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As former SaaS founders and early operators, the early-stage journey is where we shine. Our accelerator offers capital, expert guidance, and a supportive community.
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.
Leveraging Forum’s network and name enabled us to successfully close an oversubscribed seed round, validating our choice and highlighting the impact of aligning with the right accelerator for our specific needs and goals.
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.
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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.
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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 250+ global investors in order to secure your round with optimal investors on your cap table.
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.
An engineer by trade, Jonah has spent the last twenty years at the intersection of marketing and technology as a serial entrepreneur in Canada. Jonah has been lucky enough to have several different lenses on the founder journey from bootstrapping, to launching new corporate divisions, and raising 8 figures of venture capital. Jonah works hand in hand with founders preparing to fundraise, coaching them on their pitch, narrative, deck, and investor meetings.
Bocar works 1:1 with portfolio founders through the early stages of building, including go-to-market, founder-led sales, and fundraising. As part of the founding team of the Enterprise product at Hootsuite, Bocar helped the business grow to well over $150M+ and 2,000+ employees in under seven years. Bocar continues to co-found, advise, coach and angel invest in SaaS startups from pre-seed to Series A. Bocar is passionate about helping build and scale hyper growth SaaS companies.
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.
Derek Bugley is a 3x B2B SaaS founder with over $30 million raised from notable firms like Sequoia and Techstars. He excels in early go-to-market strategies for technical markets and products, particularly in AI tools for talent assessment. With successful sales to giants like Procter & Gamble and Coca-Cola, Derek brings deep expertise in both PLG and direct-to-enterprise sales approaches.
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)
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.
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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.
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. For more in depth information on our pitch process, download our program package.
Our program is remotely run so founders can join us wherever they reside. We have office space in New York City and Toronto, and we love to connect in person, so we encourage you to co-work at our spaces! We also host regular events for our founder community in our locations and other city hubs where a few of our founders live.
Early-stage B2B SaaS companies in any vertical that sell to SMBs, Mid-Market, or Enterprise businesses, with an MVP built out and a large TAM, who have taken on less than $500k in funding. While we are vertical agnostic, we have a particular interest in Vertical AI, AI Agents, healthtech, fintech, supply chain, and Future of Work companies.
We provide $100k USD for 7.5% equity on a standard, post money SAFE. We invest at a small cap that makes it viable for us to put in the type and level of time and help to get our portfolio companies to meaningful traction and their next fundable milestones.
We consider the founder one of the most important investment considerations. We love working with founders who have strong founder-market fit, are passionate, driven, coachable and able to weather the founder journey. Just as important, we want to surround ourselves, and our other portfolio founders, with good people. What we don’t care about is age, gender, ethnicity, background, sexual orientation, physical abilities, education level, or years of experience.
We are committed to keeping your business running at your pace and not distracting from it. Our one session per week sets the focus for that week so you can build heads down with your Managing Director during your 1:1 time with them on our proven path to profitability.
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