Breakout Labs was launched by Peter Thiel through the Thiel Foundation as a nonprofit revolving fund that gave $50k–$350k grants to independent scientists and early-stage startups working outside universities or corporations, in exchange for a capped royalty and small equity stake that got recycled into future science projects; its first group of companies spanned fields as different as organ preservation, brain mapping, artificial proteins, and antimatter propulsion. This approach proved successful enough that it led to a separate firm, Breakout Ventures, started by former Breakout Labs leaders Lindy Fishburne, Hemai Parthasarathy, and Julia Moore to keep investing in the same companies as they grew.