July 2018 will be remembered for gathering la crème de la crème of … all-star entrepreneurs. The selection was tough (we have a 6% selection rate!) but here we are: this week, we happily kicked off batch 3 of the Founders Program with another 45 new startups!
So, who are the founders?
The diversity of projects and entrepreneurs’ profiles are always the key to a great new Founders batch. This one is no different in terms of age, with new Founders aged from 22 to 51, in terms of gender, as 47% of our new selected startups have at least one female founder (yeah!), and in terms of maturity: 70% of them do not generate any revenue (yet) and have on average 4 full time members.
Wondering what they were doing before coming to STATION F? Once again we have all types of backgrounds: some are former corporate employees ( AXA, L’Oréal, Samsung, etc.) some are former startups employees (Doctolib, Behalf , Sarenza, Zenly etc.), some are researchers with PhDs in atmospheric, agronomy, and biological sciences(who said research can’t lead to entrepreneurship?) and for some this is their first time job! Proving that, yes, anyone can become an entrepreneur!
The Founders Program’s core DNA is also to mix 1st time entrepreneurs with highly experienced people: in this batch, we assembled serial entrepreneurs (with companies sold to GoPro, Docker etc.), “Forbes 30 under 30” entrepreneurs, and newbies.
Can’t wait to see all of them share their challenges and successes in the monthly Guild meetings!
Coming from South Korea & working on solutions against Alzheimer’s
In this latest batch, we have companies from many countries including South Korea, the US, Canada, Poland, and Tunisia. We’re also pleased to welcome some teams that are working on new and meaningful topics, including solutions to help people suffering from Alzheimer’s, solutions to sustainable agriculture, happiness at work, as well as ways of supporting refugees thanks to the Tech community. This 3rd batch is also dominated by Deeptech: AI solutions for industrial IoT, AI to guide networks of drones, infrastructure solutions (storage services, performance testing tools for web applications, simplified hosting for web apps etc.)
Not familiar with the Founders Program?
For anyone who doesn’t know, the Founders Program is the largest of the 32 programs at Station F, with roughly 200 startups in the program at any given time. We welcome new companies twice per year, in January and in July. What makes the Founders Program unique is the peer-to-peer learning model. We don’t babysit you but instead put you with other leading founders to share resources and solve problems.
We are thrilled to welcome these new founders to the program and will keep you updated with more info in the months to come. And guess what? They each plan to hire 3 people on average in the months to come so get your resume ready :)
Want to join the Founders Program?
We are currently accepting applications for startups that would like to join in 2019.