Build a Great Startup in 2020 with the Founder Institute Seattle Startup Accelerator

Today, the Founder Institute, the world's largest pre-seed startup accelerator, is excited to announce that we are now accepting applications for the Portland - Seattle Fall 2025 program!

If you could use a structured process and a lifetime of support from Seattle's top investors and entrepreneurs to build a startup, then apply to the Portland - Seattle Fall 2025 Founder Institute today.

Based in Silicon Valley and with chapters across 200+ cities worldwide, the Founder Institute provides high-potential entrepreneurs and teams with the devoted support network and structured growth process needed to get to traction and funding. Participants in the 4-month core program also get access to a lifetime of support through the Founder Institute's industry-leading post-programs.

Since 2009, the Founder Institute has helped over 7,800 Alumni raise over $1.85BN funding, get into seed-accelerators, generate traction, recruit a team, build a product, transition from employee to entrepreneur, and more (see the FI 10 Year Impact Report here).

To celebrate the launch, we will host several free startup events in Seattle, where you can learn from top entrepreneurs and hear more about the program:

Venture Trailblazers, featuring Elizabeth Yin (GP, Hustle Fund): 8:00am, Aug 14, 2025 (America/Los_Angeles): https://FI.co/e/376829
Founder Institute Online Information Session: https://FI.co/infosession

See all upcoming events

The Seattle program is led by some of the region's top startup leaders, including Jeni Chang (., .).

In addition, some of Seattle's top investors, entrepreneurs, and CEOs will be participating in the program, providing them with expert feedback and evaluation. The list of startup mentors for the Seattle Founder Institute includes:

Abdellah Aouf: Chief Executive Officer, GO PLATFORM
Adam Mangone: CEO , Mangone Ventures
Adeo Ressi: CEO, Decile Group / VC Lab
Ahmed Muzmmal: VP of Engineering (Cofounder), Gaper
Alain Raynaud: CEO, FairSoftware
Albert Lam: Partner, Dorm Room Fund
Aleksandra Manuilova: Senior Portfolio Development Manager, Microsoft
Alex Katzman: Founding Partner, Growth Inflection
Allen Lee: Startup Operator & Investor, Various
Amit Gupta: Sys Dev Manager, Amazon
Amy Hutchins: Founder, Chief Product Officer, Unearth Technologies, Inc.
Amy Swanson: CEO & Co-Founder, Ultropia
Andrew Lee: CEO, Esper
Andrew Klein: Founder, Zccounting
Andy Herman: Founder, Signtag Corp.
Anisha Vinjamuri: Founder & President , boza
Aracelis Nass: Senior Business Program Manager, Microsoft
Aswin Pranam: Sr. Product Manager, UVC Partners
Audrea Fink: Sales Coach & Strategist, mConnexions
Aviv Shalgi: CEO, Solar Simplified
Balki Kodarapu: Fractional CTO, yourCTO
BARRET NEWBERRY: CEO, Leasera
Ben Stacey: CEO, Pitchverk
Ben Rush: Business, Pioneer Square Labs
Bill Bromfield: Partner, Fenwick & West
Bill Bryant: General Partner, Threshold Ventures
Bob Crimmins: General Partner, Startup Haven Ventures
Brandon Zhang: Business Analyst II, Amazon.com Services Llc
Brian M Pasalich: Chief Executive Officer | Co-Founder, Behave Technologies (Formerly Syntoniq, Inc.)
Bryan Rutberg: Partner, AG Consulting Partners
Caesar Filori
Candice Dietz: Founder, Givespace
Chandler Lewis: Founder, 360 Social Impact Studios
Charles Kwon: Managing Partner, Concitor
Cheale Villa: Founder, CEO + Visionary Rabbit, Visual Caffeine
Chinara Askerzade: Managing Partner at PocketVC early-stage VC, PocketVC Studio and PocketVC Technologies Inc
Chloe Feingold: Financial Advisor, Edward Jones
Chris Kelley: Principal, DFJ
Chris Haberle: Principal Product Marketing Manager, AWS
Chris Bruno: Owner, X2Y Strategic Advisors
Christina Lomasney: Director of Commercialization, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Christy Johnson: CEO, Artemis Connection, Inc
Claire Mc Taggart: Founder & CEO, Square Peg Hires
Clare Gould: Founder & CEO, Your Vesa
Claudius Mbemba: Venture Investment Director, Startup Haven
Cody Birkland, Ultropia
Colleen Hilton: CEO, Alli Connect
Connor Gray: CEO, Stealth
Dan Fine: Managing Partner, Fine Solutions
Dan Kihanya: Director, REI Path Ahead Ventures, REI
Danl Kasow: Principal, Sorted Solution
Daria Boldyreva: Founder, Wunderdogs
David Anderson: GM, Kilby Silicon Valley Labs at Texas Instruments
David Stepania, ThirstySprout
David Jorjani: Founder, Qatalyst Labs
Destiny Brandt
Diane Najm: CEO/Founder, PhotoPad
Divyanshu Sharma: Software Engineer 3, Platform Security (Authentication & Authorization), CrowdStrike
Edmond Sanctis: Partner, REASON Venture Partners
Elisa La Cava: Investor, Madrona Venture Group
Emeka Alozie: Director, IntuitiveX
Fabian Geyrhalter: Founder and Principal, FINIEN
Fredrick Tsang: IP Attorney, Fenwick & West
Garrett Gross: Director of Growth, Xemelgo
Gary Gaessler: SaaS Community Builder, Nylas, Co-Founder of CloudElements
Gaurav Doshi
Gira Wieczorek: Managing Partner / Co-Founder, Aleberry
Glenn Wisegarver: CEO, Sigma IQ
Graciela Perez: Founder & Lean Start Up Coach, Lean Sigma Tech, LLC
Ian Lurie: EVP, Clearlink
Irina Menn: CEO, Hopela
Jake Hite: CTO, Compete to Create
James Hu: CEO, Jobscan
James Schreitmueller
Jana Krystofova Mike: Assistant Professor, Division of Pediatric Critical Care at University of California, San Francisco
Janiece Jenkins: Associate, Fenwick & West
Janis Machala: Corporate Director, Paladin Partners
Jay Goyal: President, Actively Learn
Jeff Croft: CRO, Kurvv
Jeffrey McIntosh: Founder, McIntosh Tea
Jen Haller: Chief of staff, Ascend VC.
Jennifer Azapian: Former Venture Partner and Advisor , Loyal VC | Mighty Capital
Jeremy Zaretzky: Managing Director, Founder Institute Seattle
Jeremy Bruck: Managing Partner, Data Valuation & Monetization, Gulp Data
Jim Poss: CEO, Modifi
Joe Bezdek: Co-founder, DivX, Inc.
John Borofka: Founder, Walnut+Oak
John Kinsella: VP Engineering, Not applicable
Jonathan Greechan: Co-Founder & CEO, Founder Institute
Joseph Horsman: Investor, Madrona
Josh Dougherty: Co-Founder & CEO, A Brave New
Judy Nguyen
Julian Fung: Solutions Architect, Real Estate Investor, Qualtrics, Avalanche Assets
Julie Pham: CEO, CuriosityBased
June W Choi: Managing Partner, Serval Ventures
Karin Kidder: Executive Director, E8 Angels
Kate Loose: Investment Director, Capria Ventures
Kate Edwards: AWS Startup BD/Co-Founder at Heartbeat , Heartbeat
Kathleen Baxley: Interim CFO / Strategic Venture Advisor
Kelly Lawton Abbott: Partner, SSM Law
Ken Kranseler: Managing Director, Kabuki Strategy
Ken Horenstein: Founder, GP, Pack Ventures
Kevin Yu: Co-founder & CTO, Socedo Inc.
Kevin Chan: Director, Product Marketing, Fleetio
Khurram Agha: Founder, Aghaz Investments
Kristopher Alford: Venture Capital, Cercano Management
Lainey Lee: Director, Founder Institute
Lakshmi Narayanee
Laura Malcolm: Founder/CEO, Give InKind
Levi Velez Reed: Venture Partner, Loyal VC
Lewis Lin: CEO, ManageBetter
Lindsay Randall: Sr. Program Manager, Moonbeam
Lisa Fernow: President, Fernow Consulting
Loren Kosloske: Head of New Verticals - Mobility, Uber
Madhu Singh: Chief Legal Officer, Foundry Law Group
Mara Rada: Chief Operations and Strategy, Loon (loonbio.com)
Mark Landay: Managing Director, Dynamic Synergy
Matt Mandell: Principal, PayNerd.com
Matt Paulin: Founder , zCrowd
Matt Rubright: VP of Early and Growth Stage Tech, Silicon Valley Bank
Matthew Lickwar: Co-Founder | Growth | Operations | Product, Ynomia
Maureen Ezekwugo: Chief Customer Officer, RealSelf
Maximilian Von Poelnitz: Investment Director, DSM Venturing
Melissa Li: Managing Partner and Head of Community, Dorm Room Fund
Melissa Reaves, Story Fruition
Michael Goldman: CFO, EN 360 Holdings
Mikaela Kiner: CEO & Founder, Reverb
Mike Vandenbos
Mike Cozart: Angel Investor and Startup Advisor, Relumin
Milkana Brace: CEO, Jargon
Minda Brusse: Founding Partner, First Row Partners
My Le Goel: Founder & CEO, Flight Live, Inc.
Neha Patadia
Nelly Yusupova: Founder, TechSpeak.co
Nicole Doyle: Founder, CEO, Aspir
Noah Wallach: Founder, Hope OS
Oleksandr Pukhalskyi: Mr, Case IQ
Omi Iyamu: Product Manager, Google Austria
Pablo Casilimas, OneSixOne Ventures
Pascha Scott: Partner and Co-founder, VERTETUDE
Paul Watt: Global Business Manager, Google
Paul Adams: CEO & Founder, Sound Financial Group
Peter Leonard: CEO, Meddle
Pilar Fernandez Hermida: Founder i-Expand (We help Health Tech companies go global), i-expand
Pooria Arab: Managing Partner, Beeloud
Pradeep UN: Founder, CEO, Seerflix Inc
Puneet Kohli: CEO, Careerflow.ai
Rahul Garg: Senior Director of Product Management, Fidelity Information Services
Raja Mawad: Founder, Thrv.health
Rebecca Lovell: Director, Create33
Rob Hillas: Founder, PlainVanilla
Robert Le: Director, FI Seattle
Rohre Titcomb: COO, Female Founders Alliance
Ron Gentile: Founder, Moodfit
Ruth Becke: Founder & CEO, Plantmatch
Ryan Micheletti: Head of Global Operations, Founder Institute
Ryan Mc Robert: Partner, Fenwick & West
Saikiran Chandha: CEO, SciSpace (Formerly Typeset.io)
Sanjaykumar Patel: Founder -Patent & Trademark Attorney, EXCELON IP - Patent & Trademark Attorneys
Sanjit Singh: COO, Various Companies
Santosh Khare: Founder & CEO, Touchbase, Inc.
Sarah Anderson
Scott Weller: President, Radian Labs
Shaahin Cheyene: President
Shama Keskar: Cofounder & CEO, VoxAI
Shilpa Sharma: Co-founder & CEO, Flyte (flyteai.com)
Sneha Lundia Agrawal: Founder & CEO, Step2Growth
Soumyo Sinha
Sri Kasam: Director of Engineering, Nfinity
Steve Cherewaty: Founder & Creative Director, Abacus
Steve Carver
Sui Lin Yap: Director of Growth, Data Science, Product & Research Operations, Microsoft
Suzanne Mills: Biz Dev & GTM - Retail & Fintech, Stealth Startup
Symon Perriman: CEO & Founder, FanWide
Tai Rattigan: Global Head of Partnerships & Alliances, Deel
Tarun Gulati: Founder & CEO, Contemplate
Taylor Black: Principal Program Manager, Office of the CTO Incubator , Microsoft
Terri Richardson: CEO, Accelerate Consulting Group, LLC
Thibaut Labarre: Founding Engineer, SingleFile.io
Travis Murdock: Executive Vice President, Ruder Finn
Vince Bianco: CEO, Advanced Medical Reviews
Wendy Werblin
Yemi Oluseun: Growth & GTM For FinTechs, The Change Hive
Yoko Okano: Co-founder, First Row Partners
Yvonne Seidl

And many more to be announced.

The Founder Institute focuses on helping tech or tech-enabled businesses at the pre-seed stage, including both solo-founders and teams. This includes established businesses that are pre-funding and traction, MVP and prototype-stage projects, and even part-time founders with just ideas. FI's mission is to create sustainable startup ecosystems that will create one million new jobs worldwide.