TANDEMLAUNCH
Become a Co-founder
Our Entrepreneur-in-Residence startup program offers aspiring and established entrepreneurs a proven path to build world-class deep technology companies in 12 to 18 months. We do not fund external ideas or companies; we exclusively fund and support startups created within TandemLaunch.
About the Program
Our approach provides the support needed to create a startup from scratch. We provide you with generous pre-seed financing and an idea/technology that's been vetted and validated by major industry players. You will also receive support on every aspect of your venture so you can focus on building and growing that idea or technology into a viable startup. While under development, you and your team will benefit from coaching, mentorship, a modest stipend, and competitive benefits. Plus, you'll have access to our facilities including office and lab space, and work with our network of investors and industry players to create meaningful relationships.
Our Approach
We believe in the power of a diverse and complementary founding team for each venture. Typically, this consists of a technical lead with a deep knowledge base in the field associated with the technology and a product lead responsible for external engagements and overall strategy. Through years of experience, we have found this combination of skills to be the recipe for a successful founding team.
The Founding Team
Technical leads need to have a deep knowledge base and will be the leaders that drive the startup's technology forward.
Technical Lead
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Masters / PhD in Electrical/Computer Engineering, Physics, Computer Science or similar technical fields
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Proactive team player with leadership aspirations and hustle
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Self-motivated and proactive personality with an entrepreneurial spirit
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Strong communication skills to translate key features into salient benefits for technical and non-technical audiences
What we're looking for
Product leads will be responsible for external engagements and overall strategy of the startup.
Product Lead
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Bachelors / Masters in Electrical/Computer Engineering, Physics, Computer Science or similar technical fields
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2-5 years of experience in the industry
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Experience in sales and business development roles is a plus
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Self-motivated and proactive personality with an entrepreneurial spirit
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Strong communication skills to translate key features into salient benefits for technical and non-technical audiences
What we're looking for
You can take on the role of either a technical lead or a product lead depending on your skillset and experience.
Your Role in the Startup
$600-800K in pre-seed funding
A founding equity stake in your start-up
Group health insurance and a modest stipend
Access to our investor networks
Benefits
Start an application
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Applications Are Always Open
Frequently Asked Questions
You’ve got questions, we’ve got the answers
In short, it’s a place that builds startups from the ground up. Several such foundries exist around the world with different approaches. TandemLaunch is a startup foundry that builds deep-technology startups by constructing a venture idea around high impact academic research, assembling a team of founders, injecting a significant amount of capital and then accelerating the growth of the venture until it is ready to spin out of TandemLaunch and become an independent company.
We have an expansive network in the consumer technology industry that we use to identify challenges that, when solved, will create meaningful impact in large consumer markets. Armed with these problem statements, our venture team scouts for academic research at world-class institutions to solve them. When we locate those solutions, we’re ready to build a team to make them a reality! At any given time, the venture team has a trove of potential ventures waiting for the right people to realize them.
We run an Entrepreneur-In-Residence program (or EiR Program for short) that accepts aspiring business, product and technical leaders and prepares them to become founders and key executives in our ventures. If you think you have what it takes, check out our Become a Co-Founder or Lead a Venture pages!
No! We do not expect candidates to come with their own idea. We source venture ideas from an expansive network of industry leaders in consumer technology and a global network of academic research institutions.
That’s great, but unfortunately, we do not fund ventures that were not built with us from the ground up. We source venture ideas from an expansive network of industry leaders in consumer technology and a global network of academic research institutions. Although ideas are welcome, EiRs are expected to browse and select one of our sourced ideas to create a venture.
Applicants to the EiR Program are reviewed as individuals, and teams are assembled (by TandemLaunch) based on the complementary strengths of our EiRs.
Yes, founders must be in Montreal and work at the TandemLaunch offices for the creation and incubation period of the company. Our extraordinary rate of success getting ventures to follow on financing hinges on our ability to provide responsive daily hands-on mentorship and operational support. That said, our EiRs come from all walks of life and from all over the world. We can provide a great deal of assistance with immigration and relocation matters.
While entrepreneurship experience is of great value for an EiR, many of our best candidates had never considered a career as an entrepreneur before they discovered TandemLaunch. We have no expectations on your knowledge of business or startups prior to your joining the EiR Program – that’s what the program is for! Rather, we are looking for the following:
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Confident, hands-on expertise in a technical field relevant to consumer technologies.
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Clear and influential communicators who can champion their ideas to different audiences.
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A maker’s attitude to getting things done.
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Critical and creative thinkers who work well in team environments.
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Self-motivated, hard-working individuals who thrive in ambiguous environments and aspire to lead in an ambitious and rapidly growing company.
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For starters, not many VC funds build their own companies. As both a startup foundry and a VC fund, we can create an opportunity for aspiring leaders to become entrepreneurs when they don’t have an idea or a team.
Second, we work on some of the hardest technological problems known to the industry. We embrace technical risk because we understand that solving these problems will have a material impact on the way we live our lives. Technical leads join us because they get to overcome real scientific challenges and immediately get to see the results of that work on the real world. Product and Business leads join us because the effects of the technologies we build are far reaching and global in scale.
Yes! Depending on the stage that you’re at in wrapping up your graduate degree we can formulate a way for you to navigate smoothly into the EiR program. Let us know your situation and our venture team will advise you on the best way forward.
Absolutely! We’re under no delusion that we can force people to work together. The early stages of the EiR program are a matchmaking process for individuals to find each other and build mutual respect and trust based on merit and accomplishment.
While we have a very high success rate getting our ventures to follow-on financing, startups are inherently risky endeavors. We make every conceivable effort to get our companies across the line, but sometimes it wasn’t meant to be. If your venture fails, we all have a little cry, dissolve the venture and then move on to the next entrepreneurial endeavor (perhaps even together!). Even if you don’t choose to continue in the world of startups, an entrepreneurial journey of the kind we provide (successful or not) has an enormously positive impact on your value as an industry professional.