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The Founder Institute's mission is to empower talented and motivated people to build impactful companies that create one million jobs. This includes talented and motivated people of all backgrounds, and as such, we are committed to narrowing the gender gap in high-tech startups.

Since launching in 2009, we have graduated over 2,900 female-led businsses across six continents.

These Graduates employ thousands of people, have raised over $65 Million in financing, and are building products people love all across the globe. Some highlights include Realty Mogul, Feetz, Wedding Party (acquired by Instacart), Tapgenes, Skimble, Kindara, Enerknol, Rushtix, Cashtivity, Thesis Couture, 2RedBeans, GreenKidCrafts, and many more.

Through the Female Founder Fellowship program, all women across the globe can apply to the Founder Institute for free below, and the top technical female applicant in each of our 200+ cities will receive free access to our pre-seed accelerator program.

This is not about providing special treatment - the majority of applicants to the Founder Institute do not get accepted, and this will always be the case because we employ a quantitative Entrepreneur DNA Assessment in our application process. This test was specifically designed, and is constantly calibrated, to identify entrepreneurial personality traits and remove all forms of subjective bias. The Female Founder Fellowship program is simply designed to inspire and grow the number of female applicants to our program, which will ultimately lead to more female-founded technology companies across the globe.

What is the Founder Institute?

As the world’s largest pre-seed startup accelerator, the Colorado Founder Institute can help you:

  • Focus on what's important, using a structured growth process that defines your next steps, helps you move quickly, and has proven to reduce the time and cost to build a startup. 
  • Make smart decisions, through constant feedback on your strategy and progress for the entire lifecycle of your business from the world's top entrepreneurs and investors. 
  • Build a global business, by leveraging the world's largest network of startup mentors, founders, and investors (based in Silicon Valley, with chapters spanning 200+ cities across six continents). 

Since 2009, we have helped over 7,000 portfolio companies raise over $1.75BN in funding, solve big problems, build products people love, recruit amazing teams, and more.

Let us help you build something that matters. 

 

Join the Colorado Program

The Final Admissions Deadline for the Colorado Fall 2022 Semester is Sep 18, 2022. All applications are reviewed on a rolling basis, so the sooner you apply, the better your chances of being accepted.

After completing the application below, you will be invited to take our Entrepreneur DNA Assessment, which is our main criteria for evaluating applicants. If you are accepted, you will be invited to pay the Entrance Fee and complete your enrollment.

 

Let's get started

When there are fundamental shifts in the world, smart people get busy building the future.

We don’t know what the future holds, but no matter what happens, the Founder Institute will support you every step of the way. 

Tell us a little about you...

The Denver Founder Institute is not currently accepting applications, but will be soon. 

You can see our currently enrolling chapters at FI.co/enrolling, our full list of cities at FI.co/global, or register below to get notified when there are new startup programs in Denver.