Flagship program

Alchemist’s next class begins on January 22, 2026. Each Alchemist class runs for six months. Programming and events are optimized for time zones in California and Europe, though you may participate in Alchemist from anywhere in the world.

We strongly encourage founders to spend as much time in the San Francisco Bay area as possible; however, founders may participate in Alchemist from wherever they choose to work and build their companies. Programming and mentorship are available virtually, but many community events are only available in-person.

Each program kicks off with an immersive in-person week in and around the San Francisco Bay Area, consisting of orientation, workshops, and networking events. Our DemoDay is virtual; however, we will host a sneak peek event live in San Francisco one month prior to Demo Day,

For founders who choose to locate to or visit the San Francisco Bay Area during the program, Alchemist provides co-working space in San Francisco, CA, at no cost. 

Alchemist offers a structured yet highly personalized path to mentorship, traction, fundraising, and community—designed for founders with ambitious goals.

All founders participate in a core program and curriculum, but the experience is tailored to the specific needs of each company. The program is built to support founders in building their companies in the way that works best for them. Many elements are optional, allowing founders to engage deeply where it’s most relevant and efficient for their business.

Core Program & Curriculum
The program is anchored by a structured curriculum of group gatherings, including the flagship Alchemist Weekly Gathering (typically Thursdays). These sessions provide a forum to share progress, discuss challenges, and exchange candid peer feedback, often followed by expert talks or hands-on workshops.

Traction & Fundraising Focus
Alchemist Feedback Summits connect founders with VC investors through dedicated one-hour office hours, allowing founders to book individualized feedback sessions on a first-come, first-served basis.

Personalized Mentorship
Beyond group sessions, founders engage in individualized mentoring with Alchemist Partners, accomplished CEOs, and domain experts—carefully matched to each company and available throughout the program. Experts are also accessible for one-off consultations on specific challenges.

Community
While social and community events are optional, alumni consistently cite the peer relationships formed through Alchemist as one of the most valuable and lasting outcomes of the program.

Demo Day
The program culminates in Demo Day, where founders present to an invitation-only audience of leading global investors.

The Alchemist Flagship program offers a structured path to fundraising and customer traction in a supportive community of enterprise-oriented founders and mentors.

Alchemist founders have some of the following additional program elements especially valuable:

An optional small cash investment on founder-friendly terms in the form most appropriate for your company (often a SAFE). We offset the program’s required “tuition” fee with additional investment capital. The average investment proceeds to your company are $30,000 (net of the provided tuition fee offset).

Exclusive credits and discounts from trusted Alchemist partners, including for cloud computing, legal fees, marketing, and other services. The aggregate value of these perks is more than $450,000. The average value of perks used by most Alchemist companies is $175,000.

Permanent access to Alchemist’s exclusive network of mentors, investors, customers, and alumni.

Co-working space is available in San Francisco, CA.

More than 270 Alchemist companies have received an institutional or significant seed investment of at least $500K.

Alchemist companies have raised more than $5B+ in total capital.

Investors who have funded Alchemist companies include Alchemist’s own backers (see below) and the following institutions: Accel, Andreessen Horowitz, Bain Capital, Battery Ventures, Bessemer, Charles River, DFJ, Felicis, Floodgate, Founders Fund, Greylock, Menlo, NEA, Redpoint, Shasta, SV Angel, Threshold, True, and many more. See here for a list of featured funds.

Over 70 Alchemist companies have been acquired: Cisco acquired Assemblage, Dropbox acquired Mobilespan, Otoy acquired AppSlingr, Box acquired Airpost, Cisco acquired Synata, Palo Alto Networks acquired CirroSecure, Zuora acquired Frontleaf, and GE acquired wise.io. 

The backers across Alchemist's funds include Analog Devices, BASF, Cisco Systems, DFJ, Ericsson, Foundation Capital, GE Ventures, Johnson Controls (Tyco), Juniper Networks, Khosla Ventures, Mayfield Ventures, Next47 (Siemens), Salesforce, Sapphire Ventures, USVP, Volvo, and Yellow Services.

We chose these backers because they strongly believe in our vision of supporting the best enterprise founders globally. As an Alchemist founder, you may engage them at any time, but you have no obligation to accept investment from or sign customer contracts with our backers.

Alchemist supports AI-SaaS and deeptech companies that monetize from enterprises, regardless of business model.

The definition of an "enterprise startup" is based on where the revenue comes from. It's not based on the offering. "B2B" (e.g. Salesforce) and "B2B2C" (e.g. Square) both qualify. All product types, customer segments/sizes, and business models are welcome (hardware or software, Fortune 500 or SMB, license/SaaS/freemium).

Alchemist companies may be located anywhere in the world. We have many successful alumni based in the United States, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. Our investment structure is flexible and accommodates your country of incorporation.

The most important element is the team, starting with the technical founder(s). The technical founder must be distinctive, usually with strong technical chops, tenacity, the ability to explain complicated things clearly, judgment in making good tradeoffs, good product sense, and a passion for outcomes, not process.

We prefer teams of at least 2 or 3. We will admit purely technical teams, but the ideal team has one or two technical co-founders, and one business-side co-founder with the ability to convey a vision to customers, investors, and employees.

We look for founding teams that other talented people will want to join.

Prior experience in the enterprise is not required, though we value prior enterprise success as one of your unfair advantages.

We also place importance -- though secondary to the team -- on the market. Our focus is on markets that are large enough to warrant the interest of the top venture funds. We do admit stellar teams who do not yet have a clear market focus.

Yes, Alchemist will accept solo founders. However, the bar for solo founders is significantly higher, given the difficulty of executing your vision before you have assembled your founding team.

The typical Alchemist company enters as a team comprising 2-3 co-founders who are highly committed and highly complementary in skills. However, past Alchemist solo founders have built exceptional ventures and are among our most treasured alumni.

Alchemist has rolling application deadlines. You may submit an application at any time, and we will review it at the next application date. You will hear back within three weeks of the application deadline you applied against. All application deadlines are listed on Alchemist’s home page. The sooner you apply, the easier it is to be admitted.

Fill out the application form. Alchemist will review your application after the application deadline. Within three weeks of the application deadline, you will hear back from us regarding your application status. 

If we invite you to interview, it will be a 15-minute virtual interview with a panel of judges. 

If the committee approves an offer to join, we will extend it to you in the week following the interview.

If you have any questions regarding the admissions process, please email admissions@alchemistaccelerator.com

Along with the tuition fee (covered by the investment offset, see question number four), we request a single-digit grant of common equity or its equivalent, varying depending on the business. Alchemist may also ask for the right to invest a minority / non-threatening co-investment in your follow-on rounds. Most Alchemist companies grant 5.00% of equity, but Alchemist has flexible terms.