Community first
Relationships before transactions. If a gathering only works when something is being sold, we don't run it.
About Malaika Commons
We help global founders plug into San Francisco: a place to land, gatherings worth being at, people worth knowing, and eventually the capital that follows all three.
The problem we're solving
A founder in Lagos, São Paulo, Nairobi, Bangalore, or Milan can build the same product as a founder in San Francisco. What they can't do from there is bump into the investor who's been thinking about their market, or the operator who solved their exact distribution problem last year.
So they fly over. And then they discover the harder problem: San Francisco runs on introductions. Without one, a two-week trip becomes a series of coffees that go nowhere, an expensive sublet, and a flight home.
Malaika Commons exists to shorten that gap. We're the people who say "you should meet X" and then actually make the introduction.
How this started
It started as dinners. Founders who had recently moved to San Francisco, sitting around a table with people who had made the same move a few years earlier, comparing notes on visas, banking, hiring, and how to get an investor to reply.
The dinners kept happening because people kept asking for them. Stays came next, because founders visiting for two weeks had nowhere sensible to stay; today those are matched through Launch Quarters, our housing partner. Then the introductions, because by then everyone knew each other well enough to vouch.
Today that's four ways in: a residency, events, community, and capital. They look like four services. In practice they're four moments in the same relationship.
What exists today
We'd rather tell you what's real than what's planned.
Residency
Stays and SF Concierge through Launch Quarters, plus the people who make the trip worth it.
Learn moreGlobal Bridges
A directory of 49 organizations across 28 countries connecting founders to Silicon Valley.
Learn moreIntroductions
Office hours, member requests, and warm introductions to investors and operators.
Learn moreWhat we value
Borderless by default
Where you were born should not decide whether you get a meeting in San Francisco.
Action over talk
We'd rather ship a dinner that works than plan a programme that doesn't happen.
Pay it forward
Everyone who got a warm introduction here is expected to make one later.
Come and find out
The fastest way to understand what this is: tell us what you're working on and we'll tell you who you should meet.