Accelerators in San Francisco

The world's most influential startup accelerator and the anchor of the Bay Area ecosystem, running batches that give founders roughly $500K on standard terms plus three months of intensive guidance culminating in Demo Day. Founded in 200...

The San Francisco chapter of the global Techstars network, a 13-week mentorship-driven accelerator investing about $120K per company and plugging founders into 10,000+ mentors and investors worldwide. The Spring 2025 class was composed e...

A global venture firm and accelerator (formerly 500 Startups) headquartered in San Francisco, known for a high-volume, geographically diverse seed program that has invested in thousands of companies across dozens of countries. Founded in...

A small, highly selective seed accelerator founded in 2010 by ex-Google product manager Thomas Korte and Carine Magescas, taking roughly 15 teams per batch from ~2,000 applicants. Nicknamed the 'anti-Y Combinator' and ranked #1 US accele...

A venture-backed accelerator focused specifically on enterprise / B2B startups whose revenue comes from other companies, running a roughly six-month program with seed investment (~$36K) into about 75 companies per year. Founded by Ravi B...

A 12-week live-in residency accelerator for repeat technical founders, who move into a historic 22,000-sq-ft mansion across from Alamo Square Park and focus solely on building, with HF0 investing around $500K. Founded by Dave Fontenot. I...

A mentorship community, accelerator and VC fund founded in 2017 by Ali Partovi, positioned as a founder-friendly rival to YC with low-dilution terms — a $750K uncapped SAFE for startups and $40K no-strings grants for standout college stu...

The small-batch (~20 teams) pre-seed accelerator run by Menlo Park seed firm Pear VC, founded by Pejman Nozad and Mar Hershenson in 2013. PearX invests $250K–$2M per company, provides $1M+ in cloud credits and hands-on GTM coaching, and ...

A San Mateo pre-seed accelerator and fund founded in 2012 by Adam Draper (son of Tim Draper) and Brayton Williams, self-styled as the 'Y Combinator of sci-fi startups.' It writes ~$500K first checks into deep tech — aerospace, robotics, ...

Andreessen Horowitz's flagship accelerator, launched in 2023, investing up to $1M plus ~$5M in credits (including AI compute) across an intense 12-week program that ends with a San Francisco Demo Day. Originally gaming-focused, it is now...

A Sunnyvale-based innovation platform, accelerator and VC that CB Insights ranked the most active startup accelerator in the world (2020–2022) with ~929 deals per year. Founded by Saeed Amidi, it connects 3,000+ startups with 180+ invest...

A pioneering biotech and deep-tech accelerator opened by SOSV in San Francisco in 2015 (rebranded 'SOSV SF' in 2026), offering ~$525K plus a 25,000-sq-ft wet-lab facility and a 4–6 month program. Between 2015 and 2025 its 310 graduates r...

SOSV's hard-tech accelerator, one of the earliest hardware-focused programs (founded 2011 as HAXLR8R by Cyril Ebersweiler and Sean O'Sullivan), investing $250K–$500K in pre-seed hardware and climate/industrial startups. Its main resource...