The Founder Institute is on a mission to globalize Silicon Valley by catalyzing the creation of meaningful and enduring companies around the world. So far operating in more than 180 cities worldwide, the global Founder Institute headquarters located in Palo Alto, California is also home to the flagship Silicon Valley chapter program.
Lead by Co-Directors Mike Suprovici and Ryan Micheletti, the Silicon Valley Founder Institute is currently open and accepting applications for the Summer 2019 program cohort until June 9th.
Co-Director Ryan Micheletti also serves as the Head of Global Operations for the Founder Institute programs worldwide, while Co-Director Mike Suprovici is the Entrepreneur In Residence at the Founder Institute HQ in Palo Alto, where he leads the Graduate Success team as well as the global post-graduate Funding Lab program.
Checkout the selection below for a sampling of some recently featured Bay Area FI portfolio companies from the Silicon Valley and San Francisco program chapters:
Daylighted
Alex Cammarano is the co-founder and CEO of Daylighted, an FI San Francisco portfolio company that is bringing art everywhere through technology and a subscription platform.
Art is incredibly subjective and personal, but one common element is that art is generally not readily accessible to most people outside of museums, galleries, and exhibits in major cities. Daylighted offers art-as-a-service to commercial or residential spaces, displayed dynamically on large screens in prominent locations. To date, the company has placed their installations in banks, airports, and hotels – all semi-public places where art can be appreciated, but is not especially common.
Seva Exchange
Anitha Beberg is the Founder and CEO of Seva Exchange, a Silicon Valley Founder Institute portfolio company that has recently formalized a series of partnerships with organizations supporting social impact initiatives and universal basic income, including TimeBanks USA and the Andrew Yang 2020 presidential campaign.
Seva Exchange is a platform that uses artificial intelligence and blockchain technologies to galvanize global volunteerism by reinventing timebanking services for the modern digital economy.
RushTix
Jill Bourque is the Founder and CEO of RushTix, an FI Silicon Valley portfolio company helping people discover the amazing local culture around them. RushTix makes life extraordinary with personalized event curation at members-only prices.
RushTix showcases hundreds of amazing events each month and leverages the power of those live experiences to bring people together to create meaningful connections. Members pay a low monthly fee, and the tickets are included, providing savings of up to 90% to their vibrant community of culturelovers.
MAKESafe Tools
Scott Swaaley is the Founder and CEO of MAKESafe Tools, an FI Silicon Valley portfolio company pioneering technology solutions that prevent injuries caused by power tools.
Each year, more than 400,000 power tool related injuries occur—and in most cases, these accidents could have been avoided. Through its power tool braking technologies, MAKESafe is helping to stop these accidents before they happen.
Eleven Digital
Elkanah Carnell Reed is the Founder and CEO of Eleven Digital, a Founder Institute Silicon Valley portfolio company that acts as a one-stop-shop for advertiser branded content.
Companies like TOMS, AEG, and IPE Cloth rely on Eleven Digital for aggregating all of the relationships needed to buy branded content at scale. Eleven Digital enables everyone to watch more of the entertainment that they love than ever before, uninterrupted, because it is funded by the brands.
SellHound
Suzanne Wouk is the Co-Founder and CEO of SellHound, an FI Silicon Valley portfolio company that has created the first price comparison engine for easily listing offers across multiple secondhand marketplaces.
SellHound has recently releasing its mobile app for iPhone, which allows users to create postings that let them sell used items competitively across multiple resale marketplaces, all by simply snapping a few pictures: no research, writing, or pricing required. The seller uploads a few photos, and that’s it - the app does the rest, including identifying the item, creating optimized listings for the item across multiple marketplaces, and providing a suggested competitive sale price.
Rever
Errette Dunn is the Founder and CEO of Rever, an FI Silicon Valley portfolio company that enables Global 2000 companies to develop a culture of frontline innovation and continuous improvement.
Rever is an online platform that gives frontline employees the power to do something about the challenges, opportunities, and plain nonsense they encounter everyday at work, though tools to capture the idea, methods to tackle it, a bridge to the right people to help solve it, and an incentive system to keep the momentum moving forward: companies are more profitable, employees feel innovative and recognized, and customers are delighted. Rever recently opened a new headquarters in San Mateo, and announced an expansion to its executive team.
ProfHire
Lesa Hammond is the Co-Founder & CEO of ProfHire (now rebranded as Prof360), an FI Silicon Valley portfolio company that provides a cloud-based faculty affairs information management system.
ProfHire is a one-stop-shop for educational institutions to manage their professorial and teaching talent. From onboarding to compliance, and credential management to eContracts, ProfHire has solutions built by educators for educators, and all in one convenient place.
Spikes Security
Branden Spikes is the Founder & CEO of Spikes Security. In 2016, Spikes Security was merged with Aurionpro to become Cyberinc.
Spikes engineered software technology to create the most secure way for companies to access the web. Its flagship product, Isla, helps enterprises address the biggest security risk facing computers and enterprise networks: web malware.
Bay Area entrepreneurs building technology enabled companies towards achieving traction and funding can apply to join the Summer 2019 cohort of the Silicon Valley Founder Institute program by June 9th (early deadline May 12th)!
Graduates of the Founder Institute are creating some of the world's fastest growing startups, having raised over $1.85BN 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/journey.
