Our Story
We're a nonprofit providing support for impact entrepreneurs and startups all over the world.
Stardust Startups provides financial, moral, and social support for the innovative work of emerging entrepreneurs and early-stage startups making positive social and environmental impact in the areas of sustainability, health, and learning.
Stardust is an impact first organization, which means that the social and environmental impact aspects of a project in our Impact Portfolio come before financial profitability. The projects and startups we fund are carefully selected after review by subject matter specialists and approval by our Advisory Board. They quickly launch for local, tangible solutions, and become catalysts for a more forward-looking, accessible, and conscious world.
Stardust Startups recognizes the importance of microgrants, microinvesting, and using the UN Sustainable Development Goals as a framework in all aspects of the work we do. We are an Entrepreneurial Support Organization and a Donor-Advised fund working at a human-scale and striving to make positive social and environmental change.
Funding comes in the form of individual
or team grants of $2,000 (USD) for
selected projects.
Financial support from Stardust is intended for early-stage startups, meaning that it is not intended to fund extensive, multi-year endeavors. Microgrants provide pre-seed funding for a project that will get you on your way to realizing a long-awaited goal, whether that means funding an airplane ticket for important travel, a patent application and business fees, buying important supplies, or enough rent to cover two months rent for your new office.
We know that as an entrepreneur just getting started these small things can add up and cost you time that you could be spending improving your project! We believe that creative, active energy is vital, and we want to make sure yours is prioritized.
In our 2021 study, impact entrepreneurs indicated that receiving a microgrant is a positive, helpful experience, especially when accompanied by a supportive organization like Stardust Startups. The microgrant program is a helpful and easily manageable way to make progress towards impact and business objectives, by paying for necessary early-stage needs of the project, and is a way to instil feelings of certainty, confidence, and relief within entrepreneurs, motivating them to move forward with the business and apply for further funding. 🚀
Here’s what we value most.
Relevant work
The people and projects we support intend to make positive social and/or environmental impact within the core Stardust focus areas.
Active participation
We strongly value sharing ideas and knowledge for a more collaborative environment and ever-growing network of open-minded thinkers.
Diverse community
We embrace the variety of people, backgrounds, and ideas that make up Stardust’s energizing, supportive, and nurturing environment.
Genuine curiosity
We know that retaining a sense of wonder and awe of the world helps us to stay aware and make positive, impactful decisions.
Opportunities for all
We believe in providing an open, accessible, and transparent organization for all: applicants, donors, partners, staff, and all Stardust supporters.
Inspiring & enabling
We want our portfolio and vision to continue to inspire and enable first-timers and experienced entrepreneurs alike to explore new ideas and apply.
Stardust Startups is helping reach the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
We recognize the interconnectedness of all 17 goals and are inspired by the ways they are trying to attain solutions to pressing problems. Though we accept projects fitting within any of the UN’s categories, these 8 most closely reflect Stardust’s goals:
The Stardust team
Meet our amazing group of hard-working co-creators, Board of Directors, Advisory Board, staff, interns and volunteers that make Stardust happen.
Dr. Jean Clause worked as Project Specialist and Community Educator Nutrition & Dietetics, at the Centers of the College of Agriculture, Urban Sustainability and Environmental Sciences (CAUSES) of the University of the District of Columbia after his graduation. He implemented nutritional supplementary education on feeding programs. He also worked as Health and Nutrition Project Manager for Samaritan’s Purse International Relief in Democratic Republic of Congo managing and coordinating all the health and nutrition projects in the country.
He is currently Vice President and Director of Projects of Helping Hand for Survivors, a DRC-based nonprofit aiding and expediting the recovery of victims in war torn communities.
If you’re interested in joining the team
as a volunteer, staff, or member of the
Board of Directors, please contact us at info@starduststartupfactory.org.
Stardust Leverage Point Team
Don Piper
Brenda Searle
Fran Pigott-Harding
Entrepreneur in Residence, Co-Managing Director
Officer Manager
Public Relations Lead
Angus Moloney
Thinker, adventurer, entrepreneur
Angus was spontaneous and always in motion.
Angus’s modus operandi was climbing rocks and trees, jumping on his trampoline, doing gymnastics flips, parkour, spring board and platform diving, or walking on his slack line.
Angus’s mind was as agile as his body. His physical prowess reflected his supple and nimble mind—always leaping and diving towards big ideas. At only 22-years-old, he was well on his way to making substantive contributions to environmental and social justice issues. Opening his own internet business in 2014, Angus was in the process of building a web presence that promoted emerging entrepreneurs in the areas of sustainability, mental and physical health, and learning.
Among others, startups he supported included a massage therapy practice, a job assistance center to help US veterans, and an experiential learning program.
In contrast to Angus’s physical perpetual motion, he had a profoundly calm and centered spirit, connected to his purpose. He was determined to change the world, to make it a better place, and to energize people with fresh and positive ideas.
Angus was insatiably curious and passionate about making and eating vegan food, physical health and mind-body connections, energy fields and quantum physics, renewable and free energy sources, the human brain, and consciousness.
Angus could see the goodness in all around him. His infectious smile brightened every room and lifted the spirits of all those he met. It is hard to imagine a happier, more sincere, loving, eager, and optimistic young man. Many have learned from him and been impacted greatly by his bright and shining life.
Angus Britton Emmett Moloney was born on Friday, August 13th, 1993, in Salida, Colorado. His love of nature and his creative work-around approach to life were built on life with his family in Colorado, living in the mountains above 10,000 feet, where he could look up at the night sky and see the Milky Way.
Angus passed away on September 26th, 2015, as a result of injuries sustained in a fall when hiking in Gregory Canyon in Boulder, Colorado.
Though he was an avid rock climber, his death was not the result of a radical free solo attempt, equipment failure, or falling rock but rather a missed foot placement while scrambling a few feet from the beaten Saddle Rock Trail.
In honor of his bright and beautiful spirit, Angus’s parents (Jean and Jim) and his girlfriend (Camille) began The Stardust-Startup Factory, a 501(c)(3) to maintain and grow his contribution to the world.