Eric Ries Joins Unshackled as an “Incorruptible” Partner
Unshackled Ventures and Eric Ries are joining forces to empower the world’s most ambitious founders, helping them stay mission-driven and incorruptible so humanity can flourish.
Today marks an important step in Unshackled’s evolution. We are welcoming Eric Ries, creator of The Lean Startup and one of the most influential thinkers in modern company building, as an “Incorruptible” Partner in our next fund.
While many know Eric for introducing Lean Startup principles to the world, his recent work focuses on a deeper question: Why do some companies endure and outperform for generations while others fade? Product-market fit matters, but something bigger drives long-term success. Eric’s research shows that companies anchored in a deep and durable mission are 6x more likely to survive and consistently outperform their peers in long-term value creation and resilience. These companies invest more in innovation, maintain healthier financial discipline, and build trust that compounds over decades.
“If you look at most industries, there is usually at least one company that chose a different path. They put their mission at the core as part of their path to success. Companies like Cloudflare, Devoted Health, Costco, Patagonia, GitLab, and many others have built their companies in ways that have led to long-term success beyond profitability. They have created deeply loyal customers, truly happy employees, influenced climate change, set new standards, and more. And they outperformed their competition.”
— Eric Ries, Creator, The Lean Startup
More than fifteen years ago, Eric gave us an evidence-based framework and language for going from zero to one. Concepts like build-measure-learn, product-market fit, minimum viable product, and the pivot feel obvious today, but they were far from mainstream when he introduced them. Now he is offering another way to think about company building, one where the purpose is not only to deliver breakthrough technology but to create broader, positive impact.
As we read the manuscript for his forthcoming book Incorruptible, we kept picturing Unshackled founders who leave their countries not just to build companies, but to build something larger than the technology itself. They come to bend the arc of our future in a positive direction, to challenge the status quo, to do things differently, and to leave an impact through a startup at venture scale within the capitalist framework.
Eric’s new work gives our founders what they need to increase their chances of success in the broadest sense. It will help them create not only strong businesses but also companies that maximize human flourishing through visionary technologies and disruptive solutions.
All of this aligns directly with Unshackled’s vision: “Unlocking the world’s most ambitious entrepreneurs and giving them the freedom, belief, and infrastructure to build transformative companies that help humanity flourish.” This makes the partnership deeply aligned in both directions.
As an “Incorruptible” Partner, Eric will support Unshackled founders with his Lean Startup expertise and guide them in defining their mission and designing their companies so that early decisions align with long-term outcomes. He will also work closely with the Unshackled team to integrate these principles into how we support founders from Day Zero.
“This partnership emerges from a shared conviction that founders who care about purpose and performance as one deserve leadership, structure, and support at the exact moment, Day Zero, when direction, values, and ambition are set in motion.”
— Shaherose Charania, Partner, Unshackled Ventures
For founders, this partnership means access to one of the most respected minds in company creation, offering practical frameworks that strengthen the path to product-market fit and time-tested ways to build with mission at the core for success and impact beyond profits. For LPs, it deepens our structural advantage. We support immigrant founders at Day Zero with discipline grounded in evidence, long-term thinking, and mission-aligned decision-making.
Together, we see the potential to contribute to the critical infrastructure needed for the next era of American company building.
Eric, welcome. We’re grateful to build what comes next, together.
Unshackled Ventures - Immigrants Start Here
About Unshackled Ventures: Unshackled Ventures is the only early-stage venture capital fund that enables unrecognized and excluded immigrant founders to start companies in the U.S. Since its founding in 2014, Unshackled has proven its thesis that investing and supporting this population drives strong investment returns across key industries, including American infrastructure, generative AI, healthcare, space, and enterprise SaaS. To date, the firm has invested in over 100 companies and over 250 entrepreneurs.