ABOUT FDN
Discovery should not end at Demo Day.
Founder Discovery Network helps investors, accelerators, and others in the startup ecosystem discover founders and follow their progress over time.
Accelerators are good at finding promising founders. Demo Days are good at introducing them. But after the event, much of the context that made those founders interesting becomes harder to find. FDN keeps that context available.
A network built for discovery
Founder and Company Briefs explain who is building what. Interviews let founders share their thinking in their own words. Signals capture meaningful developments as companies grow. Accelerator history shows where founders have been and how they entered the network.
Together, these create a clearer picture of a founder and company over time.
FDN is not an open startup directory. Founders qualify for inclusion through credible external validation, such as participation in a recognized accelerator, institutional early-stage funding, competitive innovation funding, or a comparable qualification.
Qualified for discovery
Being included in FDN means a founder or company has met a credible external validation threshold.
It does not mean FDN endorses the company, recommends an investment, or predicts its success.
Qualified for discovery. Not endorsed by FDN.
Built in Berkeley
Founder Discovery Network is operated by In Your Words Productions, LLC in Berkeley, California.
FDN grew out of our work interviewing founders and helping them explain what they are building. We saw the same problem repeatedly: important context about founders is often captured at one moment, then becomes difficult to find as the company changes.
FDN is designed to keep that story discoverable.