One of the hottest new startup accelerators in tech today is undoubtedly Andreessen Horowitz’s Speedrun program. Launching in 2023, the accelerator has an adoption rate of less than 1%. In one January blog post, According to the program, more than 19,000 startups had pitched and less than 0.4% were accepted into the final cohort.
The program used to focus on gaming startups, then expanded into entertainment and media, and is now a “horizontal program,” Joshua Lu, managing director of the program and partner at a16z, told TechCrunch. Today, founders of any type of startup can apply, and the program lasts about twelve weeks in San Francisco. It once had a program in Los Angeles, but Lu said the focus from now on will be on SF.
There are two cohorts per year, and approximately 50 to 70 startups are admitted to each cohort. The program invests up to $1 million in any business, although the downside is that it is a bit pricey. It typically invests $500,000 upfront in exchange for 10% of the startup’s business via a SAFE note, and another $500,000 if the next round is raised within 18 months, on whatever terms agreed upon by the other investors.
For comparison: Y Combinator typically takes a flat 7% from the company for $125,000, while another $375,000 “was invested in an unlimited MFN vault.”
Speedrun said its program is “more expensive” because of what it offers founders. It offers them access to a16z’s advisory and business networks that assist with tasks such as go-to-market, brand development, media strategy and talent sourcing. Moreover, it offers startups benefits such as $5 million in credits to vendors such as AWS, OpenAI, Nvidia and Deel.
Given the high interest and low adoption rate, TechCrunch spoke with Lu for some tips on how startups can best differentiate themselves. The newest cohort started in January and ends in April with a demo day. Requests for the next cohort opens in April, although it looks at off-season applications year-round, Lu said.
Focus on the founding team
Speedrun focuses on early-stage startups. This makes them really examine who is on the founding team and whether their skills complement each other, Lu said.
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“That doesn’t mean you have to be technical, you have to be commercial and you have to be marketing,” Lu said. It means that “we prefer not to see any glaring gaps in capabilities or interests. We want the founding team to be self-aware and for this to be part of the recruitment plan.”
They also like to see teams that have worked together before or have a shared history.
“There are a lot of things that a team of founders has to deal with on their startup journey and having some pattern recognition, being able to collaborate with each other, knowing how to disagree and how to get out of a disagreement are all things that people in teams with a shared history have an easier time with on average,” he continued.
While AI has lowered the barriers to building software, it’s still incredibly helpful for a founding team to be technical, Lu said. At the same time, because AI has made it much faster to build and validate hypotheses and bring a product to market, Lu said the Speedrun team likes to see when a startup already has some market validation or traction for their product.
“Speedrun as a program is really great for helping teams pour gasoline on a very small spark or fire,” he said. “We look for teams that have tried to rebuild and show us that there is a little spark that we can fan the flames with.”
Limit market theory
Lu said a common mistake founders often make during the interview process is spending too much energy talking about market theory or why there is a defined problem and why their solution is the right one. “That could all be true,” he said.
At the same time, he added that even the largest and most successful tech companies faced unexpected roadblocks in their youth, sometimes even failing completely. What a company thinks it will build in the beginning is not necessarily what will ultimately make it successful.
“What we really want to hear is why this founding team works so well together,” he continued, “why they are a great team, the best possible team to solve this particular problem.” And then on top of that, any validation of the idea itself.
It’s fine to use AI for the application, but…
Lu said the program encourages every founder to use AI to “clean up” their application. He said there is now no excuse for grammatical errors or spelling mistakes, given the increasing sophistication of AI tools. He also said AI can help founders organize their thoughts, making them clearer, more concise and more coherent.
But if AI were to do all the work of explaining the startup, it could backfire. If a founder makes it to the next round, it will be a live video call. “At that point, their live storytelling skills will be tested,” he said. So founders must be prepared to talk persuasively about their startup without the help of AI.
Only about 10% of founders make it to the video call stage. There are usually two to three investors on the jury at a time.
After the live interview, the team typically conducts a few more screening calls with the founders, after which a final decision on the cohort is made.
Be greedy to network
There are of course other accelerator programs that startups can choose from. Lu said Speedrun itself was inspired by some of these other programs.
Still, he says this accelerator prides itself on giving founders access to a large, specialized operations team. In fact, he said the best teams that get the most out of the program are the ones that are most “eager to gain exposure to the great people and programs that Speedrun has to offer.
Lu listed just a few points: a16z has about 600 people, and 10% of that staff is on the investment team, he said; everyone else is an operator that supports the companies the company works with. As a result, Speedrun’s founders will have access to experts who can help with marketing, banking, finance, management and many other functions. So it helps to know who the startup wants to connect with and why.
“We tell founders who go through the program: what you get out of Speedrun is what you put into it,” he said. “We think founders who want to benefit from world experts in many different domains early in their startup journey would be very smart to choose us.”
Advice from a founder in the program
Founder Mohamed Mohamed, who is part of the recent cohort, just announced a $5 million raise for his proptech startup Smart Bricks led by a16z’s Speedrun. He was drawn to the program because he said it stood out as one of the few “explicitly designed for co-founders working on groundbreaking AI applications,” and he chose it because he wanted a program that would allow him to “stress test an ambitious technical vision.”
Mohamed said he treated the application as an internal strategy memo and not a pitch. “Rather than polishing the buzzwords, we focused on clarity – the real problem, why it’s structurally difficult and why our team is extremely well positioned to solve it,” he said. “We were explicit about what worked, what didn’t, and where we needed help. I think honesty and clear articulation of why this issue matters” helped the company during the interview process.
He called the entire process “rigorous but refreshingly thoughtful” and said it was aimed at understanding how the founders think, not just what they’ve built so far. “The conversations delved deep into product architecture, data strategy and long-term ambitions. It felt more like a partner-level discussion than a typical accelerator interview, which was a strong signal for us,” he said.
His general advice is to be “intellectually honest and accurate.” For example, he said in his application that he avoided “over-optimization” to boost his business. “If you’re vague, distracted or overly defensive about your idea, you’ll notice it quickly. Don’t try to sound bigger than you are; clarity about where you really are is much more persuasive than inflated stories,” he said.
Ultimately, “Speedrun isn’t looking for perfect companies; they’re looking for founders who can reason clearly about complex problems and build with conviction,” he said. “Articulate the difficult parts of what you do and why they are worth tackling. Depth beats polish every time.”
Correction, the story originally misrepresented YC’s investment for its 7%. It has been corrected.
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