What Fortune documented
The entry is short and specific. Fortune, in its 18 Under 18 feature of 15 September 2016, identified Easaw as an 18-year-old who had founded ACE Venture Capital, a firm whose stated purpose was to invest in and support entrepreneurs under the age of 30. The magazine printed the best advice he said he had received: “Don’t dwell on the past. Learn from your mistakes and move on.”
That is the whole of it. The article does not give his home town, his schooling, the size of the fund, the names of its investors, or a single company in its portfolio. Nothing in the entry establishes that money was deployed, only that a firm existed and had a thesis.
A fund aimed at people barely older than its founder
The stated remit is the unusual part. Venture firms are normally organised around a sector, a stage or a geography. Easaw’s was organised around an age bracket: founders under 30, a group that includes the founder himself and most of his contemporaries.
An age-based thesis is easy to describe and hard to verify from the outside. A venture firm becomes legible in public through its cheques, its co-investors and its exits, and none of those appear in the source. Read strictly, the record shows an eighteen-year-old who had organised a firm and articulated what it was for, at the moment a national business magazine came looking for exactly that.
The list itself
Fortune's 18 Under 18 gathered teenagers building businesses before finishing high school: product inventors, brand builders, people with audiences. Each entry carried an age, a one-line description of the venture, a stated ambition and a piece of advice. The magazine did not publish a methodology for how the eighteen were chosen.
That format is worth understanding, because it explains the shape of the evidence. A list entry is a snapshot taken by a reporter at one moment. It records what a young founder said they were doing. It does not audit the business, and it makes no promise that the business will still exist a year later.
Where Aaron Easaw is now
No source consulted here reports what became of ACE Venture Capital or of Easaw after September 2016. There is no later interview, no funding announcement, no closure notice, no Wikipedia article.
This is the ordinary fate of a teenage venture that gets one round of coverage. The absence of follow-up reporting is not evidence that the firm failed, and it is not evidence that it succeeded. It is an absence, and it should be stated as one rather than filled in.
Why thin records like this are common
The mid-2010s produced a genre of teenage-founder journalism, and the lists that carried it shared a structural weakness: they were published at the beginning of a story rather than at the end. A magazine can confirm that a company has been registered and that its founder is the age claimed. Confirming that a fund has capital under management, or that a firm has made an investment, requires disclosure that private companies are not obliged to make.
The result is a class of names that are easy to find once and impossible to follow. For readers trying to trace them, the honest position is the narrow one: the listing happened, the description is Fortune's, and everything after 2016 is unrecorded.
| Person | Country | Milestone | Age / Stat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sawsan Ahmed | United States | Broward College's youngest graduate, at 12, in December 2021 | Age 12 |
| Arvind Mahankali | United States | Won the 2013 Scripps National Spelling Bee at 13 | Age 13 |
| Kerry Close | United States | Won the 2006 Scripps National Spelling Bee at 13 | Age 13 |
| Shania Muhammad | United States | Langston University's youngest graduate, at 15 | Age 15 |
| Aaron Easaw | United States | Founding ACE Venture Capital at 18 | Age 18 |
What is documented — and what is not
✓ Documented
- Named in Fortune's 18 Under 18 list, 15 September 2016, as an 18-year-old founder (Fortune)
- Founded ACE Venture Capital, described as investing in and supporting entrepreneurs under 30 (Fortune)
- Fortune published his stated advice: learn from mistakes and move on
? Unverified, disputed or wrong
- No date of birth, home town or schooling published
- No fund size, investor list or portfolio company has ever been reported
- Nothing about Easaw or the firm appears in the record after September 2016
Questions people ask about Aaron Easaw
How old is Aaron Easaw?
Fortune described him as 18 in September 2016, which places his birth around 1998. No source gives a date of birth, so his exact age cannot be stated.
What is ACE Venture Capital?
Fortune described it as a firm founded by Easaw to invest in and support entrepreneurs under the age of 30. The article gives no fund size, investors or portfolio companies.
How much money did Aaron Easaw manage?
No published figure exists. Fortune reported the firm's existence and its stated purpose, not its capital.
Where is Aaron Easaw now?
No source consulted here reports anything about him after the September 2016 listing. There is no later interview or company announcement in the public record.
Is Aaron Easaw on Wikipedia?
No Wikipedia article on him was found. His public record rests on the single Fortune listing.
What did Aaron Easaw say about failure?
Fortune printed the advice he said he valued most: “Don’t dwell on the past. Learn from your mistakes and move on.”
Did ACE Venture Capital invest in anything?
No investment by the firm has been reported in any source used here. The absence of reporting does not establish that none were made.
Who else was on the Fortune list?
The 2016 feature profiled eighteen entrepreneurs under 18, including product inventors and brand builders. Fortune did not publish how the eighteen were selected.
Quick quiz: how well do you know Aaron’s story?
How old was Aaron Easaw when Fortune profiled him?
Who was ACE Venture Capital set up to back?
What is known about the firm's portfolio?
Sources
- 18 Under 18: Meet the Young Innovators Who Are Changing the World — Fortune, 2016-09-15
Checked by the Geniuses.club editorial team. Ages are given as of September 2026.
Discover More Child Prodigies
50+ stories of contemporary young geniuses changing chess, music, science, and art.
Explore All Prodigies →Related Child Prodigy Profiles
Anton Klingspor🇺🇸 United States — He started attending board meetings at six. At eighteen he…
Tiffany Zhong🇺🇸 United States — She deferred Berkeley to spend her days deciding which of…
Shania Muhammad🇺🇸 United States — She finished a bachelor's degree at 15. A year later she…
Arvind Mahankali🇺🇸 United States — He spelled 'knaidel', won the national bee…
Sawsan Ahmed🇺🇸 United States — She took her teddy bear into a college biology lab at 10.…
Kerry Close🇺🇸 United States — Four national bees ended in defeat. The fifth ended with a…