Everything is seemingly going according to Evan Burfield's plan at UNION.
At his new venture, the goal is to level the playing field for entrepreneurs and startups everywhere. UNION, an online platform, lets founders connect with investors and other mentors to ask whatever questions they have from wherever they are.
"We want to get 100 percent of all of the high-quality, early-stage startups in the world on the platform," Burfield said in an interview. "That's the goal."
Now, in a new partnership with 500 Startups, UNION is getting one step closer to that goal. The Mountain View, California-based venture fund and startup accelerator plans to integrate UNION's software into its programming and onboard all 3,000 of its members into the online community. 500 Startups' portfolio includes Twilio, Credit Karma and Udemy.
"Capital Factory gives us really great depth of startup activity in Austin and now across Texas, and 1776 gives us a good depth of what's happening in D.C. and Philadelphia now," Burfield said referring to existing clients.
"500 really does bring startups from all over the world."
You can think of UNION as a mix between an online learning community and a social platform. Founders, startups and startup hubs can join UNION in an effort to find the tools that maybe they can't find in their current location. Members sign up for office hours with mentors — who range from investors to reporters to fellow founders — on specific topics. For example, workshops on funding, commercial real estate and leadership are all on the calendar. The platform spun out of 1776, which Burfield co-founded and is now the executive chairman of, in October when the company merged with Philadelphia-based Benjamin's Desk.
UNION and 500 Startups had been working on a strategic pilot in the past year where the duo collaborating on new features specifically for 500 Startups and improvements to the overall platform. Now, 500 Startup's Batch 23 will use UNION throughout its program.
"They're a massive community, so it was a whole other level of how do we evolve the platform to handle that level of scale," Burfield said. "It really, really helped us to strengthen and enhance the platform."
The 500 Startups partnership comes off the heels of a new deal with Comcast/NBC Universal's LIFT Labs, powered by Techstars, in early January. Once the program launches later this year, LIFT Labs will use the UNION platform for its programming.
Moving forward, UNION is focused on landing partnerships in its three SaaS product offerings: the product for startups hubs (like 1776 or Austin-based Capital Factory), customizable offerings for corporate labs, and the combined product offering for startup challenges (like Transurban and 1776's Smart Highways Challenge).
"A lot of it is going to start feeling more and more like a community," Burfield said. "We don't want to create all of these little silos, so the next step is going to be seeing how all of this can connect together."
