How to get into a16z’s super-competitive Speedrun startup accelerator program

Without a doubt, one of the most sought-after 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 more than 19,000 startups pitched and fewer than 0.4% were accepted into the latest cohort.

Speedrun originally focused on gaming startups, then widened into entertainment and media, and is now operating as a “horizontal program,” Joshua Lu, the program’s general manager and a partner at a16z. Today, startup founders can apply, and the program runs for approximately 12 weeks in San Francisco. It previously ran a program in Los Angeles, but Lu said the focus will shift to San Francisco.

There are two cohorts per year, with approximately 50 to 70 startups accepted into each cohort. The program invests up to $1 million in each company, though it comes with a higher price than many other accelerators. Typically, Speedrun invests $500,000 up front in exchange for 10% of the startup via a SAFE note, with an additional $500,000 available if the company raises its next round within 18 months, on terms set by the new investors.

For comparison, Y Combinator typically takes a fixed 7% of a company for $125,000, with an additional $375,000 invested on an uncapped MFN SAFE.

Speedrun has said its program is more “equity expensive” because of what it provides founders. Companies get access to a16z’s advisory and business networks, which can help with go-to-market efforts, brand development, media strategy, and talent sourcing. It also offers perks such as up to $5 million in vendor credits, including AWS, OpenAI, Nvidia, and Deel.

Given the intense interest and extremely low acceptance rate. The latest cohort began in January and runs through April, ending with a Demo Day. Applications for the next cohort open in April, though Lu said the program also reviews off-season applications year-round.

Focus on the founding team

Speedrun targets early-stage startups, which means it looks closely at the founding team and whether the founders’ skills truly complement one another, 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. But he added that the program prefers not to see glaring gaps in a team’s capabilities or interests. It also wants founders to be self-aware of what they don’t have and to demonstrate that those gaps are part of a thoughtful hiring plan.

The program also prefers teams with a shared history—founders who have worked together before.

“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 said.

Even though AI has lowered the barriers to building software, Lu said it’s still extremely helpful for a founding team to be technical. At the same time, because AI has made it easier to build quickly, validate hypotheses, and ship products, the Speedrun team also likes seeing early market validation or traction.

“Speedrun as a program is really great at helping teams pour gasoline on a very small spark or fire,” Lu said. “We look for teams that have endeavoured 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 make in the application process is spending too much energy explaining broader market theory, why the problem exists, and why the proposed solution is the right one. “All of that may be true,” he said.

But he added that even the largest tech companies encountered unexpected roadblocks early on, sometimes pivoting completely. What a company believes it will build at the start is not always what ultimately makes it successful.

“What we really want to hear about is why this founding team is really good together,” he said, “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 of the idea itself.

It’s okay to use AI for the application, but…

Lu said Speedrun encourages founders to use AI tools to “clean up” their applications. With the sophistication of AI today, he said, there is no excuse for grammar issues or misspellings. AI can also help founders sort through their thinking and communicate it more clearly, concisely, and coherently.

But if AI is doing all the work of explaining the startup, that can backfire. If a founder advances, the next stage is a live video-call interview. “At that point, their live narration explanation skills are going to be put to the test,” Lu said. Founders should be ready to articulate their startup clearly without AI support.

Only about 10% of founders reach the video call stage. Typically, there are two to three investors on the judging panel at a time.

After the live interview, the Speedrun team usually conducts a few additional screening calls with the founders before making final decisions on the cohort.

Be greedy to network.

There are many accelerator programs founders can consider, and Lu said Speedrun itself drew inspiration from other programs.

Still, he said this accelerator is especially focused on providing founders with access to a large, specialised operating team. He added that the teams who benefit most are often the ones most “greedy about getting exposure to the amazing people and programs” Speedrun offers.

Lu noted that a16z has around 600 people, with about 10% on the investment team; the rest are operators who support the companies the firm works with. As a result, founders in Speedrun can connect with experts across marketing, banking, finance, management, and many other functions. It helps, he said, for startups to know who they want 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,” Lu 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 part of the recent cohort, recently announced a $5 million raise for his proptech startup Smart Bricks led by a16z’s Speedrun. He said he was drawn to the program because it felt like one of the few accelerators “explicitly designed for co-founders working on frontier AI applications,” and 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 honesty and a clear articulation of why this problem matters helped the company during the application process.

He described the overall process as “rigorous but refreshingly thoughtful,” and said it was designed to understand how founders think, not just what they have built. “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 main advice for applicants is to be “intellectually honest and precise.” He said he avoided “over-optimising the application to hype the 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.”