One hundred thousand deserves to be celebrated — loudly and proudly. Head over to our 100K Celebration Toolkit to access a full suite of graphics, social media assets, and branded materials designed to help you share this milestone with your networks. Let’s make some noise together!
One hundred thousand. That’s not a scoreboard update or a fundraising talking point. It’s 100,000 veterans and military spouses who looked at everything they’d been through and decided it was worth betting on themselves. It’s the Marine who came home and turned logistics expertise into a company. The Army spouse who built something portable enough to survive the next set of orders. The veteran who couldn’t make a 9-5 feel like enough after wearing a uniform.
However, 100,000 entrepreneurs didn’t show up just because the D’aniello Institute for Veterans and Military Families (IVMF) built a good program or two. It happened because IVMF built an ecosystem and a community. Eight programs. Fifty states. Twenty years of EBV. Thirty V-WISE cohorts. These are programs military entrepreneurs feel ownership of, where they belong and are surrounded by peers, mentors, and support. It didn’t happen overnight.
In 2007, seventeen veterans walked into a classroom at Syracuse University’s Whitman School of Management. The Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans (EBV) was one of the first programs of its kind, built on the premise that the discipline, adaptability, and mission focus veterans acquire during military service translate well to business ownership. Seventeen became a hundred. A hundred became a thousand. By 2011 Syracuse University launched the Institute for Veterans and Military Families with the mission of serving all veterans and their families as they create their very best post-service lives, including those chasing entrepreneurship. IVMF’s entrepreneurship portfolio added programs as it identified gaps. A national university consortium pushed the footprint beyond Syracuse. IVMF has come a long way since the first cohort of 17 veterans, but the mission hasn’t changed, just the scope and scale.
Most veteran service organizations count participants. IVMF tracks what happens to them. As a part of Syracuse University, an R1 research institution, IVMF maintains one of the only longitudinal datasets on veteran entrepreneurship in the country, following alumni businesses over years to measure real outcomes. That research doesn’t just validate what works. It shapes federal policy, informs non-profits and programs across the country, and even gets presented to Congress.
Entrepreneurship looks different at every stage, and IVMF’s eight programs are built around that reality. Every program is designed to surround IVMF’s veteran and military spouse participants with people who share their experience, not just their military background, but their business stage, and in some programs even more commonalities. IVMF participants get an experience built around the challenges they’re facing right now. It also creates a community that bonds over shared challenges and supports each other in achieving their goals.
She Was Trusted with a Military Hospital, But Denied a Business Certification
IVMF is overjoyed to congratulate IVMF program alumni Thereasa Black, CEO and founder of Bon AppéSweet, on her $175,000 Shark Tank investment win.
“I am passionate about helping service members, veterans and military spouses shorten the trial-and-error cycle, build confidence and… grow successful ventures."
Government Killed Her First Business, Then Became Her Biggest Customer.
The Gumbo Was Perfect. The Business Wasn’t. The Question That Changed Everything
$2.9M Per Alumni Business
All 50 States Represented by Our Alumni
16.2% of Alumni Are Military Spouses
93% Alumni
At Veteran EDGE 2026 in Dallas, IVMF is marked the 100,000 milestone the right way. By putting veteran and military spouse entrepreneurs front and center. Some of the most experienced founders in the IVMF community are gathering to share what it actually takes to build and scale a business after service. The real lessons. The hard moments. The strategies that worked and the ones that didn’t.
Veteran EDGE is where the IVMF entrepreneurship community comes together every year to connect, learn, and push each other forward. This year the conversation is bigger than ever. One hundred thousand stories brought us here. The ones being told this week will shape what comes next.
Reaching 100,000 veteran entrepreneurs is a remarkable achievement, but for IVMF, it’s not the finish line.
IVMF is always searching for gaps, deepening partnerships, and exploring new pathways for veteran and military spouse entrepreneurs to thrive. Courses are always being improved, and the IVMF network of entrepreneurs grows stronger with every cohort.
Every veteran and military spouse with an interest in entrepreneurship deserves access to education, support, and a community that understands where they’ve been. That’s what IVMF is building toward. Not just a bigger number, but a system where no one who served has to figure this out alone.