Techstars

No one builds alone.

@genemurphy @SWDub 11 years strong!

Can’t believe it’s been 11 years since our @SWDub @Techstars era kicked off in Dublin 🙌🥹☘️🙌 Words can’t describe how much fun it was thanks to so many great organisers, facilitators, mentors, speakers, judges, partners and most important attendees on what we all used to get to do for the ecosystem. 54 hours long 11 years strong 💪

@SiliconPrairie Get your applications in, founders!

... Techstars’ global network of fellow business owners and leaders. 🌐 The deadline to apply is Aug. 21 — 🔗 buff.ly/wREFotj #OpenRange | @techstars | #ApplyNow #FounderSupport #accelerator #EarlyStage #entrepreneurship #innovation #NebraskaNews #SiliconPrairie

Interested in participating in the latest Techstars Founder Catalyst Program cohort? 🤔💡 The 10-week virtual pre-accelerator targets early-stage founders across Omaha, Lincoln and the wider state. The goal is to mentor these entrepreneurs and connect them with ...

AI can't sit across from you and talk you through the hard calls.

Pulse Space (Techstars 2024), a space technology company developing laser-based power beaming and orbital tracking systems, has been awarded a $40M contract from the U.S. Space Force. 🛰️ Founded by Karl Stedman, Pulse Space is building technology that collects solar energy and transmits it via laser beam to remote nodes in space, technology that could also be used to track objects in orbit and transmit data. This award builds on the company's growing relationship with the Space Force and follows a previous $1.9M Air Force contract in support of laser-based military communications work. Pulse Space is also on the Missile Defense Agency's list of potential vendors for SHIELD contracts. The company was part of the Techstars Space Accelerator 2024 cohort and has since partnered with Scout Space (Techstars 2021) to work toward an in-orbit demonstration of laser power transmission. Congratulations to the entire Pulse Space team! 🚀 geekwire.com/2026/pulse-spa…

@deji_skyboss We love it! Congratulations to you all. ⭐️

Still Day One here at @immigify. Thanks @Techstars

@Jense_AI Agreed! We can't wait to see what they achieve next.

@Techstars Every day brings something new in AI.

Auxilius (Techstars 2025), a Germany-based startup building AI-powered governance, risk and compliance automation software, has raised €1.3M. Founded by Christian Hoppe and James Barnes, Auxilius helps enterprises replace manual compliance work, spreadsheets, screenshots, sample-based audits, with a platform that converts policies and regulatory requirements into code that continuously assesses risk and executes controls. The funding will grow Auxilius' engineering and domain teams and expand its Control Intelligence knowledge graph, which lets automated controls scale across business processes as regulations evolve. The company already has paying enterprise customers, including European banks and industrial groups, using the platform to expand control coverage while cutting manual effort. Congratulations to the entire team! tsta.rs/fP7A50ZlOZ6

Capital is not a strategy. On this episode of Your Startup Community, Chris Heivly breaks down the capital trap, the moment founders start treating funding as the finish line instead of the tool it actually is. 🎧 tsta.rs/lg7W50ZmauP

Most startups use AI tools, but very few have figured out how to inject AI into their operational DNA to actually lower their burn rate. If you're scaling your headcount at the exact same rate as your revenue, you're missing the true leverage of this era. We are teaming up with Zendesk for Startups for a webinar focusing entirely on AI Efficiency. 📆 July 21st at 8am PT 🔗 tsta.rs/KtON50ZlLGY We’ll be joined by Sarah Al-Hussaini, exited founder, VP of AI Revenue at Zendesk, and Techstars alum, for a purely tactical masterclass on moving past the AI hype and driving real operational velocity. Tune in to learn: 👉 What it actually takes to scale AI across your products, internal teams, and customer touchpoints. 👉 How to use AI to maximize organizational output while keeping headcount lean and protecting your runway. 👉 Our predictions on the specific product bets that will define the future of AI efficiency.

@trungduong90914 A team is 100% your support system! 💚

@Techstars totally agree, sometimes u need a team to grow

4. Use a “who, not how” map. Solo founders often ask, “How do I solve this?” A better question is, “Who can help me solve this?” Every major bottleneck should be mapped against the kind of help it requires. Is this an advisor issue, a contractor issue, a customer discovery issue, an employee issue, or a co-founder-level gap? Not every weakness requires a co-founder. But some gaps are too central to ignore. If the company’s progress depends on a capability you do not have and cannot credibly manage from the outside, that is not a small gap. That is structural risk.

@YGene_ Yes! Keep pushing and thriving!

@Techstars Looking forward to being the next Techstars success story.

Immigify (Techstars 2025) has closed a $1M+ funding round to expand its support for the more than 50 million immigrants living in the United States. Immigify started with a clear goal: helping immigrants navigate the U.S. immigration system. Since Techstars, the company has grown well beyond that. It's built a fast-growing community for immigrants nationwide, along with an AI-powered platform that helps immigration professionals, including attorneys, paralegals, and consultants, serve more clients faster through intelligent automation. This new funding will fuel Immigify's next chapter, extending tailored, AI-driven support beyond immigration into healthcare, insurance, employment, education, and the other essential services immigrants need as they build their lives in America. The vision is to deploy more than 50 million personalized AI agents, one for every immigrant in the U.S., each guiding its user through the systems that shape everyday life. It's a good example of a Techstars company finding a bigger opportunity than the one it started with. What began as an immigration navigation tool is becoming infrastructure for a population that's too often underserved by existing systems. "The Techstars Workforce Development Accelerator was a turning point for Immigify. The program not only provided funding but also gave us access to a valuable network of mentors, founders, customers, and investors. Working with Dave and Sasha helped us grow quickly. The connections we made during the program were instrumental in closing our recent pre-seed round." - Ayodeji Adesola, co-founder and CTO Congratulations to founders Ayodeji Adesola, Emmanuel Olorunsheyi, and Diana Melendez and the Immigify team on this milestone! We're excited to see what's next. tsta.rs/XTA750ZkRVn

Read more on the blog: techstars.com/blog/pov/solo-…

6. Know when the missing function has become a missing person. There is nothing wrong with being a solo founder. There is something dangerous about staying solo by default. At some point, a missing function may need to become a role. That role might be an employee, contractor, fractional leader, or co-founder. The best solo founders are honest about that line.

5. Treat anti-isolation habits as business infrastructure. Isolation is not just a wellness problem. It is a business risk. When founders are isolated, their judgment can narrow. They can overvalue their own ideas, avoid hard feedback, and confuse activity with progress. The best solo founders create regular contact with people close enough to the business to tell the truth: other founders, mentors, operators, customers, or industry experts.

3. Keep a decision log. When you are solo, major decisions can happen too quickly and too privately. A decision log creates a record of what you decided, why you decided it, what evidence you had, and what would cause you to revisit the decision. It forces you to separate facts from assumptions. It also helps advisors, mentors, and future team members understand how the company got where it is.

2. Build an advisor system that includes challenge, not just encouragement. Many founders collect advisors. Fewer build an advisor system. You need people who help you see around corners. You also need people willing to disagree with you. The most useful advisors are not always the most famous. They are the ones who ask the hard question before the market does.

1. Create a weekly customer-learning cadence. A solo founder can move quickly, but speed without feedback can become self-reinforcing. You can spend weeks building, selling, or messaging from assumptions no one has challenged. A weekly customer-learning cadence forces reality back into the company.