A venture studio in early-stage development
Showroom Ventures is a venture studio for young founders. Built in partnership with The Youth Impact Foundation, we work with a small number of young people each year — supporting them from idea to validated venture to independent company.
Each year, The Youth Impact Foundation reaches over 160,000 young Australians. Some leave with ideas worth building — ideas about problems they’ve lived, communities they understand, futures they want to shape.
Almost none of those ideas become anything more. Not because the talent isn’t there. Not because the desire isn’t there. Because the structured pathway from idea to founded company has, until now, run through a small set of universities, a handful of accelerators, and friend groups most of these young people will never be inside.
The gap isn’t ambition. The gap is infrastructure.
Showroom Ventures is being built to close that gap.
Four phases. Most ideas stop at the first or second, by design. A small number progress to founded companies, built on fair terms with founder-majority ownership.
A space for ideas, inside TYIF programs. Every young person who has an idea, observation, or problem they’ve been thinking about is invited to share it. Every submission is acknowledged within five business days. Most ideas stay here, and that’s the design.
Structured 8–12 week pilots for the small number of ideas with real promise. Inside TYIF. Time-bound, evidence-driven, with explicit exit points. Pilot teams are paid for their time. Most pilots integrate back into TYIF or close with learning — both honoured as successful outcomes.
For the very few ideas ready to become independent companies. Founders take majority ownership; Showroom takes minority, non-controlling equity. We provide capital, support, time, and a peer cohort of other founders walking the same path. Independent legal and financial advice paid for at every step.
Companies operate independently in the market. Some grow profitably, some raise external capital, some are acquired, some close responsibly. All four are valid outcomes. Value created flows back to The Youth Impact Foundation through pre-agreed mechanisms — funding the next generation of programs.
Showroom Ventures and The Youth Impact Foundation are two independent organisations bound by a shared mission and a formal Framework Agreement.
TYIF is a charity, registered with the ACNC. It holds the relationship with young people, runs its programs, and operates the upstream phases of the Showroom Path inside its existing charitable mission.
Showroom Ventures is an Australian Pty Ltd company. It is the venture studio. It builds and capitalises companies with the small number of founders ready to commit, and returns value to TYIF over time through a structured value-flow mechanism.
The boundary between the two is firm. The partnership is real. The benefit to both is designed in.
Showroom takes minority, non-controlling equity. The default is a founder stake of seventy-five per cent or more after our investment. Anti-dilution protections preserve founder ownership through follow-on rounds.
Most ideas should — and will — stop before becoming companies. Most companies that get built will not become large. Closure with learning is a successful outcome. The system is designed to honour it, not paper over it.
Charitable mission is protected absolutely. Commercial activity sits inside an independent legal entity, separated from TYIF’s programs and charitable status. The firewall is structural, not procedural.
This is built to last decades, not to raise rounds on a fund timeline. Our capital is patient, our governance is long-horizon, and our metrics are weighted toward founders we still see in ten years — not pipeline volume.
Independent legal and financial advice paid for at every transition. Stipends across the upstream phases. Mental health support across founder development. Good-leaver provisions and clean exit ramps. Founders should leave better than they arrived — whatever the outcome.
A paid youth advisory panel is involved in every major design decision. First Nations young people are centred in the work, not consulted afterward. The system reflects the lives of the people it serves.
Showroom Ventures is being designed and built through 2026 and 2027. We’re not yet open for founder applications, capital partnerships, or program enquiries.
If you’d like to follow our progress, explore partnership, or simply understand the model in more depth, we’d be glad to hear from you.
We read every message. We’ll reply personally.