Merge Club

This quarter we gave microgrants to some of the most ambitious builder's we've ever met. - Growing neurons for neuron-based computing - Mechanized exoskeletons to enhance human strength - Building the first pulse jet powered VTOL More on these projects and grantees below 👀

More and more microgrant/fellowship programs are helping us track and open-source the growth of the space!

Common Merge Grantee W

We're *actually* day zero supporters @mergedotclub Accepted to YC 140 days after grant ✅ Discovered + named 3 new species of viruses 242 days after grant ✅ $100k follow-on grant 336 days after grant ✅

We've reviewed thousands of @joinodf applications over the past three cohorts. It's given us a really solid pulse on what people are building in technology right now. Here's what we saw 🧵

These quarterly reports on microgrants are awesome. Love that @osventuresllc and @evm_capital are collaborating with Merge on this — heard more orgs are contributing to the next one as well!

Heard some VCs copied the Late Night Coffeeshop format we’ve been hosting for over a year. Just found out theirs ends at 10:30pm. 😏 Hmu if you want to come to our next LATE night coffeeshop. 🌝

Finally met the 🐐 behind @solofounding and @joinodf IRL 😁

@aridutilh and @mergedotclub are curating the world's top micro-grants programs and providing an excellent view of the Grant funding landscape. If you're planning to apply to any Grants, this is a useful snapshot.

Every single young person working on ambitious problems with technology should have access to the resources they need to get started. This past quarter, we’ve seen 25% growth in microgrant programs, a 158% increase in growth rate from Q1 📈🧵

Announcing ODF26. Explore starting a startup in SF. Find collaborators and friends. Make progress. It all starts September 5th. Don't miss — apply at @joinodf

if you're a part of any of these communities it's an instafollow: @joinodf @solofounding @mergedotclub @ycombinator @hf0 @fdotinc @southpkcommons

Building rocket-propelled skateboards or covert UAVs in your garage? PSA to teenagers applying for microgrants: @AlexaKayman and I are doing a @hackclub AMA tonight: - which programs are for you - what reviewers are looking for - how to maximize funds, etc DM me to RSVP :)

pre-seed accelerators? nah. these programs will believe in you WAY before @tylercowen Emergent Ventures (Global) @mergedotclub (Global) @1517fund Medici Grant (NA) @joinodf (SF) @osventuresllc (Global) @evm_capital (Global) @bagelfund (Global) @magnificentgrnt (Global)

There's an ODF company on track to become a unicorn this year that you've never heard of. They don't have an X account. They never announced a fundraise. You can just build a great business for years and few beyond your customers need to know about it.

Merge grant winners are building amazing things!

LLMs can handle dialects, tones, context and even fix grammar errors, something Google Translate simply can’t do, so my bet is that LLMs are the future of language translation.

We are giving no-strings checks to builders all over the world. The outcomes so far are insane —check out what our grantees are up to 👇

Want a better future? Fund the kids building it.