Tech Startup Co-Founder
Our mission at DIAL Ventures is to take on the Agrifood industry's top challenges, investing in talent to create new digital businesses and, within an innovation ecosystem, effecting needed change for decades to come. The DIAL Ventures studio engages with you as an entrepreneur through our six-month Fellowship program to provide all the resources and supplemental learning required to move you quickly into a potential co-founder in a newly created startup. Our Fall 2026 studio cycle will focus on AI in Ag , especially the frictions evident across the agrifood supply chain. If you have background experience and a deep interest in food and agriculture and their impact on the world we want to speak to you. In addition to the talent you bring to the studio, our process immerses you in the industry across the agrifood supply chain, introduces you to experts, and fosters high-level corporate connections. The following critical elements are addressed in the studio process:
- Ideas sourced from industry and research.
- Concept testing with industry partners.
- Minimum viable product development.
- Business and market entry plan development.
- Pre-seed stage funding to launch your company (up to $500K).
- Help in post-launch business creation resources such as software, product design, key hiring, marketing, financial and legal.
- Assist in facilitating field trials with industry partners.
- Introduce initial sales opportunities with industry partners.
- Help to secure a seed funding round to transition into company growth.
During the initial ideation-to-concept phase you work with industry experts in transitioning from high-impact industry themes to strategic opportunities to product concepts and business plans in just under 6 months. During this time you are paid a stipend in the studio, and then, if your company is launched we provide up to $1M in seed funding after which you transition to company co-founder and negotiate your compensation package with your Board. This launches the business build phase where we provide assistance in establishing business functions such as software engineering, product design, marketing, legal, etc. We provide all this extra support because we want founders to focus on getting their product right and moving to first revenue as soon as possible. We invite you to begin the application process and get involved in one of today's hottest industry tech segments.