Emergent Ventures has announced the winners of its 58th cohort, a group of twelve grantees whose projects span artificial intelligence, marine biology, archaeology, mathematics, media, and philanthropic matchmaking. The announcement was published on the Marginal Revolution blog on August 26, 2026.

Emergent Ventures is a grant program based at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. Founded by economist Tyler Cowen in 2018, it provides funding to entrepreneurs, researchers, and students working on ambitious projects, with winners announced in successive cohorts on Marginal Revolution. The program is known for its low-bureaucracy model: applications are short, decisions are made quickly rather than over the months typical of traditional grantmaking, and money goes directly to individuals rather than through institutions — an approach that lets it back grantees like the two teenagers in this cohort. The same emphasis on speed shaped Fast Grants, the COVID-19 research fund Cowen helped launch in 2020, which promised funding decisions in days rather than months.

The 58th cohort includes the following winners:

• Jethro Elsden, London area, to study the regulatory structure of the UK using AI.
• Paula Benedetti, Buenos Aires, marine biology work in Brazil.
• Nyida Gyal, 17, northern Virginia, AI and data.
• Gabe Sekeres, Cornell, examining the question "what if an economist just lets AI run?"
• Ollie Payne, NYC, Future Aesthetics Foundation.
• Jacob Watson-Howland, London, a podcast on science and progress.
• Cameron Monroe, UC Santa Cruz, archaeology in Ghana.
• Björn O. Öste, archaeology and Peru.
• Oliver Pryce, Cambridge, mathematics, AI and a unified representation of geometry and physics.
• Demetre Tsiklauri, Tbilisi, 16, general career support, building a student network in Georgia.
• Shannon Wong, Paris/Antarctica, general career support.
• Lydia Farnham, London, matching donors and projects.

The grantees are based across multiple countries and regions — London, Buenos Aires, Tbilisi, Cambridge, and Paris/Antarctica among them — in keeping with a program whose applicant pool is not limited to the United States. The cohort includes two teenage recipients: Nyida Gyal, 17, of northern Virginia, and Demetre Tsiklauri, 16, of Tbilisi, Georgia. Artificial intelligence is the most common thread in the roster, appearing in four of the twelve projects, from mapping UK regulation to a unified representation of geometry and physics.

The full announcement is available on Marginal Revolution, which hosts the program's cohort announcements going back to its early rounds and where subsequent cohorts are announced as they are selected.