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Work directly with Forum's Studio team to pressure-test your B2B startup idea and find out if it's venture-backable. Test early signals with real customers, run diligence alongside Forum, and build conviction faster than you could on your own. Then, pitch us for $250K.
The Foundry is Forum Ventures' free, 5-week startup validation sprint. Spend 5 weeks working with our Studio team to validate your concept and understand whether your idea can become a venture-scale company.
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Test your assumptions, run market and customer diligence, shape early product direction, and learn how investors evaluate opportunities at this stage.
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Get clear answers on market size, competitive positioning, and investor appetite. Work alongside a cohort of other founders to refine your thinking and build conviction.
Join a group of founders at the same inflection point. Share feedback, compare notes, refine memos together, and build conviction faster than you could on your own.
After our 5 weeks together, there are three options for next steps:
If your idea is ready and the fit is right, pitch for $250K in capital and full support from the Studio team. If we invest, you keep majority equity and board control.
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If your company is better built independently, you leave with a sharper thesis, a validated market, customer evidence, and a pitch-ready narrative. Full control, no obligations.
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If the timing isn't right yet, stay close. Keep access to our founders and our team, and apply to a future cohort when you're ready. Some of our best companies came back.
Katie Leininger, The Foundry Alumni → Forum Studio Company
You've built or operated before. You're noodling on what's next but haven't taken the leap. You want structured time to figure out if this one is real.
You're employed and testing an idea on the side. This doesn't require full-time commitment, just a few focused hours a week and the willingness to talk to customers.
You’re a senior operator or domain expert with a real insight you can't shake. You’re seriously evaluating the venture path but want to pressure-test before committing.
Duration: 5 weeks
Time Commitment: 4 to 6 hours per week
Cost: Free to participate
Format: Remote. Weekly group sessions plus async support
Cohort Size: 6 to 10 founders
Applications Close: November 4, 2026
Cohort Start Date: November 9, 2026
The economics of AI compute are reversing two decades of cloud migration, creating a massive infrastructure opportunity between public cloud and the enterprises taking ownership of hardware.
The US is losing 400,000+ skilled tradespeople a year to retirement with no replacement pipeline. AI can redefine these jobs by separating the knowledge from the physical work, expanding the eligible labor pool and accelerating upskilling.
As AI takes over physical operations, the risk profile of insurable assets no longer fits existing models, presenting an opportunity to rebuild the underwriting model.
Employer health insurance is closing in on $1.7 trillion in annual spend, its steepest cost surge in 15 years, and it's still being managed through a brokerage model that hasn't materially changed in two decades.
Agents optimize for verified performance, price, and compatibility, and we're seeing the commercial stack getting rebuilt in real time around these metrics.
Waste streams are one of the last unmonitored physical flows in industrial operations, making them simultaneously an unpriced resource and an untapped data source.
No pitch deck required.
Not quite. FIR/EIR programs are usually an ongoing seat, often full-time, sometimes with a stipend, with no fixed end date. The Foundry is a five-week sprint with a clear decision point at the end: pitch us for $250K, or walk away with real clarity that it's not the one. If you were looking for a FIR program, The Foundry gets you the same outcome faster, and without needing to leave your current job to start.
No. Most founders who go through The Foundry are still employed. It's built to run alongside a day job, not replace one.
Direct time with Forum's Venture Studio team, using the same process we use internally to decide what companies to build. You'll talk to real customers and learn how investors actually evaluate opportunities at this stage, alongside a small cohort of other founders in the same spot. You'll leave with either a pitch-ready narrative and a chance to pitch our studio team for $250K, or a clear answer that this isn't the one.
The Foundry itself is free to participate in. If Forum invests at the end, that's a separate conversation with real terms, and you keep majority equity and board control.
That's expected. The Foundry is designed for the solo-founder stage, before you've built anything. You come with the idea, not a team.
Yes, same program, new name.
The Foundry is a five-week sprint to test whether an idea is worth building at all. Forum's Accelerator works with companies that already exist. Forum's Studio works with founders that come out of the Foundry sprint or who apply directly to an open founder role. If you don't have a company yet, just an idea, and you haven't had the time or opportunity to really explore it yet, The Foundry is the right starting point.
Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis. If you're a fit, you'll hear from our team for an intro call before the cohort starts.
No. You need an idea and the willingness to test it. No pitch deck required to apply.
The Foundry is Forum Ventures' free, 5-week startup validation sprint. You work directly with Forum's Venture Studio team to pressure-test your B2B startup idea, understand if it's venture-backable, and get clear on whether this is something you want to go all in on. No cost to participate. At the end, strong candidates pitch Forum for $250K.
The real questions keeping founders up at (mid)night–– answered.
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