The firm believes the next wave of trillion-dollar companies will come from students solving pressing challenges
Critical Venture Partners announced the launch of its $5 million firm to invest in student and recent alumni founders tackling major crises. The firm is built on the thesis that young entrepreneurs will build the world’s most valuable companies that solve existential threats in climate, healthcare, and economic opportunity.
“Today’s top founders aren’t compromising,” said Max Strickberger, co-founder of Critical Venture Partners alongside fellow UPenn graduates Sam Strickberger, Seungkwon Son, and Wharton School professor Dr. Tyler Wry. “In the last decade, venture has prioritized investing in areas that have served the VC model but created limited societal change. Young founders today are taking a fundamentally different approach, building big companies to solve urgent societal problems.”
Critical Venture Partners provides inception stage funding to startups founded by undergrads, master’s, PhDs, professors, recent graduates, and dropouts. The firm has made three investments: General Galactic, founded by Stanford alumni, which produces fossil-free fuels and chemicals; Mӧbius Industries, founded by an MIT dropout, which mines metals from e-waste; and Stratagen Bio, founded by an HBS Fellow and MIT PhD, which adds quantitative information to MRIs to better diagnose life-threatening diseases.
The firm’s approach includes a dedicated student investment partner program. It currently operates across 12 universities, including Harvard, Howard, Morehouse, UC Berkeley, UPenn, and Stanford. With a network of 40 student investment partners, Critical creates a community of mission-driven talent who source and support peers building companies that push the world forward.
The firm’s investment committee is chaired by David Beisel, co-founder and partner at NextView Ventures (~$500M AUM). Limited partners include Bolt Ventures, Seth Goldman (Chairman, Beyond Meat), Gary Swidler (President, Match Group), Adam Miller (Founder, Cornerstone OnDemand), Aarti Chandna (Partner, Silicon Valley Social Venture Fund), and Andrew Kaplan (Partner, Bain Capital), among others.
Critical is also launching its inaugural University Impact Prize, a pitch competition with a $100K grand prize that encourages more young people to build impactful ventures. The competition is supported by The Yope Foundation’s Michael Baum, the founder of $28B juggernaut Splunk, Goodwin Procter, John McNeil Studio, and the Critical Foundation. Judges and mentors include partners at Khosla Ventures, General Catalyst, and Lowercarbon Capital.
“We believe that America’s students are already working on solutions that matter,” said co-founder Seungkwon Son, “and we’re excited to partner with them from inception.”
Discover the latest trends and insights—explore the Business Insights Journal for up-to-date strategies and industry breakthroughs!
