Play Chess Anywhere. No Set-up Required. 

Ventureboard springs into action in a moment so you can spend time playing and not rummaging! At the touch of a hand, it unrolls from a compact hexagonal cylinder to a readily playable chess board. Pieces can be stored in their starting positions so no setup time is needed.

 Never Lose Your Game Again 

Save your game anytime, instantly. Ventureboard is ready to roll when you are. A quick flick of the wrist will lock your game safely in a magnetically sealed compartment. Thanks to neodymium magnets on each piece, Ventureboard can be stowed, tossed or rolled without displacing pieces or losing your game. You can pick up where you left off whenever and wherever you like.

Escape The Screen

Ventureboard gives your senses a much needed break from the digital. With rugged  interlocking panels, symmetrically hinged assembly and magnetized pieces, it provides a tactile experience unlike any other.

Most Packable Board Ever

When rolled up, Ventureboard is smaller than most water bottles. It easily fits in backpack bottle sleeves, in car drink holders, and in just about any other bag you might have (Fun Fact: the left-hand image is of earlier prototype, which is why you don’t see divots on the end).

 Beyond Tabletop 

Ventureboard’s patented folding mechanism naturally forms a flat surface when open. This means you can play while hiking, skiing/snowboarding, or traveling by car. No need to worry about pieces sliding, slipping, or getting lost! Pass the board back and forth in mid-air without any risk of your game falling or tipping.

 As Tough as You Are 

Ventureboard’s panels interlock on six different planes when rolled up. This makes it act mechanically like a single block that resists shearing stress and protects the hinges. The board and pieces are nested away in the internal compartment so they will never be scratched by your other gear.

High grade neodymium magnets keep the board closed when rolled up. This technology  allows for tremendous magnetic force to be supplied in a small surface area, which keeps the board’s profile lean and light.

 Chess Piece Design 

We iterated, and kept iterating, until we found the perfectly playable pieces. When designing for unparalleled ease of use, we kept the following criteria in mind:

• Grip comfort
• Ease of piece movement
• Stability when the board is moved, shaken or bumped.
•  Ability to discern pieces easily 

 A travel board presents inherent challenges, as pieces are easy to lose on the move.  While we originally tested individually carved pieces, we quickly discovered that it was too difficult to determine which piece was which.

This led us to choose our current design with clearly distinct icons that let you quickly read the entire board. In addition to being easily distinguishable, our current pieces remain in place when the board rolled and traveled, and are easy to grip while making moves.

Our Adventure

VentureBoard cofounder Lewis grew up loving the outdoors and spending as much time as possible roaming around the creeks and hills outside his childhood home in rural Oregon. At the same time, he enjoyed the simplicity and elegance of chess, which his father taught him at a young age.

Lewis’ love for games continued into adulthood. He  would often bring folding games on trips or devise makeshift board games at campsites. However, as he got more into chess he became increasingly frustrated with the difficulties in bringing this passtime on the go.

In 2020, on a long road-trip through Oregon, Lewis was playing chess and go with friends in the car but kept losing the game when the board was passed or the car hit a bump. Frustrated, he looked for a better portable game board online. When he found none, he decided to take matters into his own hands. He sketched up a blueprint for a new type of game board he thought could work for chess, go and other board games.

The sketch turned into a schematic, which turned into a makeshift prototype and Ventureboard was born.

Lewis would go on to spend another year testing different designs and drawing schematics, until he eventually found his way to a Seattle  brewery known for board games. One afternoon while hunting for real-world feedback, Lewis ran into Kirk, a tech entrepreneur and fellow chess lover. 

They hit it off, and were soon collaborating to make strategic improvements in VentureBoard’s structure and function. Kirk contributed his decade of experience bringing new products to market, and they began creating the ultimate chess board, one that could withstand their demanding and travel-filled lives. 

Just 12 months after that first meeting, we are thrilled to have combined carefully tested  design enhancements, and durability additions to culminate in what we believe is probably the world’s best travel chess board. We have completed most tooling at this point and have only final modifications to make to our moulds. Your funding will help us finish tooling and scale production so that chess (and soon other board games) can be more adventure-ready than ever.

You can find us around Seattle, often putting Ventureboard to good use!