Please note: this is not a job or an employment opportunity with Forum Ventures. The Foundry is a part-time, five-week program you can do alongside your current role, and it's open to those working full-time roles. Expect about 4 hours per week.
Have a startup idea you can't stop thinking about? The Foundry: Forum's Studio Sprint is a five-week program where you validate your idea alongside Forum's AI Studio team. At the end, strong candidates can earn a $250K investment and a full team to build the company with us.
How The Foundry works
You bring the idea. We bring the same validation process we use internally to launch studio companies. Over five weeks, you work directly with our venture building, GTM, and product team to pressure-test your idea against real market demand, willingness to pay, and investor appetite.
You'll leave with one of three outcomes: an invitation to pitch us for $250K, a clear answer that the idea isn't the one, or the clarity to go build it on your own.
Forum derisks and accelerates the founder path by:
Five weeks of hands-on work with our studio team, not a curriculum
Market and customer diligence, ICP definition, and GTM validation
Clear answers on market size, competitive positioning, and investor appetite
A room of founders at the same inflection point
For strong candidates, a $250K USD investment plus a CTO, designer, and GTM support by your side until you hire your own team
A fundraising playbook and network to raise your Seed and Series A
$100K+ worth of business perks
Who this is for:
You might be one of these. You don't need to be all of them.
The Repeat Founder. You've built before, you know you want to do it again, and you want structure and momentum to get back in fast.
The Domain Expert. You know an industry's problems better than anyone and have an insight you can't shake.
The Operator with a Technical Cofounder. You've got a builder in your corner and want to move from idea to something real.
The Product or GTM Leader. You've shipped products or built pipelines at scale and are ready to do it for your own company.
About you:
An idea already in motion. You've started talking to customers, sketching the product, or testing the market
Early-stage operator experience, and expertise in product, business, or a specific domain
A real desire to be a venture-backed founder
The ability to attract and lead a great team
Able to commit [X hours per week] for five weeks, alongside your current role
Able to collaborate in North American time zones
Next cohort: Cohort 5
Applications close November 4. Cohort 5 kicks off November 9. Applications stay open year-round, so if the timing isn't right, apply anyway and we'll slot you into a future cohort.
If you're currently fundraising your first check, pre-seed or Seed round, please pitch our investment team here.
Skills Required
- An idea already in motion, demonstrated through customer conversations, product sketches, or market testing
- Early-stage operator experience and expertise in product, business, or a specific domain
- Desire to become a venture-backed founder
- Ability to attract and lead a great team
- Ability to commit approximately four hours per week for five weeks alongside a current role
- Ability to collaborate in North American time zones
What We Do
Forum Ventures is the leading early-stage fund, program and community for B2B SaaS startups. Founded in 2014 as Acceleprise, we’re on a mission to make the B2B SaaS journey easier, more accessible and successful for early-stage founders, through pre-seed and seed-stage funding, high touch programming, corporate perks and introductions, and an active SaaS community. Forum For Founders, our pre-seed program, provides founders with $100k in funding and 15 intense weeks of talks, events, mentorship and 1:1 guidance focused on go to market and fundraising. Forum Seed, our seed fund, backs exceptional SaaS startups at the seed-stage both from within and outside of our pre-seed program.
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