Tech
How to get into a16z’s super-competitive Speedrun startup accelerator program
Without a doubt, one of the hottest new startup accelerators in tech right now is Andreessen Horowitz’s Speedrun program. Launched in 2023, the accelerator has an acceptance rate of less than 1%. In a January blog post, the program said that over 19,000 startups pitched and fewer than 0.4% were accepted into the latest cohort.
The program used to focus on gaming startups, then expanded into entertainment and media, and is now a “horizontal program,” Joshua Lu, the program’s general manager and a partner at a16z, told TechCrunch. Today, founders of any type of startup can apply, and the program runs for about 12 weeks in San Francisco. It once had a program in Los Angeles, but Lu said the focus will be on SF from now on.
There are two cohorts a year, and around 50 to 70 startups are accepted into each. The program invests up to $1 million into each company, though the downside is that it’s a bit pricey. It typically invests $500,000 up front in exchange for 10% of the startup’s company via a SAFE note, and another $500,000 if the next round is raised within 18 months, at whatever terms agreed to by the other investors.
In comparison, Y Combinator typically takes a fixed 7% of the company for $125,000, with another $375,000 “invested on an uncapped MFN safe.”
Speedrun said its program is more “equity expensive” because of what it offers founders. It provides them with access to a16z’s advisory and business networks that assist with tasks like go-to-market, brand development, media strategy, and talent sourcing. Plus it offers the startups perks like $5 million in credits to vendors such as AWS, OpenAI, Nvidia, and Deel.
Given the high interest, and low acceptance rate, TechCrunch spoke to Lu for some tips on how startups can best stand out. The latest cohort began in January and will end in April with a Demo Day. Applications for the next cohort open in April, though it looks at off-season applications year-round, Lu said.
Focus on the founding team
Speedrun focuses on early-stage startups. Because of this, they really examine who is on the founding team and whether their skills complement each other, Lu said.
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“That doesn’t mean one has to be technical and one has to be commercial and one has to be marketing,” Lu said. It means that “we prefer not to see any glaring holes in capabilities or interests. We want the founding team to be self-aware and for that to be part of the hiring plan.”
They also like to see teams that have worked together before or have a shared history.
“There are lots of things that a founding team has to navigate in their startup journey and having a bit of pattern recognition, being able to work with each other, knowing how to disagree and how to come out the other side of a disagreement, those are all things people on founding teams with shared histories have an easier time with, on average,” he continued.
Even though AI has lowered the barriers to building software, it’s still incredibly helpful for a founding team to be technical, Lu said. At the same time, because AI has made it much faster to build and validate hypotheses and get a product out there, Lu said the Speedrun team likes to see when a startup already has a little bit of market validation or traction for their product.
“Speedrun as a program is really great at helping teams pour gasoline on a very small spark or fire,” he said. “We look for teams that have endeavored to build and try to show us that there’s a little spark we can fan the flames on.”
Limit the market “theory”
Lu said one common mistake founders often make in the application process is spending too much energy talking about the market theory or why there is a defined problem and why their solution is the right one. “All of that may be true,” he said.
At the same time, he added, even the biggest, most successful tech companies faced unexpected blockades when they were young, sometimes even pivoting completely. What a company thinks it’s going to build at the beginning isn’t necessarily what will make it successful at the end.
“What we really want to hear about is why this founding team is really good together,” he continued, “why they’re a great founding team, the best possible founding team to solve this particular problem.” And then on top of that, any validation on the idea itself.
It’s okay to use AI for the application, but…
Lu said the program encourages every founder to use AI to “clean up” their application. He said there is now no excuse for grammar errors or misspellings given the rising sophistication of AI tools. He also said AI can help founders sort out their thoughts, making them clearer, more concise, and more coherent.
But if AI did all the work in explaining the startup, that may backfire. If a founder makes it to the next round, it will be a live video-call interview. “At that point, their live narration explanation skills are going to be put to the test,” he said. So founders should be prepared to talk cogently about their startup without the help of AI.
Only about 10% of founders make it to the video-call stage. There are typically two to three investors on the judging panel at a time.
After the live interview, the team typically conducts a few more screening calls with the founders, and then a final decision on the cohort is made.
Be greedy to network
There are, of course, other accelerator programs for startups to choose from. Lu said Speedrun itself was inspired by some of these other programs.
Still, he said, this accelerator prides itself on giving founders access to a large, specialized operating team. In fact, he said the best teams that get the most out of the program are the ones most “greedy about getting exposure to the amazing people and programs” Speedrun has to offer.
Lu listed off just a few points: a16z has around 600 people, and 10% of that staff is on the investment team, he said; everyone else is an operator who supports the companies the firm works with. As a result, founders in Speedrun will have access to experts who can help with marketing, banking, finance, management, and many other functions. So it helps to know who the startup wants to connect with and why.
“We tell founders that come through the program, what you get out of Speedrun is what you put into it,” he said. “We think founders who want to take advantage of world experts in many different domains early in their startup journey would be really smart to choose us.”
Advice from a founder in the program
Founder Mohamed Mohamed, who is in the recent cohort, just announced a $5 million raise for his proptech startup Smart Bricks led by a16z’s Speedrun. He was attracted to the program because he said it stood out as one of the few “explicitly designed for co-founders working on frontier AI applications,” and he picked it because he wanted a program that would allow him to “stress-test an ambitious technical vision.”
Mohamed said he treated the application like an internal strategy memo rather than a pitch. “Instead of polishing buzzwords, we focused on clarity — the real problem, why it’s structurally hard, and why our team is unusually well-positioned to solve it,” he said. “We were explicit about what was working, what wasn’t, and where we needed help. I think that honesty and clear articulation of why this problem matters” is what helped the company in the application process.
He called the whole process “rigorous but refreshingly thoughtful,” and said it was designed to understand how founders think, not just what they have built so far. “The conversations went deep into product architecture, data strategy, and long-term ambition. It felt closer to a partner-level discussion than a typical accelerator interview, which was a strong signal for us,” he said.
His overall advice is to be “intellectually honest and precise.” For example, he said in his application he avoided “over-optimizing” for the sake of hyping up his company. “If you’re vague, derivative, or overly defensive about your idea, it shows quickly. Don’t try to sound bigger than you are; clarity about where you actually are is far more compelling than inflated narratives,” he said.
In the end, “Speedrun isn’t looking for perfect companies; they’re looking for founders who can reason clearly about complex problems and build with conviction,” he said. “Articulate the hard parts of what you’re doing and why they’re worth tackling. Depth beats polish every time.”
Correction, story originally misstated YC’s investment for its 7%. It has been corrected.
Tech
Blue Origin successfully re-uses a New Glenn rocket for the first time ever
Blue Origin has successfully reused one of its New Glenn rockets for the first time ever, marking a major milestone for the heavy-launch system as Jeff Bezos’ space company looks to compete with Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
But the overall mission’s success may be in question. Roughly two hours after the launch, Blue Origin revealed that the communications satellite that New Glenn carried to space for AST SpaceMobile wound up in an “off-nominal orbit,” meaning something may have gone wrong with the rocket’s upper stage. In other words, it appears the company missed the mark.
“We have confirmed payload separation. AST SpaceMobile has confirmed the satellite has powered on,” the company wrote on X. “We are currently assessing and will update when we have more detailed information.”
AST later said Blue Origin’s rocket placed its satellite into an orbit that was “lower than planned,” so the satellite will have to be de-orbited.
According to a timeline provided by Blue Origin prior to the launch, the upper stage of New Glenn should have performed a second burn roughly one hour after the rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida. It’s unclear if that second burn ever happened, or if there were other problems with it, before the AST satellite was deployed.
The company accomplished the re-use feat Sunday on just the third-ever launch of New Glenn, and a little more than one year after the first flight of the new rocket system, which has been in development for more than a decade.
Making New Glenn reusable is crucial to its economics. SpaceX’s ability to re-fly Falcon 9 rocket boosters is one of the main reasons why it has come to dominate the global orbital launch market.
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While Blue Origin has already sent a commercial payload to space with New Glenn — Sunday was the second-such mission — the company wants to use the rocket for NASA moon missions, and to help both it and Amazon build space-based satellite networks. Blue Origin is currently finishing getting its first robotic moon lander ready for an attempted launch later this year.
The booster that Blue Origin re-flew on Sunday was the same one the company used in the second New Glenn mission in November. During that mission, the New Glenn booster helped put two robotic NASA spacecraft into space for a mission to Mars, before returning to a drone ship in the ocean. On Sunday, Blue Origin recovered the rocket booster a second time on a drone ship roughly 10 minutes after takeoff.
Any trouble deploying AST’s satellite could present a risk to Blue Origin’s near-term plans for New Glenn. Blue Origin has a deal with the communications company to send multiple satellites to orbit over the next few years as it works to build out its own space-based cellular broadband network.
This story has been updated with new information from Blue Origin and AST SpaceMobile.
Tech
Cracks are starting to form on fusion energy’s funding boom
It happens in every emerging industry: founders and investors push toward a common goal, until the money starts to roll in and that shared vision begins to diverge.
Cracks are emerging in the fusion power world, which I saw firsthand at The Economist’s Fusion Fest in London last week. It didn’t dampen the overall buoyant mood, lifted by fusion startups’ fundraising haul of $1.6 billion in the last 12 months. But people had differing opinions on two key questions: When should fusion startups go public? And are side businesses a distraction?
Going public was at the top of everyone’s minds. In the last four months, TAE Technologies and General Fusion have announced plans to merge with publicly traded companies. Both stand to receive hundreds of millions of dollars to keep their R&D efforts alive, and investors, some of whom have kept the faith for 20 years, finally see an opportunity to cash out.
Not everyone is in agreement. Most of those who I spoke to were worried these companies were going public far too early and that they hadn’t achieved key milestones that many view as vital in judging the progress of a fusion company.
First, a recap: TAE announced its merger with Trump Media & Technology Group in December. Though the deal isn’t yet completed, the fusion side of the business has already received $200 million of a potential $300 million in cash from the deal, giving it some runway to continue planning its power plant. (The remainder will reportedly land in its bank account once it files the S-4 form with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.)
General Fusion said in January that it would go public via a reverse merger with a special purpose acquisition company. The deal could net the company $335 million and value the combined entity at $1 billion.
Both companies could use the cash.
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Before the merger announcement, General Fusion was struggling to raise funds, and around this time last year it laid off 25% of its staff as CEO Greg Twinney posted a public letter pleading for investment. It received a brief reprieve in August when investors threw it a $22 million lifeline, but that sort of money doesn’t last long in the fusion world, where equipment, experiments, and employees don’t come cheap.
TAE’s position wasn’t quite as dire, but it still required some funds. Pre-merger, the company raised nearly $2 billion, which sounds like a lot, but keep in mind the company is nearly 30 years old. What’s more, its valuation pre-merger was $2 billion, according to PitchBook. Investors were breaking even at best.
Neither company has hit scientific breakeven, a key milestone that shows a reactor design has power plant potential. Many observers doubt they’ll hit that mark before other privately held startups do. One executive told me, if they were in those shoes, they’re not sure how they would fill time on quarterly earnings calls if the companies didn’t hit scientific breakeven soon.
If TAE or General Fusion doesn’t deliver results, several people feared the public markets would sour on the entire fusion industry.
Now, not all may be lost. TAE has already started marketing other products, including power electronics and radiation therapy for cancer. That could give the company some near-term revenue to placate shareholders. General Fusion, though, hasn’t revealed any such plans.
And therein lies another divide: fusion companies remain split on whether they should pursue revenue now or wait until they have a working power plant.
Some companies are embracing the opportunity to make money along the way. Not a bad strategy! Fusion is a long game, so why not improve your odds? Both Commonwealth Fusion Systems and Tokamak Energy have said they’ll be selling magnets. TAE and Shine Technologies are both in nuclear medicine.
Other startups are worried that side hustles could become a distraction. Inertia Enterprises, for example, told me that they’re laser-focused on their power plant. That jibes with what another investor told me months ago: — they were worried that fusion startups could get distracted by profitable, but tangential businesses and fall off the lead.
There wasn’t consensus on the right time to go public either. I heard a few proposed milestones. Some believe startups should first reach that scientific breakeven milestone, in which a fusion reaction generates more energy than it needs to ignite. No startup has achieved that yet. The other possibilities are facility breakeven — when the reactor makes more energy than the entire site needs to operate — and commercial viability — when a reactor makes enough electrons to sell a meaningful amount to the grid.
We may have an answer to that question sooner than later. Commonwealth Fusion Systems expects it will hit scientific breakeven sometime next year, and some think the company might use that as an opportunity to go public.
Tech
TechCrunch Mobility: Uber enters its assetmaxxing era
Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility, your hub for the future of transportation and now, more than ever, how AI is playing a part. To get this in your inbox, sign up here for free — just click TechCrunch Mobility!
A few weeks ago, I wrote about how Uber seemed to be everywhere, all at once in the emerging autonomous vehicle technology sector. The Financial Times has now put a number on it. The FT calculated that Uber has committed more than $10 billion to buying autonomous vehicles and taking equity stakes in the companies developing the tech, according to public records and discussions with folks behind the scenes. About $2.5 billion of that is in direct investments, with the remaining $7.5 billion to be spent on buying robotaxis over the next few years, the outlet reported.
We’ve reported on Uber’s numerous investments and deals with autonomous vehicle companies across drones, robotaxis, and freight. Some of its investments include WeRide, Lucid and Nuro, Rivian, and Wayve.
This rather large number (and particularly that $7.5 billion) got me thinking about another transformative era in Uber’s history and how it has visited these asset-heavy shores before. Uber might have started with a plan to be asset light, but for a brief period it did quite the opposite.
Uber went on a moonshot spree between 2015 and 2018. It launched electric air taxi developer Uber Elevate and the in-house autonomous vehicle unit Uber ATG, which would be boosted by its acquisition of Otto in 2016. It also snapped up micromobility startup Jump in 2018.
And then in 2020, Uber pulled the asset-heavy rip cord, ostensibly leaving all of those moonshots behind. Uber sold Uber ATG to Aurora, Jump to Lime, and Elevate to Joby Aviation. But it didn’t completely divest; it kept equity stakes in all of them.
Uber is now entering into a new and different asset-heavy era. It’s not plunking down millions, or even billions, to develop the technology in-house, although I’m sure folks there would be quick to pipe up that there is always R&D happening over at Uber. Instead, it appears to be focused on owning (or perhaps leasing) the physical assets.
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That could mean interesting line items on Uber’s balance sheet in the future.
Owning fleets of robotaxis built by other companies might not have been the original vision of Uber, or its former CEO Travis Kalanick, who has said the company made a mistake when it abandoned its AV development program. But this new approach could still get it to the same end point.
A little bird
Earlier this month, I interviewed Eclipse partner Jiten Behl about the venture firm’s new $1.3 billion fund and where that money might be headed. The firm, as I wrote, intends to incubate more startups (e.g., it was behind the Rivian spinout Also). Behl wouldn’t give me details, only stating, “We’re definitely working on a couple of really cool ideas.” He also said Eclipse is particularly interested in startups that work across enterprises.
Thanks to one little bird and some document diving by senior reporter Sean O’Kane, it looks like a seed round announcement is imminent for a San Francisco-based startup working on an autonomous hauler that I’ve been told doesn’t have a driver cab. This sounds similar to what Einride has built, but since we haven’t seen it, we’ll have to wait.
The company’s roster isn’t big, but it is chock-full of Silicon Valley tech elite, including a founder who was at Uber ATG, Pronto, and Waabi. Stay tuned for more.
Got a tip for us? Email Kirsten Korosec at kirsten.korosec@techcrunch.com or my Signal at kkorosec.07, or email Sean O’Kane at sean.okane@techcrunch.com.
Deals!
Slate is back with more capital as it prepares to put its first affordable pickup trucks into production by the end of 2026.
The electric vehicle startup, which got its start with backing from Jeff Bezos, raised another $650 million in a Series C funding round led by TWG Global. Keep your eye on TWG. This is the firm run by Guggenheim Partners chief executive (and Los Angeles Dodgers owner) Mark Walter and investor Thomas Tull.
Slate has raised about $1.4 billion to date, and its previous investors include General Catalyst, Jeff Bezos’ family office, VC firm Slauson & Co., and former Amazon executive Diego Piacentini, as TechCrunch first reported last year.
Other deals that got my attention …
Glydways, a San Francisco-based startup developing personal autonomous pods designed to operate on dedicated 2-meter-wide lanes in cities, raised $170 million in a Series C funding round co-led by Suzuki Motor Corporation, ACS Group, and Khosla Ventures. Existing investors Mitsui Chemicals and Gates Frontier and new investor Obayashi Corporation also participated. But wait, there’s more.
GM and Ford are reportedly talking to the Pentagon about whether the auto industry can help the military revamp its procurement program and find cheaper, faster ways to buy vehicles, munitions, or other hardware, the New York Times reported, citing anonymous sources.
Loop, a San Francisco-based startup, raised $95 million in a Series C funding round led by Valor Equity Partners and the Valor Atreides AI Fund, and includes investments from 8VC, Founders Fund, Index Ventures, and J.P. Morgan’s late-stage fund, Growth Equity Partners.
Monarch Tractor, the startup developing electric, autonomous tractors, has moved on to (ahem) a different pasture. The startup’s assets have been acquired by Caterpillar after struggling to pivot to a software services business.
Uber is increasing its stake in Delivery Hero by 4.5%, the Financial Times reported. Uber agreed to buy about 270 million euros in shares from Prosus, the Dutch investment group and Delivery Hero’s largest shareholder.
Notable reads and other tidbits
Doug Field, the high-profile executive who shaped Ford’s electric vehicle and technology strategies over the past five years, is leaving. Notably, Ford is shaking up the organization as well, creating a “product creation and industrialization” team to be led by COO Kumar Galhotra. Any guesses where Field is headed next? Perhaps he’ll return to Silicon Valley.
Lightship, the all-electric RV startup, is expanding its Colorado-based factory by another 44,000 square feet, which will allow it to quadruple its manufacturing capacity.
Rivian and battery recycling and materials startup Redwood Materials partnered years ago. We’re now seeing the fruits of that relationship. Redwood is installing battery energy storage at Rivian’s factory in Illinois. The catch? Redwood is using 100 second-life Rivian battery packs, which will provide 10 megawatt-hours (MWh) of dispatchable energy to reduce cost and grid load during peak demand periods.
Tesla created a new self-driving app that makes it easier for owners to subscribe to its Full Self-Driving software and see statistics on how — and how often — they use it. This may not be huge news, but it did catch my eye because of the gamified qualities of these new stats.
Waymo, as per usual, has a few news items this week. The Alphabet-owned company started testing its autonomous vehicles on public roads in London. It also removed its waitlist in Miami and Orlando to scale its robotaxi services in the two cities.
One more thing …
This newsletter isn’t my only project that is leaning more heavily into robotics. My podcast, the Autonocast, is too, as the worlds of autonomous vehicles, AI, and robotics mash together. Check out this interview with Foxglove founder Adrian MacNeil, who previously worked at Cruise.
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