Co-founder @Izinga & SHIVR | Helping you scale smarter w/ AI Powered Talent | Event Producer | LinkedIn Guru 🧙🏼‍♂️

I’ve spent my career in global sales, client development, and talent solutions—helping companies scale by building the right teams.

Today, I run Handoff, where we connect U.S. startups and growing businesses with top offshore talent. From executive assistants and marketers to operations, finance, and relocation specialists, we make it simple to hire incredible people at a fraction of the local cost.

Our mission is to let founders and leaders focus on what they do best—and handoff the rest.

Anthony Gonzalez

I am a Strategic Consultant at Seed Consult, helping early-stage founders to bring their ideas to life and successfully enter the market. My previous experience includes Berkeley SkyDeck, where I provided coaching support for founders in the go to market, customer development and market validation, as well as the global consulting firm Grant Thornton. With a proven track record in the global startup ecosystem, I actively bridge the gap between early-stage founders and investment opportunities by building communities for product managers and early-stage founders. Beyond my formal roles, I am also scouting and sourcing startups for VC funds such as Swift Ventures, LvlUp and other VCs and angels. 

I have been a startup mentor with various accelerators and VCs, including Founders Institute, INNOVIT – Italian Innovation and Culture Hub in San Francisco, StEP Entrepreneurial Program of Haas Business School at UC Berkeley, IRIS Business Incubator, and more.

As a Fulbright scholar with an MS in Entrepreneurship and Innovation from the University of San Francisco and an MBA from the American University of Armenia, I bring a global perspective to my work, actively contributing to the growth and success of early-stage ventures in the international tech trajectory.

Nuné Zadoyan, MBA

A few weeks ago I posted a 2-part series on startup accelerators beyond YC. The response surprised me. Founders DMing me asking for more details. Dozens of people saving the posts. Questions about programs I hadn't even included. So I decided to combine a full list of the programs out there.

The result is a Notion page with over 35 accelerator programs. From the most elite VC-backed residencies to no-equity options, from Silicon Valley to Singapore, from deep tech to biotech to B2B SaaS.

This is a reference resource that will be updated continuously.

Whatever you're actively looking for an accelerator, advising a founder, or just trying to understand the ecosystem better, I hope it saves you hours of research.

And if I missed anything, just shoot me a message and I'll add it.

Link in the comments.

Helping Early-Stage Founders to get from 0 to 1 | Startups & Venture Capital | Fulbright Scholar | Superconnector

Following up on one of my previous posts on how to choose the right accelerator (link in the comments), I've combined a list of some of the most prominent ones (in 2 parts). While Y Combinator is undoubtedly one of the most famous ones, here are other accelerators that are producing world-class companies:

→ Sequoia Capital Arc, founded in 2022. Terms are company-specific. ~10 companies per cohort, twice a year. Getting in means Sequoia is already in your corner before you've raised a round. One of the most powerful stamps of approval in the startup ecosystem. 🔗 sequoiacap.com/arc

→ Neo Residency, founded in 2017. $750K on an uncapped SAFE (equity shrinks as your valuation grows — at $100M, Neo's stake drops under 1%). 12–15 startups per cohort, 100+ companies backed. Backed Cursor and Kalshi before anyone else. 🔗 neo.com

→ South Park Commons (Founder Fellowship). SPC was founded in 2015. $400K for 7% upfront + $600K guaranteed in your next round ($1M total). No idea required. 1 partner for every 2 companies. Alumni include the founders of Anthropic and Render. 🔗 https://lnkd.in/gzMhmfB5

→ HF0 Residency. Founded in 2023. $1M on an uncapped SAFE for 5%. Live-in 12-week residency in SF, meals, laundry, and life handled so you can build at maximum intensity. Repeat technical founders only. ~32 companies backed to date. 🔗 hf0.com

→ a16z speedrun. Founded in 2023. Up to $1M for ~10% via SAFE + an additional $500K if you raise your next round within 18 months. Expanded to ~60 companies per cohort in 2025. Unmatched downstream signaling for consumer and AI founders. 🔗 a16z.com/speedrun

→ Conviction Embed. Founded in 2023. $250K on an uncapped MFN SAFE + $700K+ in compute credits. Small, highly selective cohorts run by Sarah Guo, a former Greylock GP who backed Harvey, Mistral AI, and HeyGen. One of the most curated AI-native accelerators running right now. 🔗 embed.conviction.com

→ Bessemer Venture Partners Beam. Founded in 2022. $10K to start. No equity taken, zero. Bessemer gets the right to invest up to $3M in your next round at market terms. $600K+ in compute credits. Purpose-built for academics and researchers making the leap to founder. 🔗 bvp.com/bessemer-beam

→ Greylock Partners Edge. Founded in 2023. Flexible funding: priced seed, uncapped SAFE, or no capital at all. $500K+ in credits. Open rolling applications, no fixed cohort size. Greylock was the first institutional investor in Palo Alto Networks, Workday, and Abnormal AI. 🔗 greylock.com/edge

→ Berkeley SkyDeck. Founded in 2012. $200K per company. ~20 global startups selected every 6 months. Adjunct to the University of California, Berkeley, SkyDeck has unparalleled access to Berkeley's research ecosystem across deep tech, biotech, AI and more. 🔗 skydeck.berkeley.edu

Part 2 coming tomorrow.

Following up on Part 1 (link in the comments), here are more accelerators worth knowing about, including programs for hardware, biotech, Europe, and founders who want support without giving up equity:

→ Alchemist Accelerator. Founded in 2012. ~$25K for 5% + $400K+ in partner perks. ~25 companies per cohort, 500+ backed. Six months, not the usual three. The best accelerator in the world if your customers are companies, not consumers. 50%+ of graduates close institutional rounds within 12 months of Demo Day. 🔗 alchemistaccelerator.com

→ Entrepreneurs First. Founded in 2011. ~£80–100K for 8–10%. ~60–80 individuals per city cohort, 5,000+ alumni globally. The best program in the world if finding a co-founder is your constraint, they invest in individuals before you have a team or idea. London, Singapore, Paris, and more. 🔗 joinef.com

→ Techstars. Founded in 2006. $220K total ($20K for 5% + $200K uncapped MFN SAFE). 50+ programs globally, 3,000+ companies backed. Vertical-specific tracks in fintech, health, and energy give you domain access, not just generic advice. 🔗 techstars.com

→ Antler. Founded in 2017. ~$250K for 10% (terms vary by city). 30+ cities globally, 1,000+ companies backed. Invests in individuals before you have a co-founder or idea, one of the few programs that genuinely operates at pre-zero. 🔗 antler.co

→ LAUNCH. Founded in 2012. $125K for 7%. 14-week program, 1,000+ companies backed. Jason Calacanis puts you in front of 700+ investors at Demo Day. Best for founders who want real fundraising reps and media exposure. 🔗 launch.co

→ 500 Global. Founded in 2010. $150K for 6%. 3,100+ companies backed across 60+ countries. One of the best pipelines into the global investor ecosystem, especially if you're raising your first institutional round outside the US. 🔗 500.co

→ 5050 (by Fifty Years). No equity. No fees. 14 weeks for scientists and engineers figuring out whether their research is ready to commercialize. Weekly workshops, 1:1 mentorship, and a 3-day off-grid camp. SF, Boston, remote + UK cohort launching March 2026. 🔗 fiftyyears.com/5050

→ Pear VC (PearX). Founded in 2013. $250K–$2M at pre-seed (terms vary). ~10–15 companies per cohort. Alumni include Affinity and Viz.ai. Tight, high-quality Silicon Valley network with strong hands-on partner support. 🔗 pear.vc

→ Plug and Play Tech Center. Founded in 2006. No equity taken, zero. 150+ startups per batch, 60+ locations globally, 550+ Fortune 500 corporate partners. The world's largest accelerator by volume. Alumni include PayPal and Honey. 🔗 plugandplaytechcenter.com 

→ Afore Capital Founders-in-Residence. Founded in 2023. $100K–$500K+ on a customized SAFE. 5–8 companies per cohort, 50+ backed. 8 weeks in SF, no idea required, the explicit goal is to invent, not fundraise. Ends with an investor showcase for 200+ VCs. 🔗 afore.vc/residence

I've prepared a full list of some of the best accelerator programs, linked in the comments. Let me know if I missed anything.

What would you do if you were offered $600 million for your company and you were only 26 years old?

While you're thinking about your response, let me tell you what Aaron Levie and his co-founder at Box did. They locked themselves in a room in Half Moon Bay and spent a night contemplating one question: if they sold and inevitably left two years later, what would they want to build next? The answer was this. 
Exactly what they already had. So they turned it down.

Last week, I was listening to Aaron share this and more on his journey in a candid conversation with Pegah Ebrahimi from FPV Ventures.

Unlike many founders who hand the reins over, Aaron is one of the few who has been CEO of Box through every chapter, inception, first million, IPO, and everything after. He lived all of it. It was a treat to hear his insights on building, company formation, AI and beyond.

A few things I'd like to share:

→ On pivot
The pivot to enterprise wasn't strategic genius. It was survival. Consumer storage was going to be given away for free. They went enterprise out of necessity. Conviction came after.

→ On delegation
He identified what he was good at, leaned on his strengths and delegated what he was not. Aaron hired a chief of staff early and delegated operations, freeing himself to focus on vision and product. Instead of doing founder-led sales himself, he hired an experienced sales leader who scaled the company to $100 million in revenue. The lesson: figure out what only you can do, then find people better than you at everything else.

→ On moats
The Innovator's Dilemma isn't only a technology disruption theory, it's also a business model and organizational one. Incumbents fail because their entire org, incentives, and revenue models are built around the old way of doing things, and they simply can't afford to dismantle what made them successful. Changing would mean cannibalizing their own revenue, and no board of directors signs off on that. That paralysis is your window as a startup.

→ On AI
Aaron was expecting the AI boom to happen 8 years ago. Adoption is slower than the valley thinks because most industries have problems ten times harder than coding. But more importantly, AI isn't just a technology disruption; it's a business model one. Take call centers: they've always been priced on seats, one per agent. AI agents don't need seats. They burst capacity on demand, unlimited. If your entire revenue model is built around selling seats, you don't just have a technology problem to solve. You have an existential one.

Thank you, Nikunj K. and FPV Ventures team, for the invitation. It was a treat to learn from one of the most successful entrepreneurs of our time. 

If you were Aaron in 2011, would you have taken the $600 million?

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