ASTRALABS 🚀

We've established a new standard in the startup ecosystem by making funding, growth, and innovation accessible for every entrepreneur in the new remote economy - regardless of their stage, background, or location.

In just three short years, we've built a coalition of 1000's of top startup founders, industry experts, venture capital, and angel investors dead-set on rebuilding the global economy post-COVID-19 together - because if we don't do it- who will?

We've laid the foundation and we now want to invite you to be a part of our team. This is a grand invitation to a big vision, so let's dive in and explain what we're building:

At ASTRALABS, we launch, acquire, and scale startups that bring value to the startup and investor ecosystem- a streamlined and vertically integrated portfolio focused on owning and acquiring multiple startups focused on innovation and entrepreneurship.

To be specific, ASTRALABS is our parent company. We own our subsidiaries either fully, or as part of our investments, and we are inviting you to invest in the parent company - the UMBRELLA CORPORATION to be exact - or our Berkshire Hathaway but for startups.

How Does it Work? 

The ASTRALABS process starts with our startup accelerator, the Newchip Accelerator, a unique one of its kind program across 80+ countries that we founded on the premise of access to entrepreneruship for all. 

See, there are many reasons startups fail, but the majority of these reasons can be summed up in: "lack of access to resources" - whether that is capital, mentors, or networks - second to that, true entrepreneurs will make it work and sacrifice it all to. getacross the line.

Prior to COVID-19, the top accelerators in the world were only graduating roughly 1,000~ startups per year; compared to the 1,000,000+ startups that actually launch yearly (that is, less than 1% of startups that launch will get access to these coveted programs).

Importantly, studies have shown that startups that graduate from accelerator programs have significantly more success, so we were determined as a single company at Newchip to double the innovation of the entire globe by a 2X factor.

And we did it, with your help. In fact, we're on track to potentially 3X it in 2022.

How Did We Do This?

Through hard work, ingenuity, and the skin of our teeth. Yes.. 2021 was our toughest year yet. But by graduating 1,000+ startups ourselves, we graduated more than all of the top programs in the world graduated. -that is a big deal and has already impacted millions.

Why ASTRALABS?

We decided we would create a parent company focused on finding the best startups in our portfolio, startups that bring value to the entire ecosystem, and that we'd acquire them; or invest in them to build a portfolio of vertical synergies to rival the behemoths in the Valley.

Given our immense access to startups, we have an opportunity to understand what the market needs and cater to that, but also to find those solutions amongst our portfolio base to integrate them into our ecosystem and the marketplace that we're building.

This provides that startup with access to an immediate and massive potential customer-base (in our entire portfolio) to include accelerator companies, alumni, our mentor network, our investor network, our affiliates, and all others that are part of our ecosystem depending on what each individual startup has to offer.

Now we don't always keep businesses, for example if we determine that we'd be more efficient in generating value by selling off a line of business and allocating the capital elsewhere, we do that; we can also stabilize it and collect the profits to distribute.

Join Professional Investors in a New Way of Doing Things

Your typical startup incubator invests capital and expertise in idea-stage businesses in exchange for a small amount of equity, while accelerators operate in a similar way for post-product launch, post-revenue, and post-MVP companies. 

Not ASTRALABS. While ASTRALABS  operates Newchip as a warrant and resource fee-based accelerator, we also aim to be an industry-leading venture studio as well.

Meaning we build wholly-owned startups from the ground up and acquire our best accelerator startups.

Having decades of entrepreneurial experience, we understand what founders need and the roadblocks they face. 

Because of this we don’t just fund startups as investors, we start and acquire startups.

We have a truly step-by-step process to recruit top-talent and engineer startups to succeed with the right balance of resources.

We are not just direct investors, we're portfolio partners via an ecosystem of products, services, and mentors from launch to exit/IPO/acquisition (potentially even by us).

Our eggs are never in one basket because our vertical focus is the startup ecosystem itself - thus so long as businesses exist, there will be a demand.

It’s a big vision, we know - but we also know what we’re doing. This is the time to do it. And we can do it together. Join us on our mission!

A New Take on the Traditional Model

Even though we may not operate like other accelerators with direct investment as our primary focus, does not mean that we are not participating in some way, though true to form we bring our own innovative approach instead of following tradition.

Via our wholly-owned fund management company Journey Venture Partners we can create external funds where the carry that other VC funds earn goes ASTRALABS. 

But instead of a vanilla VC fund, we are planning on creating ready­ to-invest portfolios of multiple diversified early stage startups that investors get exposure to via a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV). 

Unfortunately, these SPVs will only be open to accredited investors so direct investment in these will be limited, however, ASTRALABS being loyal to all its investor, accredited or not, will capture value for shareholders via the carry, which is normally 20% of all profits though this can change.

Journey Venture Partners will package a ready-to-invest slate of companies into an SPV that it manages. All the companies are Newchip Accelerator companies, and that gives a level of access to information that is not common in the venture space. 

Our Newchip Accelerator team works with these companies over six months and many hours as the founders of these companies go through a very specific curriculum and series of actions. 

While we work with companies that traditionally fall into the angel-space, since they generate superior returns over time, our structured approach means we take a VC level of time and thoroughness to our due diligence process.

Capital Efficiency

Imagine the following scenario: (1) a company that is worth $1M, (2) that company becomes worth $3M after 2 years, (3) the next $1M growth will take another 2 years, (4) you have the opportunity to buy 3 more companies at $1M a piece by selling the $3M company and each new company will each grow $1M in 1 year. 

The most efficient approach here is to sell your existing company and buy the three smaller ones with higher growth potential. Obviously, this is very simple and we are ignoring fees, time to do all of this, and the risk of no growth, but there are scenarios where once you factor all that in it makes sense to cash out and reinvest in something else. A nice name for this concept is “bang for your buck.”

TLDR: ASTRALABS will seek to grow the wholly-owned startups under its umbrella, acquire the startups in it's portfolio that have the most synergy to scale, and if it makes sense to sell that subsidiary after the rapid growth phase and look at other opportunities; we will in order to maximize the value of capital efficiency for investors.

"To all current and new prospective investors (or shareowners as we like to say),

First, I want to give a shout-out to all of our current VC’s and accredited investors that have put in the blood and sweat along with us to build ASTRALABS.

And second I want to thank you for allowing us to open a limited offering on Wefunder and enabling everyday people to join in on this journey with you!

This week we open investing in ASTRALABS to the world.

We are building a platform where tens of thousands of entrepreneurs around the world will be able to come, discover their passion, and build the companies of their dreams.

With the challenges humanity faced in 2020, we find ourselves now in a remarkable new world, rife with risks but also opportunities.

It truly is Day One for a remote startup economy post-COVID 19.

Given the devastation of this last year, we have a newfound passion and drive to not just focus on America but on the entire global recovery and the impact of a borderless internet.

In 2021, we will have to make many conscious and deliberate choices as consumers, entrepreneurs, investors, and operators, some of which will be bold and unconventional.

We’ve seen a lot of innovation in the past ten years, where we’ve opened our minds to things we never would have before, like letting strangers stay in our homes with us (Airbnb) or driving us to work (Uber).

In the post-Covid world, there will be room for even greater innovations.

Hopefully, some will turn out to be winners. Certainly, some will turn out to be mistakes- and in those, we aspire to only have successful failures that we learn from.

Overall, data-driven diversification is our strategy - and we commit to always test to see what the market wants because the market drives innovation.

We invent on behalf of our customers, even when they don't yet know what they want or need and we commit ourselves to a single infrastructure focus for the startup economy.

At ASTRALABS, we want to invite you to join us on this journey, we want you to win when we win, and we want you to learn as we do when we inevitably also have successful failures.

We've seen amazing growth in 2021, but you don't reach the moon in a day- in fact, it took Americans 10 years to put a man there.

We're building a company that we hope all of us can tell our grandchildren about and that you all can say "I was one of the first to be a part of it".

This is a business of risk, however, in this raise, we hope to address those risks and hope to be a public company focused on growth, transparency, and long-term opportunities.

We predict the next few years are going to be exciting and we hope that you make the choice to join us (or for current shareowners, double down) on this journey to the stars."

- Andrew Ryan (Rafols)
Founder & CEO of Newchip

• 💰 Access to $1B+ in startup deal flow with multiple startups exiting in 2020 and 2021.
  
• 📈 Revenue growth of >300%+ from 2019, 2020, & 2021 across our product lines. 
• 🚀 Multiple positive exits for alumni companies in 2021 via our accelerator, and we expect to announce more in 2022 as we continue to grow.
• 💵 $7M+ in funding raised from investors; including execs from Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse, Yeoman Capital, JadeValue Fund, Sputnik, Youbi Capital & Polymath Capital.
• 🤝 Expanded to 6 continents in 2020 (we're everywhere but Antarctica ☃️) and developed 3,000+ VC, angels, angel groups, and corporate innovation partnerships.
• 🌎 High social impact: our accelerator graduated 250+ female and minority founders in 2021 (graduating in record numbers globally)

Two of the most common questions we hear are “What is a venture studio?” and "What is its place in the startup investor ecosystem?".

First, a venture studio is a venture that aims to create multiple companies in rapid succession. This model is sometimes referred to as a startup factory or “parallel entrepreneurship” in some MBA textbooks. 

Our goal is to maximize the synergy between these different companies by keeping them closely aligned so that we are maximizing overall value.

To be classified as a venture studio, there are three generally accepted industry criteria that the studio must meet:

• The resources of the venture studio are focused on creating startups from the ground up, meaning that there is a lot of time, effort, and dedication focused on working on a given project for a segmented period of time with a specific allocation of resources. 
• The venture studio builds several different startup companies in rapid succession so that they are often working on multiple prototypes at the same time, sometimes even competing with each other internally to see who succeeds.
• The venture studio has an infrastructure in place that lends itself to an efficient company-building machine. The venture studio often pools its manpower, technical tools, and skills to build several projects in a year, reusing infrastructure in an efficient manner.

Source: Thibaud Elziere, Startup Studios: The Rise of Human Capital

People often confuse Venture Studios with Incubators and Accelerators:

1. An Incubator typically receives a small amount of equity in idea stage business in exchange for capital and expertise vs. just starting it from scratch.

2. An Accelerator typically operates similar to an incubator but for post-launch or post-MVP companies - think "accelerate growth" vs "build from scratch".

While ASTRALABS operates an Accelerator, at the core, we are a Venture Studio with multiple startups under the same holding company structure. 

However, we also differ in that we see ourselves as an ecosystem as opposed to a single entity - we're multiple companies vertically integrated with the same mission.

ASTRALABS is the new brand and parent company of the Newchip Accelerator. 

Newchip is the #1 remote accelerator (measured by companies joining in a year) grew to international acclaim and became a world-recognized brand during COVID-19. ASTRALABS also is the parent company of both Sofos.ai and Journey Venture Partners.

This is a public opportunity for our network of investors to join.

We intend to use the funds to continue technology development, marketing, advertising, and revenue-generating activities allowing us to grow current and future revenue streams.

We plan to spend the remainder of funds on expanding our portfolio of wholly-owned startups with a focus on building and or acquiring startups that we can take to profitability and grow, utilizing our unique resources within 6-12 months.

ASTRALABS provides a different investment opportunity from every other company raising via Equity Crowdfunding. With ASTRALABS, instead of putting all of your eggs into one basket, you get exposure to the hundreds of startups in which we take positions.

When you invest in ASTRALABS, you are investing in a company that owns and works to acquire diversified, cash-generating business units, each with asset protection and a significant opportunity of de-risked upside built into our overall business model.

The core of which comes from fee for service and software packages in addition to taking options to purchase stock (warrants or options for equity - we call these equity warrants) in the startups we work with to help them fundraise and grow in our portfolio.

This has resulted in a diversified warrant portfolio of over $500M+ if all warrants were exercised, across 20+ verticals, 200+ cities, and 35+ countries; of which ASTRALABS investors benefit from, on day one.

One of the greatest values of our model is our ability to cross-sell across our portfolio companies which results in decreased marketing costs, increased customer life-time-value, and continuity of relationship and service for the over 1,000+ startups we have worked with.

However, we believe the most important reason for investing in us is because you believe in our mission and vision to break down barriers to entrepreneurship and investing in VC.

We believe that entrepreneurs have the potential to improve the quality of life for billions of people globally post-COVID-19 and we're going to lead the charge.

Want to learn more? Learn why 2,000+ investors believe in us below!

Why not crowdfunding? We were there when the JOBS Acts was signed into law and we've been a part of the mission that has been equity crowdfunding since 2016. 

We have VCs and professional angel investors around the world backing us to solidify and bring confidence to public investors but the why is separate.

We originally started Newchip as a platform for everyday investors to discover startups they could invest in via Reg CF, and from Day One we have focused on building something meant to be owned by the people that we bring the most value to; investors and entrepreneurs.

So yes, we want you to be a part of the journey with us and bring forward a different future in technology and startups!

Amazon truly is the great startup of our generation and potentially the next generation as well. That is why we've built ASTRALABS around Anderson's 14 Growth Principles of Jeff Bezos. 

We believe that by setting a foundation similar to what built a trillion-dollar company, we can build not just a global infrastructure, but a global culture as well. 

Read more about our vision and principles in our updates below:

ASTRALABS makes money through its operating subsidiaries that earn revenue for their various products and services.

One of the important questions when it comes to our Venture Studio model is how we make returns aside from revenue. The answer is "equity" and in our case, "equity warrants".

Equity is incredibly valuable to startup companies, particularly given the potential for massive returns with the success of even one product prototype.

Take for example a single warrant or option to invest up to $250k into a startup valued at $5M dollars.

That option, if exercised, is worth 5% of that startup. Now if you exercise it immediately, there is no immediate benefit and you take the same risk as other investors.

However, if you wait until the startup is worth $25M to exercise, your 5% warrant for $250k is now worth 5x more ($25M divided by $5M = multiple of value warrant is worth)

That warrant is now worth exercising as you're making an immediate portfolio return, but there are many other ways to generate immediate value from the success of our client startups such as selling the warrant off to an interested investor.

We've taken this to scale with hundreds of startups in our portfolio and over time these portfolio companies may increase in value and eventually exit, providing returns. 

The equity warrants allow us the time we need to see who ends up winning, and at that time we can decide how to proceed with the equity warrant.

When you invest in Berkshire Hathaway, you are investing in Warren Buffet and the entire portfolio that he curates and manages, in addition to all the companies that Berkshire owns and operates. 

The warrants present a strong opportunity for additional value, but the focus of the business is our operating lines of revenue. We have no intention of acting as an investment company.

With Journey Venture Partners, we will be creating the ready-to-invest portfolios from our Accelerator companies, and the carry will go to the company so we can benefit from the growth of our companies without being direct investors. 

Astralabs shareholders can benefit from our operating companies, and our robust deal flow through our warrants and Journey Venture Partners.

Our goal is to eventually go public. That would allow liquidity for investors and a publically traded investment asset that is focused on early-stage startups.

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Not Sure Whether You Want to Invest?

If you’re unsure whether we’re the right fit for you, do check out our ‘Ask a question’ - page. With 50+ Q&A, we've likely already answered your questions- and if not - just ask!

*FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS: THE OFFERING MATERIALS MAY CONTAIN FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS AND INFORMATION RELATING TO, AMONG OTHER THINGS, THE COMPANY, ITS BUSINESS PLAN AND STRATEGY, AND ITS INDUSTRY. THESE FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS ARE BASED ON THE BELIEFS OF, ASSUMPTIONS MADE BY, AND INFORMATION CURRENTLY AVAILABLE TO THE COMPANY’S MANAGEMENT. WHEN USED IN THE OFFERING MATERIALS, THE WORDS “ESTIMATE,” “PROJECT,” “BELIEVE,” “ANTICIPATE,” “INTEND,” “EXPECT”, "GOALS", AND SIMILAR EXPRESSIONS ARE INTENDED TO IDENTIFY FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS, WHICH CONSTITUTE THE FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS. THESE STATEMENTS REFLECT MANAGEMENT’S CURRENT VIEWS WITH RESPECT TO FUTURE EVENTS AND ARE SUBJECT TO THE RISKS AND UNCERTAINTIES THAT COULD CAUSE THE COMPANY’S ACTUAL RESULTS TO DIFFER MATERIALLY FROM THOSE CONTAINED IN THE FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS. INVESTORS ARE CAUTIONED NOT TO PLACE UNDUE RELIANCE ON THESE FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS, WHICH SPEAK ONLY AS OF THE DATE ON WHICH THEY ARE MADE. THE COMPANY DOES NOT UNDERTAKE ANY OBLIGATION TO REVISE OR UPDATE THESE FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS TO REFLECT EVENTS OR CIRCUMSTANCES AFTER SUCH DATE OR TO REFLECT THE OCCURRENCE OF UNANTICIPATED EVENTS. 

NOT AN INVESTMENT VEHICLE OR INVESTMENT COMPANY: WHILE ASTRALABS MAY MAKE INVESTMENTS, IT IS NOT WHOLLY AN INVESTMENT VEHICLE, VENTURE CAPITAL FUND, HEDGE FUND,  SPECIAL PURPOSE VEHICLE, OR OTHER POOLED INVESTMENT VEHICLE. THE MAJORITY OF FUNDS RAISED AND REVENUES MAY GO TOWARD OPERATIONS OF THE BUSINESSES, EXPANSION OF NEW REVENUE LINES OR NEW VENTURE STUDIO PROJECTS, IN ADDITION TO POTENTIAL ACQUISITIONS THAT MANAGEMENT BELIEVES WOULD VERTICALLY SERVE AND EXPAND THE POTENTIAL AND SERVICES OF THE GROUP OF ENTERPRISES & OTHER USES PER THE USE OF FUNDS AND OR TO THE NEEDS OF EACH SUBSIDIARY.