Founder Academy

Founder Academy received a $32,530 grant to administer incubator programs for startup companies and host mentorship and networking events for the startup community.

🌐 https://founderacademy.com/

Key Accomplishments

• News of their receipt of RAILS grant funding spread and they were able to gain interest in future cohorts more widely including a startup from Canada.

• Held recruiting events for their upcoming cohort.

• Hosted events for the startup community at Hacker Lab and Hot Italian as well as Office Hours for mentor matching.

• Began online course development.

• Partnered with the Agtech Innovation Alliance (AgStart) to produce 4 business classes for AgTech companies.

Performance Metrics

	November 2016	November 2017
Number of startups mentored	4	9
Number of program participants (founders and mentors)	23	60
Curriculum: Number of classes produced	4	12

Assessment

Founder Academy seems to have made the least progress with their grant funding of the RAILS grantees. None of the grant funding was spent until the 4th quarter and only $32,530 of the $50,000 originally awarded was spent with the remaining balance retained by the City. Space seemed to be a limiting factor and kept Founder Academy from housing the planned incubator program, although the organization believes that Sacramento needs a higher volume of quality startup companies to adequately serve the local market.