Money, Mentoring and a Claim on the Payoff

The New York Times
Monday, August 13, 2012

Money, Mentoring and a Claim on the Payoff

By QUENTIN HARDY

If you believe someone has a great future as an entrepreneur, maybe you should own a piece of it.

That is the premise of an unusual effort by a former Google executive to promote start-ups through the creation of a new investment vehicle. Through the company, Upstart, successful older executives will give enough money to college graduates to see them through the earliest stages of their business ideas.

They also act as mentors, and in return get a claim on a percentage of a decade's earnings. If the entrepreneur's product hits, returns can be as high as 15 percent a year. Not bad, though probably commensurate with the risk.

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