Earlier this month, Aurore Balsan, wife of Karim Slaoui, co-founder of Cowboy, announced the launch of “The Karim Slaoui Fund,” through a LinkedIn post.

The announcement comes more than a year after Karim Slaoui (36) died due to a rare form of cancer.

This initiative honours Karim Slaoui’s legacy, who faced significant mobility challenges in the final months of his life due to paralysis caused by cancer.

“Let us begin 2025 on a high note by enhancing the lives of individuals with reduced mobility! The Karim Slaoui Fund is now launched and ready to provide its initial grants,” says Balsan.

The Karim Slaoui Fund has been established to support entrepreneurs in developing innovative solutions aimed at improving the lives of individuals with impaired mobility.

“Be optimistic and innovate” —those were the words of my cofounder, Karim Slaoui. Today, his wife and his father honoured his legacy with a new initiative to carry this mission forward,” says Tanguy Goretti, CTO and co-founder of CowBoy in a LinkedIn post.

As a part of the initiative, The Karim Slaoui Fund will offer an honorary loan of €20K to €100K, for EU or US entrepreneurs who seek to build a prototype for a low-tech solution dedicated to improving the mobility of wheelchair users.  

How Karim Slaoui Fund come into existence?

Slaoui was diagnosed with synovial sarcoma in 2018 after discovering a tumour in his knee while training for a marathon.

By 2023, a metastasis in his condition left him paralysed from the chest down. Despite enduring extensive treatments across multiple countries, he passed away in September 2023.

During his illness, Slaoui and his wife, Aurore Balsan, encountered numerous obstacles related to wheelchair accessibility in their daily lives.

The couple struggled to find a wheelchair-accessible apartment in Paris, with only one suitable listing available.

They also faced challenges when navigating public spaces, such as hospitals, where accessible entrances were often difficult to locate, and physical structures made movement cumbersome.

Realising the lack of affordable, innovative products designed for wheelchair users, Slaoui expressed a desire to create a fund dedicated to supporting entrepreneurs who could develop solutions that promote independence.

Just days before his death, he urged his wife to establish this initiative in his memory.

The Karim Slaoui Fund is a part of the King Baudouin Foundation (KBF) and is governed according to the KBF, and its affiliate “The Myriad Alliance” rules and procedures.

It is managed by a committee that includes Aurore Balsan, Karim Slaoui’s wife, and his father, Moncef Slaoui.

They have invited wheelchair-using entrepreneurs to advise them on the projects to support.

Applications are open 

Currently, the fund is looking for seed-stage companies that are planning to launch a hardware product that is affordable for the majority of people, enabling them to be more independent in their daily lives or when travelling.

The Karim Slaoui Fund will provide up to €100,000 in 0 per cent interest loans each year to budding entrepreneurs with ideas for prototypes that assist wheelchair users.

The projects will be selected by an independent jury, and the Fund is managed by a committee regulated by the King Baudouin Foundation I.

The applications for funding are open until June 2025.