1. Raise money faster.

2. Raise money at a higher valuation.

3. Build a huge Silicon Valley network quickly and efficiently from anywhere in the world.

4. Be part of the LAUNCH family, getting access to fellow founders at your stage who can help you grow your business.

5. Perfect your pitch for investors, recruiting, and press.

6. Learn the strategies, tips, and tactics, from the world's best companies to help you grow as quickly and pain-free as possible.

7. Prioritized speaking opportunities at LAUNCH (This Week in Startups, Founder.University, etc.)

The "Goldilocks Zone" for the Accelerator is that you are pre Series A and:

1. Enterprise/marketplace startups: $2k+ in MRR with 20%+ growth m/o/m
2. Consumer products: 3k+ DAUs with 5%+ w/o/w growth
3. Deep tech startups: an MVP and a strong technical team

What ARE THE PROGRAM sessionS like?

WEEK 1 : Orientation. LAUNCH Accelerator (LA) founders prep with Managing Director on product pitches and program goals.

WEEK 2: Founders workshop their presentations with Jason Calacanis and the LAUNCH Team.

WEEKS 3-7: Growth Intensive. Weekly sessions are designed to help founders achieve product market fit. Topics include GTM, tracking metrics, customer acquisition and retention, sales and marketing, accounting, and legal.

WEEKS 8-13: Fundraising. Founders pitch weekly to a new group of investors in the following format:

• Three-minute pitch, including growth metric slides.

• Investors give feedback and ask questions.

• Founder has two minutes to address questions and feedback from investors.

• Investors choose top three. Winners announced.

• Investors and founders network in breakout rooms.

WEEK 15-16: Public Demo Day.

WEEKS 17-52: Founders have monthly check-ins with the LAUNCH Team to update on progress and brainstorm fundraising and growth challenges.

We advise and assist our founders in raising money during and after the Accelerator. Some founders will raise their targeted capital before the end of the 16-week portion, others will complete within 6-12 months.

What are the deal terms? 

We invest $125,000 cash for 7% of a startup. We don’t negotiate the terms for LAUNCH Accelerator due to the immense value the program creates. If the terms work for you, great! If they don’t, when you hit $25k/month+ in gross profit for 3+ months, growing at 15%+ m/o/m, we might want to invest via thesyndicate.com.

Anytime before or after graduation, we may opt to syndicate the deals of the top startups for additional $250k-$500k (or more).  We cannot guarantee the syndicate amount. The result of this model is that we signal to the market that we are willing to invest at your “graduation valuation,” which is a very good signal! 

does launch follow on after the accelerator?

LAUNCH has the option to invest $500,000 or up to half of the next round of funding in all accelerator startups. One or two startups coming out of each class elects to defer fundraising or raise a modest round, in which case we will do our pro rata or support the founder in the future. We may elect to skip over a round.

is launch an accelerator (like Ycombinator & techstars), a seed fund (like cowboy ventures & homebrew), or a syndicate (like angellist)?

Yes! We are all three by design. Our goal is to invest in founders and their startups three to four times along their journey from accelerator to seed round and into their Series A and sometimes even their Series B. We also love to invest in founders over the life of their careers, like we did when we invested in Rahul for Rapportive (2010) and Superhuman (2015).

does launch have a target ownership percentage in accelerator startups?

Yes, our goal is to have 10%-15% ownership in startups we invest in over time — but we won't let that stop us from partnering with a great founder. Our goal is to be the best investor and partner you have, not only for this startup but over your entire entrepreneurial career. Our founders tell us that the earlier rounds of funding are brutally hard and the later ones are easy, so we typically see ourselves participating in three or four rounds of funding, which increases our ownership from six percent to ten or higher.

My team is not based in the Bay Area, can I participate remotely?

Yes. We are primarily virtual. Two to four sessions per cohort will occur in person in the San Francisco Bay Area and/or other city TBD. We anticipate opening a new office around San Mateo, CA, later in 2024 for founder gatherings and additional support.

How many of our team would need to participate in the program?

At least one founder from the team needs to be present for each session. (Co/founders can alternate if desired.)

We welcome additional team members to join us and believe our program is a good time to involve the entire team. Ultimately, we leave this up to you.

We’ve already received funding, are we still qualified to apply? 

Yes! Most of our startups have already raised an angel or seed round. The LAUNCH Accelerator only accepts seven startups per class. This allows us to be very selective in picking startups that are on solid footing and whose founders can leverage our program to get a solid seed or Series A.

Can I be an LLC and come to THE LAUNCH Accelerator?

No. One of the main goals of the LAUNCH Accelerator is to have you pitch to hundreds of investors over 14 weeks. Most investors never invest in LLCs because of tax issues. LLCs are great vehicles for legal and venture partnerships, but they are not the standard for venture-backed startups. A Delaware C Corp is the standard. The LAUNCH Fund only invests in Delaware C Corps as well. You can still apply to the Accelerator if you are a non-Delaware C Corps or LLC but we expect the conversion to Delaware C Corps to happen before the start of the program.

WILL YOU INVEST IN International companies?

Yes. We have founders who have gone through the Accelerator from all around the world. As stated above, however, we expect all startups to be Delaware C Corps by the start of the program. (Often, founders will keep their original entity as a subsidiary of the US Delaware C Corps parent company and that entity will continue to operate.)

I have a great idea, but I haven’t built an MVP. Can I still apply? 

If you just have an idea, you’re too early for the Accelerator. A prototype is worth a thousand powerpoint slides -- build one! And please apply to our 12-week Founder University course, which will help you! (We invest in the top companies graduating from 12-week Founder University.)

Do you have specific verticals that you focus on? 

We are vertical agnostic. We look for founders who can execute well, with delighted customers, and in big markets.

HOW DOES LAUNCH DEAL WITH COMPETITIVE COMPANIES? DO YOU OFFER EXCLUSIVITY BY CATEGORY?

While we would not place competitors in the same cohort, occasionally, competitors emerge within the wider LAUNCH portfolio. For example, a startup might pivot its focus or business model to become competitive with a company with which it had not been previously.  Sometimes multiple founders in our portfolio will add similar features during the same time period (think crypto, AI, audio, etc.). When this happens we put a different investment partner on each startup and, obviously, we never share information between our founder partners.

Cohort #31: Winter 2024
Cohort #32: Spring/Summer 2024