Founder Institute

Start by choosing the right entry point

• A chapter cohort in person if you are near Bengaluru or Hyderabad. These are dated, run weekly, and include local networking.
• An online cohort if you cannot attend in person. Online cohorts take founders from anywhere and run to their own dates.
• The FI Agentic Program is the full track: ten sessions plus Demo Day, with a generated playbook and weekly mentor feedback.
• A bootcamp if you want a short course first, with no equity component. Bootcamp participants get priority admission into Agentic cohorts.
• Founder Capital only if you have already graduated. It invests in companies from the Founder Institute Network and does not take pitches from outside it.

How applications work

• Start at the join page, choose a city, and describe your idea or company. That takes about 15 minutes.
• The Entrepreneur DNA Assessment is the second step.
• Chapter cohorts have their own application form on the chapter page, with a stage selector from idea to seed and beyond.
• You sign an Entrance Agreement to enrol.
• Bootcamps are applied to separately, through the bootcamps page. Questions go to bootcamps@founderinstitute.com.

What the programme is looking for

• People over 18 who are prepared to incorporate a company during the programme.
• Founders between having an idea and having early revenue.
• Businesses that can scale through technology. The programme typically does not accept founders building non-scalable service companies, such as consultancies and agencies.
• The programme states that fewer than two in five founders make it through, because it challenges participants at every step. Expect weekly deliverables and mentor feedback, not a passive course.

Understand the terms before you sign

• Every cohort charges an entrance fee, and the figure differs by city and by how early you apply. The chapter page shows the figure for that cohort.
• The fee is fully refundable if you drop out before the kickoff session, and partly refundable before the third session. Bootcamp fees are not refundable.
• Payment plans are available.
• Teams of two or three founders pay more than a solo founder, and teams of four to five more again. The equity pledge is per company, not per founder.
• A share of future equity is pledged to the Equity Collective as a warrant. It is signed about two-thirds of the way through the programme, not at enrolment, and it activates only at a qualified equity financing from outside investors. It carries no board seat or voting rights.
• Bootcamps take no equity.

Check the dates on the chapter page

• Chapter cohorts are dated and close. In India the pages name Bengaluru and Hyderabad; online cohorts run separately.
• Different pages give different answers in places: the Hyderabad chapter's dates and the application call we hold for it do not match, and the counts of chapter countries and the value of alumni partner discounts differ from page to page. Use the live chapter page, and confirm the current intake before you commit.

Founder Institute is a pre-seed accelerator and company builder that has run since 2009 from Silicon Valley. It is operated by Founder Institute, Incorporated, a company registered in Palo Alto, California. The programme is delivered through local chapters and through online cohorts, and its own pages put those chapters in more than 200 cities.

How programmes work

The flagship is the FI Agentic Program. It runs as a cohort of ten sessions plus a Demo Day, and each founder gets a program generated for their startup, called a Playbook. Founders practise pitching to an AI investor at any hour, through something called Pitch Gym, and work with two assistants named Frank and AI Assist on every deliverable. Mentors give feedback every week. The programme states that fewer than two in five founders make it through, because it challenges participants at every step.

Local chapters run the programme in person. The Hyderabad chapter runs with IIIT Hyderabad's CIE and describes an eleven-week in-person cohort. The Bengaluru chapter lists an in-person cohort in early 2027, with an application deadline in November 2026. Online cohorts take founders from anywhere.

Chapter dates are worth checking rather than trusting a single page. The Hyderabad chapter page lists programme dates of 3 October to 12 December 2026 and an application deadline of 3 October, and it still shows an applications-open banner. The application call we hold for the same chapter is marked closed, with a deadline of 4 August 2026. The two do not match.

Every cohort charges an entrance fee. The figure differs by city and by how early you apply, and the chapter page shows it. The fee is fully refundable if a founder drops out before the kickoff session, and partly refundable before the third session. Payment plans are available. Teams of two or three founders pay more than a solo founder, and teams of four to five more again; the equity pledge is per company, not per founder.

About two-thirds of the way through the programme, not at enrolment, founders pledge a share of future equity to Founder Institute's Equity Collective, as a warrant. The warrant activates only when the company raises a qualified equity financing from outside investors. It is not a board seat and carries no voting rights.

Alongside the flagship, Founder Institute runs short courses called FI Bootcamps, in Startup Ideation, Vibe Coding and OpenClaw AI Productivity. These run for a few weeks, take no equity, and their fees are not refundable. Founders enrolled in the Agentic programme get one bootcamp free and a discount on the rest; people who take a bootcamp get priority admission into Agentic cohorts.

Graduates who go on to raise can apply to Founder Capital, the company's own fund. It invests only in companies from the Founder Institute Network, reviews all graduates, and asks top performers to apply. It does not take direct pitches from outside the network.

Who can apply

The programme works with people over 18 who are prepared to incorporate a company during the programme, and who are somewhere between having an idea and having early revenue. It typically does not accept founders building non-scalable service companies, such as consultancies and agencies. The bootcamps are a shorter route in for aspiring founders who want a course first, and bootcamp participants get priority when they apply to a cohort.

Applying starts at the join page: choose a city, then describe the idea or company, which takes about 15 minutes. The Entrepreneur DNA Assessment is the second step, and founders sign an Entrance Agreement to enrol.

Scale

Since 2009 the programme says it has helped more than 9,000 entrepreneurs build more than 9,000 companies, among them Udemy and Esusu. It reports a mentor and investor network of more than 40,000, and more than 1,000 free online workshops, pitch events and meetups a year, with more than 750,000 attendees to date. On its about page, 32 percent of founders are women, and 26 percent of cohorts run in developing countries. More than 1,299 founders have taken part in the bootcamps. These are the organisation's own figures. Its pages also give different counts of chapter countries: one says 95 countries across more than 200 cities, another says more than 100 chapter countries.

Who runs it

Founder Institute, Incorporated, of Palo Alto, California, established in 2009. Local chapters run the programme with partners from their own city; in Hyderabad that partner is IIIT Hyderabad's CIE. Questions go to its customer success team by email.

Locations

Chapters in more than 200 cities worldwide. In India its pages name Bengaluru and Hyderabad. Online cohorts are open to founders anywhere and run to their own dates, with session times shown on the cohort page.