Accelerator & Founder Deadline Watch

Why this is recommended

A Y Combinator or Techstars deadline missed by a day is six months lost; a $50,000 non-dilutive grant or $100,000 in cloud credits is a runway change. One caught window can be the company.

What the Tab covers

Who it is for

First-time and repeat founders raising or about to, from a side project to a seed-stage company.

When it runs

Accelerators and competitions open applications on weekdays and close with a few weeks of notice

Scope

Y Combinator, Techstars, 500 Global, Antler, Entrepreneur First, a16z speedrun, Sequoia Arc, Neo, Pear, HAX, MassChallenge, gener8tor and industry accelerators; the Thiel Fellowship, Emergent Ventures and SBIR and STTR deadlines; pitch competitions with prizes of $10,000 or more; AWS, Google, Microsoft, Stripe, Mercury and Brex credit programs; SEC, state and platform rules on crowdfunding, SAFEs and accredited investors; new or closing within 21 days

Suggested task

The objective your Tab starts with. You can edit every line of it once the Tab is yours.

Application windows for the accelerators, fellowships and grants that fund early founders, pitch competitions with cash prizes, SBIR and government innovation deadlines, startup bank and credit program changes, founder perk and credit programs and rule changes for fundraising, with the program first and the deadline in the title.

Track early-stage founder funding. Report only confirmed, source-backed items from the last 7 days that are new, newly open, or close within 21 days and have not appeared in this Tab: application windows for Y Combinator, Techstars, 500 Global, Antler, Entrepreneur First, a16z speedrun, Sequoia Arc, Neo, Pear, HAX, MassChallenge, gener8tor and industry accelerators; founder fellowships and non-dilutive grants such as the Thiel Fellowship, Emergent Ventures and SBIR and STTR deadlines; pitch competitions with cash prizes of $10,000 or more; cloud, software and bank credit programs from AWS, Google, Microsoft, Stripe, Mercury and Brex; and SEC, state and platform rule changes affecting crowdfunding, SAFEs or accredited investors. Prefer program pages, SBIR.gov, SEC releases and established startup reporting; ignore pay-to-pitch events and unverified posts. Put the program first in the title with the deadline and the amount. Use high severity for a deadline within 10 days for a top-tier program or a grant of $50,000 or more. Return no more than 8 findings. Push each as a finding with a title, a two-sentence summary, sections for who qualifies, what you get, the effort, how to apply, the deadline, and the source link. If nothing qualifies, push nothing and submit the run receipt.