Founder Institute
VC Fund
Palo Alto, United States
Founder Institute is a VC fund in Palo Alto focused on Information Technology and Software. The Founder Institute is the world's largest pre-seed startup accelerator, having helped launch over 3,500 companies across 180+ cities and six continents.The company was founded in 2009 by serial entrepreneur Adeo Ressi and his colleague, Jonathan Greechan. The idea for the program spawned from operating TheFunded.com, where it becameapparent that most entrepreneurs at the idea and launch stages lacked the structure, feedback, and support network needed to be successful.News of the launch was announced on TechCrunch, the first Founder Institute program methodology was crowdsourced by over 10,000 CEO members of TheFunded.com, and the inaugural program started in May 2009 in a small classroom at Stanford University. There were originally no plans to expand beyond Silicon Valley, but upon receiving immense inbound interest to launch the program in other cities, the Founder Institute began to expand. Today the program operates across 180 + cities and is localized into 9 languages.In total, Founder Institute Alumni have raised over $800M and are worth an estimated $20B.
- Total investments:
- 265
- Last investment:
- Lead investor:
- 3%
Last updated:
For AI agents: llms.txt
Industries Founder Institute invests in
Stages Founder Institute invests in
Countries Founder Institute invests in
Contacts
| Name | Phone | Socials | |
|---|---|---|---|
Eino-Antti Kuuskoski
|
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Ryan Micheletti
|
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Urs Rothmayr
|
Investment Focus
Industry
- Information Technology 23 (9%)
- Software 19 (7%)
- Artificial Intelligence 18 (7%)
- SaaS 13 (5%)
- Machine Learning 8 (3%)
Stage
- Pre-Seed 35 (13%)
- Funding Round 19 (7%)
- Series A 14 (5%)
- Seed 9 (3%)
- Non-equity Assistance 1 (0%)
Country
- United States 39 (15%)
- Sri Lanka 19 (7%)
- Canada 16 (6%)
- Switzerland 1 (0%)
- The Netherlands 1 (0%)
Team
| Name | Title | Investments | Links | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Adeo Ressi
CEO
|
CEO | Total investments: 2 | Find email | |
|
Eino-Antti Kuuskoski
Founder and Mentor
|
Founder and Mentor | Total investments: 0 | Find email | |
Paul Krajewski
Co-Director for Founder Institute Australia
|
Co-Director for Founder Institute Australia | Total investments: 1 | Find email | |
|
Ryan Micheletti
Head of Global Operations
|
Head of Global Operations | Total investments: 1 | Find email | |
|
Urs Rothmayr
Director of Barcelona chapter
|
Director of Barcelona chapter | Total investments: 0 | Find email | |
| See all 57 team members → | ||||
Investments
| Company | Description | Round | Links |
|---|---|---|---|
RYDPEN
|
Rydpen is an AI assistant that helps tutors grade faster and deliver personalized feedback to every student. By automating the most time-consuming parts of assessment, Rydpen frees educators to focus on teaching while ensuring every learner receives detailed, consistent feedback tailored to their performance. automates assignment grading,generates structured teacher feedback, and surfaces learner performance insights | Pre-Seed / Jun 06, 2026 | |
Eleveratek
|
Eleveratek is an AI-powered Learning Technology company transforming how organizations create, deliver, and optimize education and training experiences. The company develops next-generation intelligent learning platforms that automate content creation, personalize learner journeys, and provide real-time analytics using advanced artificialintelligence and machine learning technologies.Eleveratek’s flagship product is an AI-Powered Learning Management System (LMS) designed for enterprises, universities, EdTech providers, and workforce training organizations. The platform combines generative AI, recommendation systems, and real-time analytics to create scalable, adaptive, and data-driven learning environments.Core Products & AI/ML CapabilitiesAI Course Builder Uses Large Language Models (LLMs) and Generative AI to automatically create course structures, learning modules, summaries, assignments, and educational content from prompts, documents, or topics. Built using NVIDIA NeMo-based AI models.Personalized Learning Engine Leverages machine learning recommendation systems powered by NVIDIA Merlin to analyze learner behavior, engagement patterns, and skill progression to generate adaptive learning paths and intelligent content recommendations.Auto-Generated Assessments & Quizzes Applies Natural Language Processing (NLP) and generative AI to automatically generate quizzes, evaluations, and knowledge checks aligned with course objectives and learner performance.Engagement Scoring & Predictive Analytics Uses AI/ML-driven analytics models to monitor learner engagement, identify drop-off risks, predict learning outcomes, and deliver actionable insights for educators and enterprises in real time.Real-Time Analytics Dashboard Powered by accelerated data processing and AI-driven analytics to provide live reporting on learner activity, course effectiveness, performance metrics, and organizational training outcomes.The company’s mission is to make learning more intelligent, automated, personalized, and accessible through the power of artificial intelligence. | $200K / Series A / Nov 12, 2025 | |
Fluxcient Inc.
|
Fluxcient develops intelligent solutions for real-time data flow monitoring and pipeline optimization. Our platform is designed to give businesses full visibility into how data moves across complex digital systems. We help IT teams detect anomalies early, prevent performance bottlenecks, and maintain stable, efficient infrastructure. Bycontinuously analyzing data streams, Fluxcient ensures reliable and high-performing operations.Built for enterprises and modern SaaS platforms, Fluxcient enables smarter decision-making through actionable insights, streamlined monitoring, and optimized data performance at scale. | $87.5K / Pre-Seed / Aug 02, 2025 | |
NeiX AI
|
NeiXAI is a next-generation AI agent platform enabling businesses to build, deploy, and orchestrate autonomous digital agents. Our platform empowers organizations to automate workflows, execute complex multi-step tasks, and connect multiple software systems seamlessly. By providing a cognitive layer on top of existing tools, NeiXAI transformsoperations, reduces manual workload, and optimizes productivity. Designed for enterprises, startups, and developers, NeiXAI delivers scalable, intelligent automation across digital ecosystems, redefining the way organizations work in an increasingly connected world. | $86.4K / Pre-Seed / Jul 28, 2025 | |
PLF Digital
|
PLF Digital is a Sri Lanka-based AI-driven financial intelligence platform built for fintech companies, investors, and institutions. The platform delivers actionable insights through real-time market data, predictive analytics, portfolio risk scoring, and sector heatmaps. With a clean, enterprise-ready interface, PLF Digital enables smarter, fasterfinancial decisions backed by intelligent automation. | $150K / Series A / Jul 25, 2025 | |
Qyter AI
|
In today's fast-paced world, finding data isn't the problem—making sense of it is.Qyter AI is an AI-Powered Smart Research & Insight Platform built for professionals, teams, and enterprises who want to work smarter, not harder. We eliminate the friction of manual research by allowing you to instantly gather, summarize, and analyzeinformation across multiple sources in one unified workspace.Why Qyter AI? • Accelerated Research: Cut your data-gathering time by up to 80%. • Instant Summarization: Turn 50-page reports and endless web articles into concise, actionable summaries. • Deep Analysis: Connect the dots across multiple sources to uncover insights you might have missed.Whether you're conducting market research, tracking competitor analysis, or simply trying to learn a new topic quickly, Qyter AI acts as your personal AI research assistant.Stop drowning in endless browser tabs and start making data-driven decisions faster. | $110K / Pre-Seed / Jul 15, 2025 | |
Visionnora AI
|
Visionnora AI Inc. is an eye care management platform that enables users to schedule appointments, receive reminders, and track their eye care routines within a single system.The platform simplifies healthcare management by providing a centralized dashboard for booking checkups, managing schedules, and maintaining consistent health habits. Bycombining scheduling and routine tracking, Visionnora helps users stay proactive about their vision health.Designed for simplicity and accessibility, Visionnora empowers individuals to improve long-term eye care through structured and consistent engagement.Founded in 2024 and headquartered in San Francisco, Visionnora is positioned as a modern solution for accessible and user-friendly eye care management. | $87.9K / Pre-Seed / May 24, 2025 | |
Soundelix Labs Inc.
|
Soundelix is a lightweight yet intelligent audio utility platform designed to transform the way users capture, manage, and interact with voice notes and audio content.Built for speed, simplicity, and clarity, Soundelix eliminates the chaos of scattered voice recordings across multiple apps and devices by offering a centralized system forrecording, editing, organizing, and accessing audio in one seamless workspace. Whether it’s a quick idea, a meeting note, a lecture, or a creative thought, Soundelix ensures every voice moment is captured instantly and stored in an organized structure that is easy to retrieve anytime.Unlike complex audio production tools, Soundelix focuses on everyday usability. Users can record high-quality voice notes in a single tap, perform quick edits like trimming and refining, and manage their audio through intuitive folders, tags, and smart search. This makes it ideal for students, professionals, content creators, and teams who rely on voice-based communication and idea capture.The platform also introduces an optional intelligent layer that enhances organization through smart categorization and contextual search, helping users locate specific voice notes without manually browsing through files. This transforms simple recordings into a structured knowledge system for personal and professional productivity.Soundelix is designed as a modern audio workflow solution, bridging the gap between raw voice capture and meaningful organization. It turns spoken ideas into accessible, structured, and actionable audio assets, empowering users to work faster, think clearer, and stay organized in a voice-first digital world. | $89.9K / Pre-Seed / May 20, 2025 | |
PureAudioSense Labs
|
PureAudioSense is a speech intelligence platform that transforms raw audio into structured, actionable insight in real time. It combines advanced speech recognition, speaker identification, sentiment detection, and voice analytics to help organizations understand not just what is said, but what it truly means.Built for enterprise scale,PureAudioSense processes multilingual conversations with low-latency performance and high accuracy across complex audio environments. From customer support calls to large-scale communication systems, it enables businesses to extract intent, emotion, and meaning from every spoken interaction with precision and reliability. | $89.6K / Pre-Seed / May 14, 2025 | |
Cortivo AI
|
Cortivo AI is an AI-powered productivity platform that enables users to manage tasks through intelligent prioritization, cognitive planning, and workflow optimization.Unlike traditional task management tools, Cortivo AI acts as a thinking system that understands user behavior, focus levels, and workload. The platform automatically prioritizestasks, schedules work based on energy levels, and continuously adapts to improve productivity.By combining AI-driven task intelligence with behavioral insights, Cortivo AI helps users reduce overwhelm, stay focused, and execute tasks more efficiently.Founded in 2024 and headquartered in San Diego, Cortivo AI is positioned as a next-generation cognitive productivity platform designed to redefine how individuals and teams approach work and focus. | $88.9K / Pre-Seed / May 14, 2025 | |
| See all 265 investments → | |||
Co-Investors
Founder Institute Montreal
16 deals together
Nvidia Inception
6 deals together
Startup Weekend
6 deals together
AngelHack
2 deals together
IsimoVest Venture Capital Partners
2 deals together
Startup Grind
2 deals together
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FAQ
What does Founder Institute invest in?
Founder Institute invests primarily in Information Technology, Software and Artificial Intelligence startups, most often at Pre-Seed and Funding Round stage. Most of the 265 investments tracked by Shizune back companies in United States. The Investment Focus section breaks down every industry, stage and country in the portfolio.
How do I contact Founder Institute?
Public channels for Founder Institute include LinkedIn, X (Twitter) and the website linked on this profile. For a verified work email and phone number, create a free Shizune account — contact data is searched across 20+ sources and validated before delivery, so your outreach lands in the right inbox.
Who are the partners at Founder Institute?
The team at Founder Institute includes Adeo Ressi (CEO), Eino-Antti Kuuskoski (Founder and Mentor) and Paul Krajewski (Co-Director for Founder Institute Australia), among 57 team members tracked by Shizune. The Team section lists each member with their title, investment count and links.
Is Shizune's investor data accurate?
Yes — every stat on this profile is calculated from confirmed public funding rounds monitored across hundreds of sources since 2020. This profile was last refreshed in Aug 2026 and is updated monthly. Spotted something off? Use the “Suggest an edit” link near the top of the page.
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