The Mistletoe Foundation is now Momental Foundation (since 2020).

The Momental Foundation is a grantmaking foundation and impact-focused startup accelerator. Our mission is to build bridges between the academic, entrepreneurial, and civil communities to create a more human-centered and sustainable future through technology.

Founded in 2018 as the "Mistletoe Foundation," the Momental Foundation is an independent spinoff of Mistletoe, Inc and a proud member organization of the global Mistletoe “Collective Impact Community" headed by Japanese entrepreneur, visionary, and philanthropist, Taizo Son.

The Community is a global venture organization with the lofty ambition of addressing the problems humanity faces in the near and long-term future. It incubates and invests in startups embedded in projects around building new innovation communities. Since 2013, Mistletoe, Inc has invested >USD $150M in over 100 startups and 20 venture funds.

Momental Foundation is led by Founder and Executive Director, Jaclyn Selby, who also serves the

Mistletoe, Inc global "Collective Impact Community" as Technology Evangelist.

Our grants support independence and exploration in early-career scientific research and our accelerator program engages academic scientists in with scientists from multiple institutions and multiple fields to help startups advance the state of science and technology for the public good. We are proud to be building a global community that brings together entrepreneurs, academics, and changemakers that include nonprofits, venture investors, government agencies, and civil society organizations.

The Foundation does not make direct venture investments in startups or take equity for our services.

To achieve the best funding alignment, MRF Startups seeking capital are referred to our network of trusted partners. The focus of our prestigious MRF Startup Collaboration accelerator program is to provide significant and unique in-kind resources tailored to the needs of hardware and biotech startups.

The Mistletoe Research Fellowship

Our flagship initiative is the Mistletoe Research Fellowship (MRF) .

Since launching our 2018-2019 pilot cohort, MRF has worked with a pioneering group of research universities to enable over 100 of the most promising scientists and engineers to expand their career potential, skillset, and training by bringing their expertise to hardware and biotechnology startups working on frontier technologies with the goal of benefiting humanity. Our select group of twelve R1 (highest standard) university partners in the United States and Singapore represents a diverse array of elite public and private research institutions committed to innovation.

MRF is an umbrella for two programs: The MRF Startup Collaboration and the Unfettered Research Grant.

The MRF Startup Collaboration:

The MRF Startup Collaboration is an unconventional accelerator for early-stage hardware and biotech startups with humanitarian potential. Each participating MRF Startup collaborates with its own small, dedicated team of our "Research Fellows," STEM postdocs and PhD candidates who are selected in a highly competitive process from our university partners. Over the course of this remote program, each MRF Team helps its partner startup to advance their R&D capabilities and improve their product by 1) developing a "solutions" proposal to address an R&D challenge and 2) expanding the startup's "knowledge base" around relevant technologies and scientific principles to support improved R&D roadmapping and meet investor/stakeholder expectations for innovation management.

Each year, over 1500 startups are pre-screened for the MRF Startup Collaboration Program. The Foundation individually reaches out to a small number of startups meeting our finalist criteria and issues a time-limited invitation to apply and interview for our startup fellowship. Since beginning the program in 2018, we have accepted between three to nine startups into each cohort.

The Momental Foundation supports our MRF teams and ensures deliverables by providing our Research Fellows with experienced team mentors, guiding project management, and offering resources and extensive support to both Research Fellows and MRF Startups via our Online Learning Community platform, including a dedicated Community Manager and access to our expert webinar series.

As "co-learners" in this unique accelerator program, scientists and founders build and improve capabilities that include project management, collaboration, communication. Startups especially build essential "survival" skillsets around outsourcing and working with outside experts and teams.

This program also breaks new ground in working with our incredible universities in a first-of-its kind agreement that preserves the intellectual property rights of our startup founders while respecting the institutional and employment policies of university partners.

The Unfettered Research Grant:

Each of our Mistletoe Research Fellows is also a participant in our Unfettered Research Grant Program and the recipient of a $10,000 research funding award. This rare, unrestricted funding opportunity offers these academic scientists a rare chance to engage in independent research, encouraging meaningful growth, independent exploration, and risk - even serendipity and play - in their scientific research.

As of 2021, the Momental Foundation has proudly awarded Unfettered Research Grants to 104 Mistletoe Research Fellows.

Our Values: The Five Principles

Orchestrate Innovation

An orchestra is an ensemble of performers co-creating a musical outcome that is more than the sum of its parts. We combine elements and resources that spark new ideas, companies and technologies. We challenge convention and disrupt norms around the meaning of partnerships, social impact, and technology ventures.

Social Change through Entrepreneurship

We believe the best way to engender change is to support social entrepreneurs with innovative ideas and technologies. Mistletoe Foundation and Mistletoe, Inc are dedicated to helping entrepreneurs access the resources, capital, expertise and mentorship they need to change the world for the better.

Innovation By Community

Creating a large scale impact on society requires large scale collaboration. Unrestricted by geography, our communities of practice provide support for a diverse network of professionals and thought-leaders with deep knowledge and experience who can launch projects with demonstrable solutions and share ideas.

Human-Centered Design

The 20th Century was driven by capitalism and defined by growth through competition. We aim for a 21st Century characterized by community and institutional structures centered around people. We build technological solutions that stem from empathy and understanding of the individuals and communities for whom they are designed.

Sustainable Solutions

We believe solutions to humanity's problems are those that respect the environment and support sustainable living. Due to the rise of industrial activities across the globe, our environment has suffered degradation and our current situation is not stable. Mistletoe works with entrepreneurs, non-profits, and frontier innovations that will galvanize a 'greener' future.