Why Now
"Why don't you just go try it and see if it works?"
We did. With small, early funding from the Belong Foundation and the Cosmos Institute, we put our model to the test, supporting researchers, building infrastructure, and running live experiments in what upstream discovery funding could look like.
Here's what that early investment unlocked:
A High-Agency Team, Built from Scratch
We assembled a team across biotech, AI philosophy, systems finance, and the internet's weirdest corners. What united us wasn't discipline or pedigree—but a shared commitment to backing ideas before they're institutionally legible.
Foundational Research That Guides Our Strategy
We published two core papers with our Head of Research, Dr. Inês Hipólito, to reframe how we prioritize and fund:
- The Wicked and the Complex: A New Paradigm for Societal Problem-Solving
- Redefining Priorities: Framework for Identifying and Mapping Critical Human Problems
These serve as internal scaffolding for how we scout, evaluate, and deploy capital.
Cultural Infrastructure That Amplifies Early Insight
We launched a series of salons, essays, and collaborations that make frontier thinking visible and contagious. Our Socratic Salons now run in cities like New York, Cambridge, and Seoul, with more to come. We've partnered with groups like Interintellect, Common Tools, and the Good Science Project to surface new discourse through essays like The Paradox of Progress, Slow Cancellation of Innovation, and projects like Common Ground. We launched a podcast series, Friends of Analogue, to surface the stories and theories shaping new disciplines. We've also begun building the Second Renaissance, a curated space for opportunities across this frontier.
Grants to Extraordinary Explorers
We funded Michael Edward Johnson, whose theory of vasocomputation reframes blood flow as a substrate of computation, and Omar Shehata, who's building open-source tools to map how memes and ideologies move online—essentially tracing the immune system of digital culture.
Catalyzed Downstream Effects
These grants weren't just isolated wins. They catalyzed institutions of their own. Michael's work seeded the Symmetry Institute. Omar's became the foundation for the Open Research Institute. These were emergent outcomes that we didn't expect beforehand, exactly the kind of second-order effect we aim to enable.
What This Proves
We didn't wait: we ran the experiment, and the early results are clear. It is possible to build an alternative R&D ecosystem that funds insight before it's obvious, and helps shape what becomes possible in the world.
More experiments are in the pipeline: new funding models, audiovisual media, and more. To make these possible, and scale what's already working, we need your help.