BBN Fund doubles ARIA cohort to 8 projects, hires technical scouts to find outlier researchers
NikoMcCarty · x · 2026-10-14
Eric Gilliam (FreakTakes) shared BBN Fund progress and is hiring technical scouts to find first-rate researchers who don't fit academic or VC-shaped boxes:
- ARIA doubles down: the UK's ARIA expanded its BBN launchpad cohort to 8 projects with £800k+ deployed; BBNs in the ARIA ecosystem have signed $20–30M in ambitious contracts, up from $10M earlier this year
- New funding: a $700k grant from Coefficient Giving enables funding non-ARIA BBNs for the first time; the fund aims for 10X leverage per dollar via revenue-sharing, low-interest loans, and grants
- The role: 'an ideas job' with flexible work arrangements and a premium on technical vision
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