It’s possible the next big startup founder might not be bustling about an office in California. They might be living in a small flat in London or in a quiet rural town near Berlin, held back not by any lack of talent but by a simple inability to get their foot in the door.
That’s what Lorimer Jenkins, the 22-year-old creator behind Pierbridge, believes and is trying to remedy. Acting as a living bridge between overlooked UK and European entrepreneurs and the capital and connections available to them in Silicon Valley, he’s building a repeatable pipeline that connects international founders to U.S. venture opportunities.
From Art to Accidental Business Architect
Jenkins’ journey is a story of making it on your own terms. He didn’t start with an elite degree or an extensive background in computer science. His early training was in the performing arts. But a shift came during the COVID-19 lockdown, when he taught himself how to code. With no professional network, he built his own industry connections from scratch, then took unpaid internships and worked on open-source projects to improve his skills.
His unusual start became his strength. By the time he turned 19, he had already co-founded LiquidOps, a successful DeFi lending protocol, and raised $325,000 in pre-seed funding from venture capital investors, demonstrating early execution in blockchain infrastructure. He also created Othent, a popular Web3 authentication protocol adopted across the Arweave ecosystems, contributing to infrastructure-level functionality within that network. These early projects show his technical skills and ability to build solutions for the often-complicated blockchain space.
How to Fix the Connection Problem
Jenkins quickly recognized that his early struggles were in no way unique. Rather, it was widespread: huge pools of talent in the UK and Europe were languishing because they were simply too far, both geographically and socially, to benefit from the deep pockets and networks of Silicon Valley.
Pierbridge was his answer to that problem, and it works in two ways. First, it has a commission-based arm that actively scouts for top European talent and funnels them into the US market. And secondly, it has an equity-based arm that focuses on helping companies succeed, including acquiring, rebuilding, and exiting businesses as part of a long-term value creation strategy. By addressing structural barriers such as limited access to investor networks and geographic constraints, Pierbridge serves as an infrastructure layer, enabling founders to access capital pathways that would otherwise remain out of reach.
“[The] best founders don’t always come from where you’d expect,” Lorimer Jenkins says of his work, “and I’m the person building the bridge to get them in front of the right people.”
A Future without Borders
Jenkins plans to soon move Pierbridge’s main base of operations to San Francisco, further solidifying the connections he has built. His ultimate goal is for Pierbridge to become the go-to institution for global founders, making it easier for UK and European talent to find and secure US venture capital. This expansion reflects a broader effort to scale a cross-border pipeline that supports founder mobility and increases access to early-stage investment opportunities.
Lorimer Jenkins has both the skills and experience to make the unreachable happen, allocating early-stage capital and supporting the development of emerging companies across multiple sectors. Pierbridge operates across both traditional venture ecosystems and Web3 infrastructure, supporting founders in both physical and digital markets.
Jenkins’ personal mission is to ensure that where you are from no longer determines how far you can go, an idea reflected in the cross-border infrastructure he is building to expand access to capital, networks, and opportunity.