Founder Institute wants startups to join its Philly cohort

They don’t say “second time’s the charm,” but for the Philly iteration of the Founder Institute accelerator program it might just be.

Once tried in 2013 by Mike Krupit (then COO of now shuttered Real Food Works) alongside entrepreneurs Herb Cohen and Bob Solomon, the San Francisco-based national program is looking to once again drop a pin in Philly. It’s currently live in 60 countries with its premise of “globalizing Silicon Valley.”

Locally, the second push at making the accelerator happen in Philly is led by Brendan O’Hara, a startup consultant who also organizes a meetup called Founding Startups. O’Hara is a New York-based, but is hoping to finalize his move to Philly over the next three to four months.

“Founder Institute is a very structured 13-week program,” O’Hara told Technical.ly. “It takes in people who are at the idea stage or pre seed. We walk them through all of the steps to build a great early stage startup and have mentors from regional startups come in to advise. When they leave the program, they can start pitching for capital right away or go do more product development.”

The sessions for the accelerator, which will be starting in October, will take place at CityCoHo and Pennovation.

The accelerator program does take equity in the shape of “warrants” (no, not that kind) which only kick in in the case a startup has an exit event like an acquisition or a merger. Standard is 4 percent, but as with any accelerator you might want to read the fine print.