Startup Weekend has decided to pull the plug on its Startup Foundation initiative, an ambitious eight-city experiment which launched with the goal of “creating jobs and entrepreneurs across the world.”

Xconomy’s Curt Woodward reported the news today, with Startup Weekend director Marc Nager telling the news site that many of the concepts envisioned at Startup Foundation will be folded into the larger organization.

Startup Weekend — a non-profit which operates entrepreneurial events throughout the world — is headquartered in Seattle. Startup Foundation was also based in Seattle, operated by Jennifer Cabala. She plans to leave Startup Weekend, but plans to remain a supporter of the organization.

Nager tells Xconomy that the Startup Foundation served its purpose as an “R&D vehicle,” but it became challenging to operate as a separate entity.

At the launch event in August, members of the startup community were asked to offer 2-minute pitches on how to make the startup ecosystem stronger. Here were some of the ideas.

Startup Foundation operated in Des Moines, Boston, Detroit, Los Angeles, New York, Seattle, Las Vegas and Sao Paulo, Brazil.

We’ve reached out to Nager for comment and will update the post as we hear more.

UPDATE: Nager tells GeekWire that they are folding many of the functions from Startup Foundation into Startup Weekend.

“Everything that we were able to learn and do under the Startup Foundation, we are just bringing under the Startup Weekend umbrella,” Nager said. “The financial model, though, we did have some funding behind the foundation itself, and we discontinued funding the whole program outside of Startup Weekend. So, now everything is becoming more of an operation inside of Startup Weekend.”

Nager said that the organization remains committed to supporting entrepreneurs, and it plans to expand the product offering in order to support startup ecosystems throughout the world.

“More than anything we learned that Startup Weekend really does have the ability to expand out and be more than just a weekend event company,” he said. “And that’s how we want to position ourselves: We are really about experiential education and creating community. And our fundamental mission is how can we make impact and influence and change people’s lives.”

Like what you're reading? Subscribe to GeekWire's free newsletters to catch every headline

Job Listings on GeekWork

Find more jobs on GeekWork. Employers, post a job here.