Future Founders Partners with Techstars & Blackstone LaunchPad for New Fellowship

June 11, 2020

Parts of this announcement come directly from the Techstars press release, which can be read in full here.

Blackstone LaunchPad powered by Techstars created the Summer Startup Fellowship this year in response to obstacles created, and elevated, by the coronavirus pandemic for current college students and recent graduates. These challenges include reduced and withdrawn job and internship opportunities (as many as 52% according to one survey), canceled and postponed pitch competitions and entrepreneurship summer programming, and increased financial pressure on students.

The 50 student entrepreneurs with the most promising and innovative ideas were selected for this Fellowship from over 330 applications from nearly every one of the 24 LaunchPad network colleges and universities. Blackstone Charitable Foundation has committed more than $250,000 to support this initiative. Those selected will receive $5,000 in non-dilutive grant funding from Future Founders to support their time working on advancing their startup companies.

During the eight week virtual program, student fellows will benefit from coaching sessions with LaunchPad Campus Directors, mentoring from Blackstone Campus Ambassadors and Techstars Entrepreneurs and Advisors during a Fellowship ‘Mentor Week’, as well as the opportunity to learn directly from seasoned entrepreneurs like Allbirds co-founder Time Brown, Co-founder and Vice President of Product for CareMessage Cecilia Corral, Techstars co-founder David Brown, and SparkCharge founder (and LaunchPad Alum) Josh Aviv during the LaunchPad ‘Lessons Learned’ speaker series.

Meet the LaunchPad Summer Startup Fellows:

Learn about all of these teams and their student founders in the 2020 LaunchPad Summer Startup Fellowship Lookbook.

Future Founders is thrilled to build on the great work we’ve accomplished in partnership with the Blackstone Charitable Foundation, and looks forward to joining forces with Techstars to help these amazing young entrepreneurs grow their businesses in the face of extreme uncertainty in the world.