Run FI's AI-native company builder in your city
Lead a Founder Institute chapter: recruit your city's most ambitious founders, back them with mentors, investors, and a squad of startup-trained agents, and build a portfolio while you do it. Part-time, 6–10 hours a week.
> fi chapter --city=yours
✓ 214 applications pre-screened by agents
✓ week-3 sprints generated · 42 founders
✓ demo day: 9 investors confirmed
→ you're on: session 1 tonight · 42 founders ready█
AI-powered FounderGen assists with your chapter's ops. You bring the judgment.
- Cities
- 200+
- Countries
- 100+
- Mentors & Investors
- 40,000+
- Portfolio Companies
- 9,000+
- Raised by Alumni
- $2BN+
- Leaders Trained
- 1,600+
- Years Running
- 17
Running an accelerator used to be a full-time job. Not anymore.
FounderGen, FI's platform of startup-trained agents, assists with your chapter's operations. You do the three things agents can't: taste, trust, and strategy.
Agents help recruit and screen
FounderGen drives applications with automated marketing, then screens them: automated selection plus the Entrepreneur DNA assessment. You connect with your city's best founders and mentor them through.
Agents assist program ops
Daily operational processes run in the platform, and every founder works through structured weekly sprints. No grading treadmill.
Keep your career. Lead anyway.
Curation, relationships, and strategy fit in 6–10 hours a week, beside a full-time job, a company, or a fund.
Three kinds of people run great chapters
Venture track
The Aspiring VC
You've done the venture training: Venture Institute, VC Lab, or angel checks of your own. What's missing is dealflow and a track record. A chapter is your first portfolio, or structured dealflow if you're already writing checks.
Apply to Lead
Operator
The Experienced Founder
You've built companies, and founders already come to you for advice. Turn that into a chapter, with agents helping carry the admin.
Apply to Lead
Community
The Ecosystem Builder
You run the events people actually show up to, or the university and government programs behind them. Stop hosting meetups: start launching companies, with FI's global brand behind you.
Apply to Lead- No accelerator experience required: Accelerator Lab trains you from scratch
- Works beside a full-time job: no need to quit anything
- Free to join: no fees to FI, ever
What you actually do
Community
Host the online and in-person events that make your city's founders find each other. Every meetup builds your chapter's community, and your own network with it.
Founders
Connect with ambitious founders every cohort and help them see the opportunity. Then mentor them through it: group feedback in sessions, 1-on-1 in office hours.
Mentors & investors
Build relationships with your ecosystem's best operators and angels. Invite them to speak at your events, mentor at sessions, and write early checks.
Partners
Bring universities, governments, and corporates in behind your chapter. Rally the rest of the ecosystem too: coworking spaces, event organizers, local media.
Paid like an early investor, not a volunteer
Other networks ask city leaders to volunteer. FI's Local Leaders share in what their chapter creates. Three ways:
A cut of entrance fees
Founders pay an entrance fee to join your cohort. A percentage goes to you: real economics from your first cohort.
1% of every graduate
Each graduate contributes a 2.5% equity warrant to FI's Equity Collective. Local Leaders get 1%, double what mentors receive. The startups you accelerate become your portfolio companies.
How the Equity Collective worksChapter sponsorships
In emerging ecosystems, economic development organizations fund the program through the Paid Partnership Model. Where it's in place, that funding can include compensation for you.
Plus, from day one
- FI's global brand behind your name: recognition, speaking slots, media
- Never lead alone: 500+ fellow Local Leaders, one message away
- A direct line to 40,000+ mentors and investors worldwide
Want to end up in venture capital? This is the on-ramp.
VC programs teach you the theory. LPs and hiring managers want a track record. A chapter is how you build one: part-time, in your own city.
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where most start
The venture itch
Venture Institute, VC Lab, angel checks, or years of studying the industry from the outside. Theory and network, but no portfolio.
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the missing step
FI Local Leader
Front-row dealflow from your own cohorts. A portfolio via the Equity Collective. 40,000+ mentors and investors. Your city's founder brand, attached to your name.
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where it leads
Your own fund
Chapter leaders are named ideal VC Lab candidates, chapters are launching local venture funds, and FI's goal is 1,000 new VC firms in five years.
Leaders already on this path
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Jason JacobsohnFI Chicago · Managing Partner, Propellant Ventures
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Ignacio CastroFI San Jose · Managing Director, 128vc
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Keshni MorarFI South Africa · Managing Director, Investable
Lead from any city. These are our priorities.
FI runs chapters in 200+ cities across 100+ countries, and new ones launch wherever ambitious founders need one, including yours. These are the cities we most want filled right now. One leader team per city.
Priority cities
Recruiting nowNorth America
- New York
- Montreal
- Vancouver
Latin America
- Mexico City
- Rio de Janeiro
- Belo Horizonte
Europe
- London
- Paris
- Amsterdam
Middle East
- Riyadh
- Jeddah
- Doha
Africa
- Nairobi
- Accra
- Kigali
South Asia
- New Delhi
- Bangalore
- Mumbai
Southeast Asia
- Jakarta
- Bangkok
- Kuala Lumpur
East Asia
- Tokyo
- Seoul
- Taipei
Not on the board? Apply anyway: chapters launch wherever the right leader shows up.
Apply to LeadLeaders on the record
1,600+ leaders trained since 2009. A few of them, on why they run chapters:
Running FI Toronto helps me build and access deal flow of high-quality early-stage startups.
Sunil SharmaLocal Leader, FI Canada
Founder Institute's structured weekly sprints keep founders focused, while hands-on support and mentor feedback help them refine their ideas. FI equips AI-native founders to launch AI-powered startups.
Janet TodorovaFI Central & Eastern Europe
The feedback from our partners and the founders themselves has been overwhelmingly positive, with founders praising the quality of the FI platform and curriculum.
Levi ReedFI Seattle & Startup425
Founder Institute delivered world-class acceleration experiences tailored for Pakistani founders. The training, structure, and network provided by FI empowered NIC to support startups more effectively and sustainably.
Sayyed Ahmad MasudFI Pakistan
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Leaders & founders · FounderX -
Chapter event night -
A session in progress -
Cohort graduation -
Session night · FI Brazil -
Founders at work -
Graduation night · FI Boston -
Pitch practice -
Graduates, day one of the rest
How you become a Local Leader
From application to running your first cohort in one season. Free at every step.
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1
Apply in five minutes
Tell us who you are and where you'd lead. No payment, no commitment.
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2
Review & interview
We look for ecosystem fit: your city, your network, your drive.
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3
Accelerator Lab: free, virtual, six sessions
FI's official onboarding: the 17-year methodology, the playbooks, and your FounderGen setup.
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4
Launch your chapter
Recruit your chapter's first cohort, with HQ support and co-marketing behind you.
Bring the agentic era to your city
Accelerator Lab, FI's free leader onboarding, runs several times a year, and the next cohort is forming now.
