Founder Institute

The Founder Institute is the world’s largest pre-seed startup accelerator, having helped launch over 5,000 companies across 200+ cities and six continents.

The company was founded in 2009 by serial entrepreneur Adeo Ressi and his colleague, Jonathan Greechan. The idea for the program spawned from operating TheFunded.com, where it became apparent that most entrepreneurs at the idea and launch stages lacked the structure, feedback, and support network needed to be successful.

News of the launch was announced on TechCrunch, the first Founder Institute program methodology was crowdsourced by over 10,000 CEO members of TheFunded.com, and the inaugural program started in May 2009 in a small classroom at Stanford University. There were originally no plans to expand beyond Silicon Valley, but upon receiving immense inbound interest to launch the program in other cities, the Founder Institute began to expand. Today the program operates across 200 + cities and is localized into 9 languages.

In total, Founder Institute Alumni have raised over $900M and are worth an estimated $20B.

“Our VISION is that there are talented people everywhere whose potential can be unlocked to make an impact on the world through entrepreneurship.”

“Our MISSION is to empower communities of talented and motivated people to build impactful technology-enabled companies worldwide.”

We BELIEVE that

• Great companies start with great people.
• Great companies can be built anywhere.
• Great companies are not built alone.
• Anyone can change the world through entrepreneurship.
• Focus is one of a founder’s greatest challenges.
• Startups are much harder than you think.

Founder Institute