The Forum Accelerator

The Forum Accelerator is sponsored by The Forum Ventures. Offers mentorship and resources to early-stage startups, including those in the SaaS sector.

B2B Accelerator Program | Pre Seed Funding for B2B Tech Startups The B2B tech accelerator built by founders, for founders As former founders and early operators, the early-stage journey is where we shine. Our accelerator offers capital, unusually hands-on guidance, and a supportive community. BEYOND ACCELERATION: A TAILORED APPROACH Forum Ventures’ accelerator is different.

We become your fractional co-founder and work together to get you to meaningful traction and fundraise ready, providing unwavering support every step of the way. Very few VCs go the extra mile like we do. Forum was a very valuable experience for us – they provided us with key customer introductions to companies in our target market that led to over $200K of revenue.

Two months after demo day, we had grown revenue to $850K ARR and were able to close our seed round. Forum Ventures helped us get from 0 to 1 – from product ideation to strategic guidance for our MVP launch – that ultimately positioned us for success in the fundraising process.

Furthermore, the Forum Ventures program challenged me as a leader and as a first-time CEO; I have experienced growth in my abilities to address personal barriers and tackle adverse situations. Forum Ventures was amazing to work with hands-on operators, mentors and ex-founders. In a short time, we took our product that customers were excited about to messaging that customers loved.

We formalized go to market plans, and improved our targeted pitch. My MD and I were like cofounders brainstorming about GTM approaches, texting each other and figuring out our Product Market fit and GTM strategy. Before we accepted Forum Ventures, we had one other highly respected accelerator in New York City make us an offer.

It really came down to the couple of interactions we had with Forum Ventures. We just knew you were the team that we wanted to spend the next four months and beyond with. So it was an easy decision.

Forum Ventures really validated that throughout the entire program. Forum's accelerator program played a critical part in raising our seed round. The mentorship of the Forum partners helped prep me for fundraising and their network helped close it.

Would recommend the program to any founder. Forum is a program that I could not recommend enough! The leadership knows the playbook and they are there to provide all the support you could dream of as you march towards your seed round.

I also worked as an associate at a VC fund prior to being a founder so I've had first hand exposure to all the major accelerators and what Forum does for their portfolio companies is a solid notch above the others. Since we completed the Accelerator program, we've completed a merger, raised venture capital, and now we have a multi-million dollar business with more than 40 people around the world.

The team at Forum has been helpful to us every step along the way and we are so grateful for that. We have also gotten tremendous value out of the Forum community of founders. Building a startup is incredibly hard, but having the right team behind you can make it much easier.

The key things that I enjoyed the most in the program are: No-BS; no "in theory"; no exaggeration. Whoever is doing the presentation has actually done it in real life and knows what he/she is talking about. You learn things you can't read online.

It's not that you are given access to classified information, but you are gaining a lot of intrinsic knowledge about all aspects of being a founder - from fundraising to product development. Forum was the fractional cofounder that helped us refine our product, and calibrate our vision to resonate with the right investors to raise a Seed.

With all the ups and downs in the early days, having the Forum team in our corner helped us keep up momentum and execute to the best of our ability. FORUM’S ACCELERATOR MODEL Hands on founder guidance on your startup B2B software journey. We invest $100K USD and then work with founders from day one on how to plan for your business with an operating timeline to get you to your next funding round.

Your dedicated Managing Director will become an extension of your team, work heads down with you, keep you moving forward and accountable, and become your biggest supporter. Our accelerator program provides step-by-step guidance to set up the foundation necessary to build a category-defining, VC-backed company.

Meet key customers from our network of 300+ F500 and F1000 companies to get early product feedback and validation, secure design partners, and bring on your first customers. ​​Forum has helped our portfolio companies raise $1B+ in follow-on funding. Our end-to-end fundraising process will prepare you to fundraise confidently and successfully.

Get introduced to vetted funds within Forum's network of 3,0000+ global investors in order to secure your round with optimal investors on your cap table. Personalized to your startup & stage. Every company is unique.

We meet you where you’re at with personalized guidance, tactical solutions, and relevant expertise to get you to help you reach your goals. Join Our Accelerator Program FORUM’S MANAGING DIRECTORS Meet your future fractional co-founder and biggest champion. Partner & Managing Director Deirdre works closely with founders on go-to-market strategy, early customer acquisition, and preparing for their first institutional fundraise.

As the Co-Founder of Rightfoot, a Series A fintech startup, she built an API product used by top lenders and led the company through multiple rounds of funding. Before startups, Deirdre developed and launched new products at PepsiCo. Now, she brings her operator lens to every founder she works with—pushing for clarity, speed, and traction.

Deirdre leads Forum’s San Francisco office and is a proud member of the LGBTQ+ community. Partner & Managing Director Neal works alongside portfolio founders and supports their 0 to $1M ARR journey. Neal experienced this journey first-hand as the Co-Founder of First Resonance, a manufacturing SaaS business focused on unlocking the potential of the physical world.

There, he raised $20M+ in venture funding, grew the team to 40+ employees, and had customers building complex hardware products like rockets and autonomous vehicles. Neal is an engineer by trade and he is passionate about the intersection of software, data, and hardware. Dave was most recently Founder and CPO at Lumen Energy, where he raised $17M across Seed and Series A.

Before that, he was early at Stripe, working across Issuing, Instant Payouts, and business analytics. He got his start as a software engineer at Snapdocs. Dave brings a rare mix of founder, operator, and investor experience, and runs a syndicate of early Stripe alumni that has made 50+ angel investments.

He works closely with founders on product, fundraising, and scaling from 0 to 1. Partner & Managing Director Before joining Forum, Kevin spent 4+ years as the Founder & CEO of Roots, a HR platform and Forum alum, which he helped scale to several million dollars in revenue before its acquisition by Deel in November 2021.

His time bootstrapping Roots and 2+ years in Deel’s high-growth environment helped him see different ways companies could be built. Kevin loves guiding founders on the 0 to 1 journey, but he especially loves helping founders deal with the darker, less-talked-about underbelly of startup life (mental health, comparison complexes, co-founder conflicts) We provide even more to help you build a winning company.

Active Community of Founders Join a community of founders at similar stages ready to support one another through the journey. Connect with each other through 1:1 introductions and in-person events. Gain unlimited access to our shared services in Finance, HR, Operations, Marketing and more, providing essential support for all your company's critical functions, from joining to lifetime support.

Benefit from over $100K in business perks from leading platforms like Google, AWS, Brex, Hubspot, Stripe, and more, enhancing your growth and operational efficiency. Frequently asked questions about our accelerator program. How much do you invest in each company & what are your terms?

We provide $100k USD in pre seed funding to each company joining our program. We’re usually the first check in, and we write checks quickly (day 1 of the program), which founders truly appreciate. Our terms are $100k USD for 7.

5% equity on a standard, post money SAFE. What Type of Companies do you fund? We fund B2B software companies in any vertical in the early-stage (pre-seed) of your journey who have taken on less than $500k in funding, and have or are about to have an MVP in market.

What type of founders would be a good fit for Forum’s program? We love working with founders who are passionate about what they’re building, have strong founder-market fit, and are looking for a fractional co-founder to guide them and push them to the next stage. We work best with founders who are both driven and coachable.

What is your stance on diversity and inclusion? We believe we have a platform and the responsibility to make an outsized impact on the tech industry. We’re committed to building a diverse team, cohort, and community.

We’re actively working on this by increasing diversity in our mentors, building educational modules to help our founders build out their own diverse and inclusive teams, and more. How does the pitch process work? When you’re ready to apply, go ahead and fill out our pitch us form.

We’ll then get back to you within 1-2 weeks on whether or not it makes sense to have a call with our team. Do I need to be in one of your locations? While we have office space available in our three locations – Toronto, New York City, and San Francisco – we are happy to work with founders remotely, wherever they may reside.

We also love to connect in person, so we encourage office visits when you can! We also host regular events for our founder community in each of our locations, and we'd love you to join us from time to time. Do you fund solo founders?

Yes. 25. 6% of our most recent cohort are solo-founder led.

We pair every company with a dedicated Managing Director who works 1:1 weekly, which means solo founders get the operational accountability and support that a co-founder would typically provide. Do you fund first-time founders? Yes.

58. 3% of our most recent cohort had never founded a company before. We specifically designed our program for founders who need guidance on GTM, fundraising, and company building — not just capital.

First-time founders who go through Forum's program perform consistently with our portfolio averages: a 65% fund-through rate and 80+ NPS. How many founders reach revenue during the program? 64.

1% of founders in our most recent accelerator cohort reached early revenue — their first paying customers — during the 16-week program. This is the outcome the Forum model is designed to produce: go-to-market focus from week one, customer introductions from our network of 300+ Fortune 500 and Fortune 1000 companies, and hands-on guidance from a dedicated Managing Director.

A curated network of industry-specific executives Gain access to our curated councils of peers facing similar inflection points in their industries, looking for exposure to Forum's portfolio of startups building tools that match their priorities. Discover everything you need to succeed on the early-stage software journey.

Forum Ventures Introduces Its Spring 2026 B2B AI-First Cohort Introducing our Winter 2026 B2B AI-first cohort Essential Strategies for Founders: Creating a Sales Deck and Navigating Early Customer Conversations We’re on a mission to make the B2B software journey easier, more accessible and successful for early-stage founders.

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