Program Details

Designed to create an experience you won't forget while providing the education you didn't know you needed.

The Funding Breakthrough Lab fall cohort will start and end with a camping retreat at Rancho San Gregorio on Saturday, August 23 and end Saturday, Oct 26.

Funding Strategy

Opening Retreat
Bond with fellow cohort members & speakers at Rancho San Gregorio.. Create a time capsule, set your intentions for this cohort and where you want to be by the end. Overnight camping optional.

How To Fund Your startup and achieve Product Market Fit before Taking VC (2hrs, Daniel Theobald)

Breen Sullivan will give you access to learning about advisory boards from The Fourth Effect, so you can secure fundraising going forward

Product Market Fit Before Taking VC
Find Your Team (Anthony Rose)

Angel & Angel Syndicates Investors (Jason Nyeh)

Capital School - Founder Fundraising and Capital Strategy (Alison Paz)

Getting a Business Loan (Alexa Baranov)

Start to perfect your storytelling with Renee Lynn Frojo

Preparing Your Exit Strategy: Top Down Funding Strategies (Rayna Sparkes & Marc Ernaga)

SPVs, Crowdfunding and P2P (Charletta Jean-Louis)

Pitch Practice
(Shawn Flynn)

Term Sheets & Data Rooms

Investor Relations

Corporate Structures and Tax Considerations (45min, Crysta Tyus)

R&D & Startup Tax Credits and Savings (45min, Anh Quynh Nguyen & Paige Burbank)

Group Mentoring with 2x founder Neelam Chakrabarty

Deciphering Term Sheets (Carol Nguyen)
Panel: Term Sheets, Valuations and Cap Tables (Tyler Crown Karl Eshwer)

Market Research Mastery: Tools and Techniques (Nuné Zadoyan)

The Legal Side of Branding: Protecting Your Creative Assets (Whitney Miner)

Group Mentoring with Sajjad Musad, Co-Founder & Co-President of Harvard Business School Alumni Angels Global

Being sold or being acquired? A M&A story (Klaus-M. Schremser)

How to Talk To Investors at Different Funding Stages (Annija Eizenarma)

Investor Hunt: How to Find the Right One (Kate Bunina)

Deal Flow Dashboard:Tracking Your VCs (Vera Maslova)

Deal Champion 101: Speaking Their Language (Sarah Romanko)

Group Mentoring with Keith Lam

13 Ways to Scam Founders Raising Funds (Stephane Nasser)
Panel: Closing the Deal & Getting Your Money

Demo Day Pitch Competition

Oct 25-26, 2025

Closing Retreat

Come full circle and celebrate your achievements. Open your time capsules and reflect on the growth and transformation you’ve experienced.

Who Should Join?

• ​​​If you’re a B2B AI based startup consider joining Cohort Beta. Our VC speakers & judges will be actively investing in that vertical

• You’re ideating, bootstrapping, or a pre-seed, seed based startup and you want to understand the funding landscape

• You've been mulling on an idea and want to understand what it takes to raise funds

• You want to grow your network, our experts have worked for TechCrunch, Berkeley SkyDeck, Stanford, MassRobotics & Harvard

• ​You’re considering to fundraise in the next 6 months

• You want polish your pitch & get lots of practice

THIS FUNDRAISING PRE-ACCELERATOR IS NOT JUST ABOUT THE KNOWLEDGE.

IT'S ABOUT THE STORIES AND THE NETWORK.

A 10-week program designed for early-stage founders to master fundraising. Learn from diverse industry experts, receive group mentoring, and join a mastermind group.

You won't find another program that connects you the stories and experiences of this many Silicon Valley experts while teaching you about fundraising. We also take no equity.

Take Aways

• Practical actionable advice from speakers who have real world experience (VCs, founders, lawyers, tax strategist, business bankers)

• Live Q&As to help answer questions specific to your startup

• Mentors with various expertise to guide you in shaping your product and pitch

• Group accountability to push you further

• Weekly pitching feedback to help you refine and perfect

• Understand sources of funding so you can optimize your strategy

• Gain access to a network

• Understand the in's and our of early stage fundraising

• We take no-equity
  

FEEL CONFIDENT WHILE RAISING STARTUP FUNDS

FUNDRAISING DOESN'T HAVE TO BE OVERWHELMING

You develop new skills by learning through experience, exposure and education. Designed to help you practice, build your network, and conceptualize key concepts. Learning to fundraise has been made dynamic, interactive and fun.

When you join our cohort, you will save time. Instead of piecing information to learn about fundraising, find it all in one place. Learn live each week from industry experts. Ask questions and get insider insights. Rewatch the recording to catch anything you missed.

Join a community, be part of a mastermind, and practice your pitch weekly for feedback.

Testimonials

Hear from our previous cohort

Speakers

Bringing you the top Advisors, Founders, Investors, VCs, Lawyers, Tax Strategists & CPAs

Mentors

Bringing you people who love to support founders

Panelists

Hear from experience. Their stories help you understand the reality of the concepts.

Judges

Monthly Pitch Competitions to perfect your story!

Join Our Community

Get the latest on our program and learn about mindfulness

BE THE 2nd

COHORT BETA

August 23rd to October 26th
Weekends
ONLINE (Zoom)

Be Informed Of Our Next Cohort

Fall 2025
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