Championing the outer echelon of founders — before the world is ready for them
The "upper echelon" is a known quantity. We respect it, but it's crowded up there.
Instead, we look to the outer echelon.
That's where we find the obsessive thinkers who drive outlier returns.
We call themaliens👽
"I'd been working with Echelon for years on different projects, so naturally we wanted them on our team when we started LayerZero."
Bryan Pellegrino
•Founder, LayerZero Labs
The Alienati Community
We know aliens operate on a different frequency, and we are tuned to that wavelength.
We've built a community to work on hard problems together, regardless of whether a company comes out of it.
Obsessed with a problem but don't have all the pieces to the solution figured out yet? Just have some code you wrote at 2am or the makeshift machine you built in your garage? Perfect, you're on Echelon's frequency.
"Echelon" written in Marain
"We wouldn't have even made it to the company formation step without Echelon. It's fair to say that without them, Fervo wouldn't exist."
Tim Latimer
•Founder, Fervo Energy
Don't yet have that thing you're obsessed with but still want to work with us?Get involved in one of these communities
Happy Minute
60-second virtual toast to celebrate a victory in the community every Friday at 5pm PT/8pm ET
Echelon Events
Dive bars, coffee shops, conference after-parties, and other places to spot fellow aliens
Echelon Data Science
Internal data science and AI team working directly on hard technical problems
Stanford Climate Ventures
PhD-level entrepreneurship class launching 50+ companies with $1B+ in follow-on funding
State Bank of Wyoming
Community bank serving the founder network, complete with "Alienati" cards
"Echelon helped write our initial narrative and stepped up to write our first check before anyone else even understood the business."
Dax Craig
•Founder, Pie Insurance
We invest once we've developed founder conviction and they are ready to "jump into the abyss" of company-building
Founder Conviction Framework
Obsession
"What's wrong with this person?"
They are obsessed with a problem no one can solve, but if they could it would change the world.
Unique Fit
"Is this the only person to build it?"
Their unique career assets lead to an "earned secret" that becomes the go-to-market strategy.
Consistency
"Who are they outside of their company?"
Their character is identical in social & professional settings, a proxy for trust in tough times.
"Echelon helped form the company, invested, and were crucial in getting follow-on funding, years before anyone else saw the vision or wrote a check. Without them, I'd be back in Australia and Furno wouldn't exist."
Gurinder Nagra
•Founder, Furno Materials
Standard "Abyss" Investment
Investment Stage
Formation/Pre-Seed
Initial Investment
$250k for 5-10%
Up to $1.5M initial investment for 2nd-time founders.
Additional capital reserved for follow-on investment.
SAFE financing template