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.

“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.