Neo Residency: a lower-dilution accelerator designed for top-tier founders

Neo is launching a selective residency that provides $750,000 to each participating early-stage team using an uncapped SAFE, with the investor’s eventual stake determined by the startup’s next priced round valuation rather than a preset equity percentage.

The program will run small cohorts and mixes active startups with a dedicated student track: a handful of students receive $40,000 grants to pursue projects while gaining access to mentorship, bootcamps, and office residency in San Francisco and a two-week offsite.

Neo’s structure contrasts with common accelerator terms that lock in fixed stakes up front; by linking dilution to valuation, founders keep more upside if their next round prices high — for example, a $15M follow-on would imply roughly a mid-single-digit percent stake for Neo, while a nine-figure follow-on would push that stake below one percent.

Mentors include senior operators and technologists, and the program emphasizes selective signal: Partovi aims to leverage curation and reputation to channel respected deal flow into the firm’s pipeline.

Capacity is intentionally limited: cohorts remain small this summer with about a dozen startups and student projects, and the program will cap each intake to maintain exclusivity across two annual sessions.

Operationally, the residency bundles hands-on support — office time, a mountain bootcamp, and one-to-one advising — with financial backing structured to favor founders at higher post-money valuations.

Compared with typical accelerator packages, Neo’s offer reduces early equity surrender, shifting a greater share of downside risk onto the investor while preserving founder upside if the company scales rapidly.

The student grant channel functions as both talent development and an early funnel: recipients can defer formal company formation but are positioned to become future founders who may return to Neo for capital.

By keeping cohorts small and terms generous, Neo seeks to signal high selectivity to later-stage investors, effectively turning program pedigree into a discovery mechanism for promising seed and Series A opportunities.

For founders weighing accelerators, the offer reframes trade-offs between early cash and permanent dilution, offering an alternative that favors high-valuation outcomes over fixed early ownership grabs.