The San Diego Founder Institute, the local chapter of the world's largest pre-seed startup accelerator, is proud to announce the newest Alumni from the San Diego Fall 2025 program.
After meticulous selection process and intense four months of aggressive business-building sprints, constant evaluation, and feedback from investors and mentors, just 18 companies were able to make it through.
Each of these Founders have demonstrated a high level of perseverance and creativity, and their businesses have been thoroughly vetted and supported by a panel of San Diego's top startup experts and investors.
And now, without further ado, we present the Alumni of the San Diego program:
- NanoGreens - Growing Wolffia as a tasty and protein-rich vegetable for restaurants, enabling them to create exciting, delicious, and nutritious meals to combat malnutrition.
- Optimal - Delivering secure software delivery solutions for enterprise organizations through a specialized security software while strengthening cybersecurity frameworks and enhancing organizational security.
- Workcur - Providing a premium job search platform that helps high earners from public and nonprofit sectors transition into private sector roles by providing verified, AI-curated listings and personalized career support.
- BarberVUE TV - Providing a subscription streaming platform that provides barbers worldwide with affordable access to education, competitions, and community, solving the industry’s lack of a centralized hub for professional growth and cultural visibility.
- Ultimate Partner - Democratizing access to computing power, by leveraging agentic AI at scale, enabling individuals across all demographics to boost productivity, reduce errors, and seize opportunities by automating tasks.
- My Path To Learning - A digital platform that helps educators deliver personalized, evidence-based instruction in spelling, phonology, and math facts.
- Prometheus Intelligence, Inc. - Empowering decision-making through mobile, secure, AI-enabled language translation & interview agents.
- AllergyPath - Helping allergy sufferers take control of their health by matching them with safe products and personalized protocols tailored to their specific needs.
- Vertical Longevity Pharma - Developing a vaccine to help Americans with heart disease unclog their arteries, potentially reversing the leading cause of global death.
- TRACER AI - Creating high-fidelity environmental datasets and AI models for defense and industrial organizations to train autonomous systems that can operate reliably in complex real-world conditions such as varied terrain, soil, vegetation, and weather.
- BeviClub - Offering a smart consumer app to help beverage drinkers and independent liquor stores solve the challenge of product discovery and loyalty with AI-powered taste profiles and seamless POS integrations.
- BiThermal Technologies - Revolutionizing temperature control with BiThermal’s patented technology.
- LifeNavigator Inc - Building an AI-powered life management platform that helps professionals, families, and veterans simplify complex decisions across finance, health, career, and education so they can save time and focus on what matters most.
- Sacred Space - A booking website for retreat facilitators, group leaders, musicians to book venues and promote their live events.
- Dtailr Technologies, Inc. - Connecting drivers with trusted, top-rated car care professionals, whether you're looking for a quick mobile detail or managing a detailing business.
- Mednoia - Empowering clinicians with an AI powered multi-modal diagnostic assistant that unifies imaging, genomics, biomarkers, and lifestyle factors into one explainable pathway.
- Life After - helping people preserve their legacy through AI-powered memorials and digital avatars, ensuring families can connect with their loved one’s voice, personality, and stories long after they’re gone.
- PALS - Developing mobile platform that lets users buy and send drinks for friends at bars, helping people celebrate meaningful moments even when physically apart.
The San Diego Fall 2025 program would not have been possible without help, because it truly takes a city to raise a startup.
Join us at San Diego Founder Institute.
San Diego Local Directors
We would first like to thank the Local Directors of the San Diego Founder Institute: Daniel Shires (Managing Director, Founder Institute), Greg Coleman (5Side Strategy), Mike Sherbakov (General Partner, The Veteran Fund), Ryan Micheletti (Head of Global Operations, Founder Institute). Our Local Leaders play an incredibly important role in building the local Founder Institute program, and creating an environment and network in San Diego that is conducive to building to great companies.
In addition, the San Diego Fall 2025 program was supported by some of San Diego's top technology organizations, including:
Some of San Diego’s top startup mentors helped our founders in the program, including:
In the Founder Institute's pre-seed accelerator program, early-stage entrepreneurs and teams build their business alongside a critical support network of local startup experts that share equity in their success, and through a structured and challenging business-building process that has helped alumni raise over 1.9BN.
After Graduation, the new San Diego Founder Institute Portfolio Companies now have a fast-growing company that has been fully validated by experienced startup founders, with access to the Founder Institute's global network and post-graduate support programs to continue building their business.
Leaders of the world’s fastest-growing startups have used the Founder Institute to raise funding, building a co-founding team, get into seed-accelerators, generate traction, recruit a team, build a product, transition from employee to entrepreneur, and more. Based in Silicon Valley and with chapters across 200+ cities and 100+ countries, the Founder Institute’s mission is to Globalize Silicon Valley and empower talented and motivated entrepreneurs to build companies that will create one million new jobs.
The next San Diego Founder Institute program is being planned now. If you are interested in being notified when applications open, visit FI.co/apply/san-diego.
Alumni of the Founder Institute are creating some of the world's fastest growing startups, having raised over 1.9BN in funding, and building products people love across over 200 cities worldwide.
See the most recent news from our Grads at FI.co/news, or learn more about their stories at FI.co/graduates.
