Without a doubt, one of the hottest new startup accelerators in tech today is Andreessen Horowitz’s Speedrun program. Launched in 2023, the accelerator has an acceptance rate of less than 1%. In one January blog post, the program says more than 19,000 startups have pitched and less than 0.4% have been accepted into the latest cohort.

The program previously focused on gaming startups, then expanded to entertainment and media, and is now a “horizontal program,” Joshua Lu, the program’s general manager and a partner at a16z, told TechCrunch. Now, founders of any type of startup can apply, and the program runs for about 12 weeks in San Francisco. It used to have a program in Los Angeles, but Lu said the focus will be on SF from now on.

There are two cohorts a year, and about 50 to 70 startups are accepted in each one. The program invest up to $1 million with each company, although the downside is that it is quite expensive. It usually invests $500,000 upfront in exchange for 10% of the startup company through a SAFE note, and another $500,000 if the next round is raised within 18 months, on whatever terms the other investors agree on. In comparison, Y Combinator usually takes 7% of the company for $500,000.

Speedrun said its program is more “equity expensive” because of what it offers to founders. This gives them access to a16z’s advisory and business networks that help with tasks like go-to-market, brand development, media strategy, and talent sourcing. Additionally it offers startup perks like $5 million in credits to vendors like AWS, OpenAI, Nvidia, and Deel.

Given the high interest, and low acceptance rate, TechCrunch talked to Lu for some tips on how startups can stand out the most. The latest cohort starts in January and ends in April with Demo Day. Applications for the next cohort opens in April, although it is looking at applications in the off-season throughout the year, Lu said.

Focus on the founding team

Speedrun targets early-stage startups. Because of this, they will really check who is in the founding team and if their skills complement each other, said Lu.

“That doesn’t mean one has to be technical and one has to be commercial and one has to be marketing,” Lu said. This means that “we prefer not to see any glaring holes in capabilities or interests. We want the founding team to be self-aware and for that to be part of the hiring plan.”

They also want to see teams that have worked together before or have a shared history.

“There are many things that a founding team must navigate in their startup journey and having a little bit of pattern recognition, being able to work with each other, knowing how to disagree and how to come out on the other side of a disagreement, those are all things that people in founding teams with similar histories have an easier time, generally,” he continued.

Although AI lowers the barriers to creating software, it’s still helpful for a founding team to be technical, Lu said. At the same time, because AI makes it faster to build and validate hypotheses and get a product out there, Lu said the Speedrun team likes to see if a startup already has a little market validation or traction for their product.

“Speedrun as a program is very good at helping teams pour fuel into a very small spark or fire,” he said. “We’re looking for teams that are trying to build and trying to show us that there’s a little spark that we can burn.”

Limit the “theory” of the market

Lu said that a common mistake that founders often make in the application process is to spend too much energy talking about market theory or why there is a specific problem and why their solution is the right one. “All this is going to be true,” he said.

At the same time, he added, even the biggest, most successful tech companies face unexpected roadblocks when they’re still young, sometimes even completely pivoting. What a company thinks it will build in the beginning is not necessarily what will make it successful in the end.

“What we really want to hear is why this founding team works so well together,” he continued, “why they are 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 is okay to use AI for application, but…

Lu said the program encourages every founder to use AI to “clean up” their application. He said there is no longer any excuse for grammatical errors or misspellings due to the increasing sophistication of AI tools. He also said that AI can help founders organize their thoughts, making them clearer, more concise, and more coherent.

But if AI does all the explaining work to begin with, that could backfire. When a founder goes to the next round, it’s a live video-call interview. “At that point, their skills in explaining live narration will be put to the test,” he said. That’s why founders need to be ready to communicate well about their startup without the help of AI.

Only about 10% of founders make it to the video-call stage. There are usually two to three investors on the judging panel at a time.

After the live interview, the team usually conducts a few more screening calls with the founders, and then a final decision on the cohort is made.

Network greedy

There are, of course, other accelerator programs that startups can choose from. Lu said Speedrun itself was inspired by some of these other programs.

However, he said, this accelerator prides itself on giving founders access to a large, specialized operating team. In fact, he said the best teams that get the most out of the program are the most “greedy about exposure to the amazing people and program” that Speedrun has to offer.

Lu listed just a few points: a16z has about 600 people, and 10% of that staff is in the investment team, he said; everyone is an operator who supports the companies the company works for. As a result, Speedrun founders have access to experts who can help with marketing, banking, finance, management, and many other functions. So it helps to know who you want to connect with at the start and why.

“We tell the builders that come through the program, what you get out of Speedrun is what you put into it,” he said. “We think founders who want to take advantage of world experts in many different domains early in their startup journey would be wise to choose us.”

Advice from a program founder

Founder Mohamed Mohamed, who is in the new group, recently announced a $5 million increase for his proptech startup Smart Bricks led by Speedrun at a16z. He was drawn to the program because he said it was one of the few “clearly designed for co-founders working on applications at the frontier of AI,” and he chose it because he wanted a program that would allow him to “stress-test an ambitious technical vision.”

Mohamed said he treated the application more like an internal strategy memo than a pitch. “Instead of glossing over buzzwords, we focus on clarity — the real problem, why it’s structurally difficult, and why our team is uniquely well-positioned to solve it,” he said. “We’re clear about what’s working, what’s not, and where we need help. I think being honest and clearly saying why this problem is important” is what helped the company through the application process.

He calls the whole process “rigorous but refreshingly thoughtful,” and says it’s designed to understand what the builders are thinking, not just what they’ve built so far. “The conversations went deep into product architecture, data strategy, and long-term ambitions. It felt closer to a partner-level discussion than a typical accelerator interview, which is a strong signal for us,” he said.

His general advice was to be “intellectually honest and accurate.” For example, he said in his application that he avoided “over-optimization” for hyping his company. “If you’re vague, derivative, or overly defensive about your idea, it’s easy to see. Don’t try to sound bigger than you are; clarity about where you really are is much more compelling than inflated narratives,” he says.

Ultimately, “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. “State the difficult parts of what you’re doing and why they’re worth solving.