-changing problems shouldn't have to sell equity just to get real time and capital. We're not a VC and we don't invest in people. We unblock them, with grants from $1K to $25K and introductions to the right people.

No. +EV is a private foundation, not a fund. We don't invest in people, we take no equity or IP, and we don't take a cut of anything. We exist to unlock young people and get them on the right path: grants where money is the blocker, and introductions to the right people where connections are the blocker.

Grants range from $1,000 to $25,000, sized to what you actually need. Most grants will be smaller, and you show results to unlock more. Some people need more money, some need more connections and intros, and many need both. A grant can give you real financial freedom, the ability to devote yourself fully to the work without a day job, classes, or rent stress pulling at your attention. Funds can go toward reasonable living expenses, travel, research, equipment, prototypes, and other costs of actually doing the work.

On top of your grant, fellows can receive up to $25,000 in compute/cloud credits for work that needs serious computing power, like AI, simulation, and data analysis. The amount depends on what your work actually needs. Exact details will be confirmed as we finalize logistics.

No. Most of what we back will be commercial companies, but we're also open to funding research and media brands. A TikTok account or YouTube channel about an impactful subject is fully considered. You don't need to be technical, and you don't need to start a company to apply.

Whoever your work needs: VCs, scientists, exited founders, operators, policy people, and more. Some people need more money, some need more connections and intros, and many need both. Tell us who you most want to meet and we'll do our best to make it happen. Introductions are made at your request and never come with strings attached.

Two programs we admire. Emergent Ventures is Tyler Cowen's grant program at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, which backs people of any age, anywhere in the world, with unusual ideas and very little bureaucracy. The Thiel Fellowship, started by Peter Thiel's foundation in 2011, funds young people to build instead of following the standard path through college, and has supported 300+ fellows.

Both exist to unblock young people with top 1% ambition. +EV differs in a few ways: grants of many sizes from $1K to $25K, as much emphasis on introductions as on money, and an openness to more than companies.

As a start point, here's four things we value:

Scrappiness and hustle. Never wasting a dollar, finding unique paths to customers, audiences, and product-market fit that a well-funded team would skip. We also want the underlying economics to actually work long-term: 1 + 1 has to equal 2, not just a good story.

A deep desire to bring your bold vision into the world. You work nonstop and do whatever's necessary to make it succeed: travel, move, work 100+ hours a week, post content on social media if that's what it takes. That's how passionate you are.

Fast learning and openness to new ideas. Your first idea is rarely your best one. We want people who update quickly. Be flexible about the details but obsessed with the mission and end goal.

Deep talent in a specific area. You could be the best computer scientist in your school, a gifted chemist, a self-taught engineer, whatever your craft is. We believe that when strong, deep talent meets real passion for an important problem, that's when amazing companies and projects begin.

We're not screening for a resume or a finished pitch deck. We're screening for whether you're the kind of person who'll actually get this done.

No. Ideas are cheap, execution is everything. If you're exceptional and obsessed with a problem area, that's enough to apply. It's fine to arrive without a fully formed idea; we can help you find one by connecting you with the right people.

No. We accept fellows who are engineers or scientists, but also welcome people from policy, media, operations, or sales. A media company, or even just a YouTube channel that covers important topics, could be funded. We're not screening for a resume. We're looking for people who bring their ideas to the world, whatever background got them there.

No. You can apply solo or with a team. If you don't have a cofounder yet, we're happy to introduce you to other fellows; some strong teams form that way.

No hard age requirement, we care about talent and drive, not a birth year. That said, the goal is exceptional people working full-time on important problems, especially young people early in their careers, before they default into something safer.

If you're currently in college or high school, this isn't a casual internship, a cool side project you slot in around classes. The goal, if you're selected, is that you drop out or take leave to build full-time, not that you go back to school in the fall and call it a nice break. We won't force you to sign anything promising that up front, but that's genuinely what we're looking for.

Yes, high school students are absolutely eligible, and there's no minimum age to apply. We believe young people can be exceptionally talented, often more than the traditional path gives them credit for.

As with any fellow, the expectation is that you intend to work on this full-time after the fellowship, assuming you're making real progress. We especially encourage high school seniors who are able to delay college to apply.

No. There's no required home base and no relocation mandate. Build wherever makes the most sense for your work; a biotech company might genuinely be better built near a wet lab in North Carolina than anywhere else.

We'll host in-person events from time to time: dinners, small gatherings, and introductions to the people you most need to meet. We want you spending your time building, not sitting in a classroom, so none of it is mandatory. If you think your time is better spent elsewhere, you don't have to come. But we're here for you, and there will be events.

In certain cities, yes: free lab and coworking space, with free catering at the coworking space. It's there if you want it, but nothing about where you work is mandatory, and if you're in a city without space you can still build wherever makes sense.

That's normal. Projects pivot constantly. What matters is that you keep making real progress, not a straight line to get there.

We know some of the most important problems take years to fully solve. For deep tech and biotech, progress can mean proving a key technical milestone, lining up early partners or pilot customers, or reaching a genuinely fundable inflection point, not necessarily shipping a finished product. We size grants and support to that reality.

You do. +EV doesn't take equity or IP rights in exchange for the fellowship.

You keep building. That's the actual goal. +EV will connect you with the right people, including investors where it makes sense, but what you do next, raise money, stay bootstrapped, bring on a cofounder or another fellow, keep using the network, is entirely your call. You might end up working with another fellow. A mentor might want to invest in your company. Both are entirely possible and entirely your call, not something +EV arranges or takes a cut of.

A grant is a launching point, not a finish line. The goal is that you graduate: raise capital, go through an accelerator, or pursue bigger grants for your research. Follow-on grants are possible based on progress, but they are never promised upfront.

This is up to you. If you love your mentor and find them valuable, then sure, you can ask them to invest. They may say no. There's no pressure to ask any mentor to invest.

+EV is a private foundation focused on bringing young people with top 1% ambition to ambitious problems. +EV itself takes no equity in any company and doesn't broker deals or take a cut of anything. What you do after the fellowship, including any investment relationships you choose to pursue, is your decision.

Our rough formula: a huge societal problem, that's neglected or unsolved, where you can plausibly move the needle, and where success can scale enormously, most often as a company that captures enough value to become enormous. We're drawn to areas like healthcare access, animal welfare (cellular agriculture, for example), educational access, climate and the environment, longevity, and water, sanitation and resource abundance, among others. That list isn't a prison. If your work is genuinely solving something important that fits the formula, we want the ability to say yes.

Some are an obvious yes: curing Alzheimer's, reversing a disease, fixing something broken in healthcare or education. Some are an obvious no: a meme coin trading app, a payday loan business, anything that mainly extracts value from people rather than creating it. That's not what +EV exists for.

Most of what we see lives in between. AI is a good example: it's not "impact" in the way curing a disease is, but it's transforming medicine, diagnostics, education, and dozens of other fields for the better, often as a second-order effect rather than the headline pitch. Plenty of genuinely important problems get solved this way, indirectly, as a byproduct of building something excellent.

We don't have a rigid formula for sorting these. We use our best judgment, and we weigh it heavily toward people who seem to have a good heart: people building because they actually want the world to be better, not people who found a clever way to make impact sound good in an application.

Please email us at contact@plusev.tech. We're always looking for great mentors and supporters to help the next generation of builders working on impactful problems.

Mainly it's about you. Passion and work ethic can't be taught. We're backing the right people, not just the right idea. If you're talented, passionate, and driven to work on something consequential, we want to talk.

Yes. Your application is shared with a panel of reviewers who read your answers and watch your videos. Every application is seen by multiple people, and decisions about which applicants move on to the interview stage are made by a committee. No single person decides.

Applications are sorted by area, and we have dozens of people reviewing them. An expert in climate tech reviews climate applications, an expert in biotech reviews biotech applications, and so on. No one person makes the decision on your acceptance or rejection.

Everyone helping with +EV, including our mentors and the people reviewing applications, is doing it pro bono, for free, because they want to support young people. Nobody is making money from this. Please be patient with us, especially as we launch. Replies may be slower than you'd like, and we really appreciate your understanding.

Yes, but not everyone. We expect far more applications than we have spots, so we can't interview everyone or give individual feedback. If you're selected for an interview, we'll reach out directly. If you haven't heard from us after a few months, it's safe to assume we aren't moving forward.

By a selection committee of exited founders, operators, scientists, and engineers, with applications reviewed by experts in the relevant area. No single person decides. The process generally has three stages: an application review, a Zoom interview, and an in-person interview. Exact format may evolve as we learn what works best, but the goal at every stage stays the same: figure out if you're the kind of person who'll actually get this done.

Yes, of course. Add each co-founder in the application. One note: grants are per team, not per founder. A team of three doesn't get three times the money; the grant is sized to the project, same as for a solo founder.

We're aware more of our events will end up clustered at certain times of year, simply because that's when the most college and high school fellows have the room to commit. That's a scheduling reality, not a policy: applications are open all year, and we want people applying and joining whenever the idea is ready, not just at one time of year.

And to be clear: this doesn't exclude past fellows. Every +EV alum, no matter when they received a grant, is always welcome at every event we run, whenever it happens. If you were a fellow three years ago, you can still come. The network doesn't expire.