General Inception, a micro venture capital fund that describes itself as the first-ever “igniter” investment company, launched today with an aim to build companies from inception through scale-up and growth.

As an igniter, General Inception says that it is not an accelerator or traditional venture capital fund, though it still invests in companies. Where General Inception differs is that instead of being an external player, it becomes an integral member of founding teams and stays with companies throughout scale-up and growth for the entire company journey.

General Inception’s focus is partnering with scientific innovators to assist with the critical functions of early-stage business building, including starting capital. Sounding like a VC firm, General Inception provides access to company founders, thought leaders and business executives from different scientific fields, back office infrastructure, regulatory and legal experts, research and development, and manufacturing services to “industrialize” company formation and strategic growth.

Despite officially launching today, General Inception was founded in 2020 and has already co-founded more than 25 companies across fields such as DNA synthesis and surgical devices. The company already has more than 50 full-time team members and has preferred relationships with Triple Ring Technologies, Breadcrumb Software, Wainamics Inc. and Gener8 to scale up prototype development rapidly and provide proof-of-concept data.

“So many incredible and likely impactful discoveries do not fully realize their potential due to the complexities of forming a scalable enterprise,” explained Paul Conley, co-founder and chief executive officer of General Inception. “After decades working as a venture investor, entrepreneur and company leader, I saw an opportunity to bring meaningful innovations to life by becoming an integral part of the founding process and nurturing companies throughout their journeys.”

It’s an interesting idea and one that has seen General Inception already raise $60 million in funding to invest in startups, with a typical investment of between $50,000 and $500,000 into its portfolio companies. Investors in General Inception include Genoa Ventures, Hughes Management Group, Northpond Ventures, OMX Ventures, Paladin Capital Group and Vertical Venture Partners.

“There are huge challenges to take innovations from the lab to product development and market,” said Utkan Demirci, co-founder and inventor of Mercury Biosciences. “General Inception provides an entrepreneurial platform to help with those challenges to facilitate strategic growth and save effort, time, money and energy, and shows what can be achieved collaboratively when you optimize for company development.”

Startups that count General Inception as an igniter investor include Constructive Bio Ltd., Sestina Bio LLC and Switchback Systems.

Image: General Inception