Techstars helps founders scale their startups into world-changing businesses.
Founded in 2006, Techstars is on a mission to invest in startups to enable more capital to flow to more entrepreneurs around the world in order to deliver exceptional returns to our investors. We do this by operating accelerator programs and venture capital funds, as well as by connecting startups, investors, corporations, and cities to help build thriving startup communities.
Our results show why Techstars is Better for Founders than any other global accelerator: On average, 74.5% of Techstars companies will raise money within 3 years of their program; 18.5% of Techstars portfolio companies have exited 5 years after their program and 31.1% after eight years. (PitchBook June 2023)
Y Combinator is the leading startup accelerator for entrepreneurs. Since 2005, YC has invested in over 5,400 companies, including Airbnb, Dropbox, Stripe, Reddit, Instacart, DoorDash, and Coinbase. Today, YC has built the most powerful startup community in the world alongside the products and programs to support founders for the life of their company.
StartX is a collection of serial entrepreneurs, industry experts, tenured Stanford professors, and well-funded growth-stage startups. We believe that entrepreneurs can achieve more, as a group, than we can as individuals. As a community, our goal is to find creative ways to collaborate, so that each of our companies can have a long-term positive impact on the world.
From this, we designed the StartX Community: a community for founders who don't need to give up equity.
(NOTE: Students cannot apply directly to StartX. Students should instead apply for the separate Student-in-Residence accelerator.)
We take Zero Equity
StartX is a 501(c)3 non-profit and takes not equity in our companies. We are supported through grants, donations, and corporate sponsorships, including $8M in grant funding from Stanford University, Stanford Health Care, and Kauffman Foundation.
We are Industry and Stage Agnostic
StartX founders tackle big problems in every industry, from biotech, medical device, hardware, cleantech, and non-profit to consumer and enterprise IT. Companies have joined the StartX community at a variety of stages, from having recently developed an initial prototype to having raised over $100M+.
The strength of our community speaks for itself:
2× higher chance of reaching $100M+ valuation than the best accelerators
1.7× higher seed valuation than the average Stanford startup
+50% more successful at reaching Series A than industry average
$8.4M average venture funding raised by StartX companies
85% StartX companies still growing + acquired over 8 years
5× proportion of venture funding raised by female-led StartX companies compared to industry average