The experiment seems to be working.
Foundations, the Seattle-based startup community that launched last year, is doubling its physical space in Capitol Hill and is exploring an expansion in Bellevue, just east of Seattle.
This wasn’t the plan when longtime entrepreneur and investor Aviel Ginzburg founded Foundations in a bid to support early stage founders. But that’s part of the point.
“Everything at Foundations is an experiment,” he told GeekWire.
There are now 236 total members at Foundations, which includes longtime entrepreneurs and investors from the Seattle tech ecosystem, along with 55 “founders-in-residence” that work with Foundations for six months as part of a lightweight accelerator program until they reach certain milestones.
Some of those companies were ready to “graduate” recently and wanted to stay engaged with the Foundations community.
At the same time, 5,000 square feet opened up on the floor below Foundations’ existing space — which will now be a co-working office for Foundations members and their companies.
“It’s a fun evolution of the program,” Ginzburg said. “We didn’t know what was really going to happen. We thought it was like, ‘Oh, you’re going to go out on your own.’ But it seems like these communities of people still want to be working and building together.”
Foundations has emerged as a key support system for founders who can participate in the community without giving up equity or paying fees.
“Foundations was the catalyst that helped us transform what we were building from just a product into a fully-fledged company,” said MediScan CEO Kavian Mojabe, whose health tech startup will work out of the new space.
The group also accepts founders at varying levels of their startup journey.
“Foundations meets us where we are, with mentorship, events, and feedback that fits into our chaotic schedules,” said Shawn Ramirez, CEO of EloraHQ.
Ginzburg — who launched Foundations with Tyler Brown, Ryan Dao, and Art Litvinau — said his experience building the group has shown the strength of Seattle’s startup scene.
“There is a lot more entrepreneurial talent and awesome startups here than people realize,” he said. “They are just very disorganized, siloed and not properly networked.”
Having a community like Foundations is also helpful for founders navigating the AI boom.
“The technology changed so quickly,” Ginzburg said. “If you’re not learning through osmosis and watching others, you’re falling behind. So there is this deep desire for all these early stage companies to be physically around each other.”
Foundations operates as a benefit corporation, a legal distinction designed for entities that want to turn a profit and also prioritize social and public good.
The co-working expansion will help provide additional revenue in addition to investment and sponsorships. Ginzburg, a general partner at Seattle VC firm Founders’ Co-op who previously ran the Amazon Alexa accelerator, said he’s exploring potential partnerships with commercial real estate firms to funnel companies into office space as they scale.
“Our goal here is not to make money,” he said. “Our goal is to support the community and have this thing keep rolling and keep cranking.”
People from other big cities are now reaching out to Ginzburg about how they can launch something like Foundations in their own startup communities.
But in a lot of ways, Foundations is unique to Seattle.
“It’s about the people and the community,” Ginzburg said. “The structure and the systems are less interesting than the core group of people coming together.”
He added: “Our mission is to make Seattle a better place to be a founder.”
Foundations is filling a gap left by the surprise departure of Techstars Seattle last year. It’s one of several startup groups in the Seattle region aiming to help founders, including Pioneer Square Labs, the AI2 Incubator (which just launched the AI House), and others.
Plug and Play, a Silicon Valley-based group that operates innovation programs, recently announced two new accelerators in the Seattle region. Other accelerator programs include Creative Destruction Lab, Startup Haven, Maritime Blue, and Jones + Foster.
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