Forum Ventures

Choose the right route first

Forum's four routes are for different stages, and the wrong choice wastes an application.

• An idea and no company yet: The Foundry if you want to test the idea first, or the AI Venture Studio if you are a domain expert who wants to build around a problem you know well.
• A working product or about to have one, with little outside funding so far: The Forum Accelerator.
• An MVP in market plus early revenue or design partner traction: The Pre-Seed Fund.

Every route is for B2B companies. A consumer product is not a fit for any of them.

How applications work

• The accelerator and the Pre-Seed Fund take pitches through the Pitch Us form on Forum's site. No fixed application window is published, so you can apply at any time.
• The AI Venture Studio has its own short form, Pitch the Studio, and no deck is needed.
• The Foundry takes applications for a named cohort on a rolling basis, with a closing date for each cohort. Shortlisted founders get an intro call.
• Use the general email address on Forum's site, hello@forumvc.com, for questions rather than writing to individual partners.

What reviewers look for

• For the Pre-Seed Fund, Forum says it looks for an MVP in market, early revenue or strong design partner traction, and a founder with clear domain expertise and market insight.
• For the AI Venture Studio, direct first-hand experience of the problem space is the entry test. Founders without it are told the studio is not a fit.
• For the accelerator, the stated tests are B2B software, pre-seed stage, little prior funding and an MVP in market or close to it.

Before you apply from India

• Forum states no India-specific route. Expect to explain your plan for selling to businesses, and say whether you plan to sell in North America.
• The accelerator takes equity from day one. Read the terms of a standard post-money SAFE before you pitch.
• The student scholarship is North America only. Do not apply to it from India.

Forum Ventures is a venture firm for early-stage B2B software companies. It runs a pre-seed accelerator, a pre-seed fund, an AI venture studio and a free validation sprint called The Foundry. Its legal entity is Forum Ventures, LLC, with a registered address in New York City, and it lists offices in New York, Toronto and San Francisco. Its own story page says it was started by Michael Cardamone.

Forum is not an Indian programme and publishes nothing aimed specifically at India. It is relevant to an Indian founder only because several of its routes do not tie a founder to a city, and because it backs software companies in any vertical. The sections below set out which of those routes are open to a founder based outside North America and which are not.

How Forum's programmes work

Forum splits its work by stage. A founder with only an idea and no company can look at The Foundry or the AI Venture Studio. A founder who has, or is about to have, a working product in market looks at the accelerator. A founder with early revenue or design partner traction looks at the pre-seed fund. In every case the company has to be B2B: Forum says consumer products are not what it funds.

Unlike most accelerators listed on this site, Forum invests. It takes equity in the companies it backs, and its accelerator puts in money on the first day of the programme rather than at the end. It does not run a grant scheme, and nothing here should be read as free funding.

The Forum Accelerator

The accelerator runs for 16 weeks and is for pre-seed B2B software companies in any vertical. Forum says it funds companies that have taken on only a small amount of prior funding, and that have or are about to have an MVP in market. The investment is made on day one, in exchange for equity on a standard post-money SAFE. Participants also get business perks from platforms such as Google, AWS, Brex, HubSpot and Stripe, and meetings with customers from Forum's network of more than 300 Fortune 500 and Fortune 1000 companies, aimed at early product feedback, design partners and first customers.

Solo founders and first-time founders are accepted. In its most recent cohort Forum reports that about a quarter of companies were led by a solo founder and about 58 per cent of founders had never started a company before. It also reports that about 64 per cent of the founders in that cohort reached early revenue, meaning their first paying customers, during the 16 weeks. These are Forum's own figures and the page does not date that cohort.

Forum announced a Spring 2026 cohort of 12 companies, and says it received applications from more than 2,000 founders in the first quarter of 2026. The accelerator page does not publish fixed intake dates or an application deadline, so a founder applies through Forum's Pitch Us form and does not wait for a window to open.

The Pre-Seed Fund

The Pre-Seed Fund backs B2B companies that already have an MVP in market, and either early revenue or strong design partner traction. Forum also looks for a founder with clear domain expertise and market insight. It says the fund typically suits founders who have already raised outside money or have meaningful annual recurring revenue and are ready to scale.

Forum's pages give two different descriptions of the size of investment the fund makes, so no figure is given here. The fund page reports 30 investments to date. A founder applies by submitting a pitch through the Pitch Us form, and Forum says it reviews every application.

The AI Venture Studio

The AI Venture Studio builds AI-native B2B companies with domain experts who have deep first-hand experience of a problem. Forum invests at formation, the moment the company is incorporated, and the studio's co-building team works with the founder from that point. Forum reports that 63 per cent of its AI Studio portfolio companies have raised follow-on capital within 12 months of formation.

Forum is clear about who the studio is not for. It is not a fit if you are building a consumer product, if you have already incorporated and gone to market, or if you have no direct experience of the problem space. Applications go through a short form called Pitch the Studio.

The Foundry

The Foundry is Forum's free, five-week, part-time validation sprint, run remotely by the studio team. It is for operators and domain experts who have a B2B idea but no company yet, including people who still have a job. No cofounder, team or pitch deck is needed. Participants are expected to spend roughly four to six hours a week and to talk to customers. Each cohort has six to ten founders. At the end, strong candidates can pitch Forum for studio funding, build on their own, or stay in the network. The sprint was previously called Builders Between Ventures.

The fifth cohort was listed as open, with applications closing on 4 November 2026 and the cohort starting on 9 November 2026. Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis and shortlisted founders are offered an intro call.

Who can apply

Forum says founders can join the accelerator remotely, wherever they live. The Foundry is remote and states no location restriction. Neither the fund page nor the studio page states a restriction on where a founder lives, though the focus areas the studio gives as examples are centred on the United States. Forum also runs a quarterly pitch-deck competition for students, but it is open only to students at accredited North American colleges, so Indian founders cannot enter it.

Scale

Forum describes a portfolio of more than 400 B2B startups, a founder community of 1,300, and a group of about 200 mentors and advisors. These are Forum's own figures and its pages do not date them. Its pages give several different counts for its investor network, so none is repeated here. Named portfolio companies include Fireflies.ai, and Roots, which was acquired by Deel.

Locations and events

The accelerator page lists offices in Toronto, New York City and San Francisco, and the legal address on the company's terms of use is in New York. Forum also keeps an events page for founder events, though it lists no dated events at the time of writing.