San Francisco: EWOR, a global founder fellowship, has announced a new San Francisco leadership team following a 237% increase in US applications over the past 12 months.
The team includes Oscar-winning filmmaker and Microsoft-exited founder Charles Ferguson, former Emhance CEO and Adjust CPO Katie Madding, and three-time founder Gigi Brett.
EWOR said the new San Francisco team comes after a record year for applications from the US. The fellowship describes itself as harder to get into than Y Combinator.
The new team brings together Charles Ferguson, who sold FrontPage to Microsoft and has invested early in companies including Etched, Perplexity, CopilotKit and Paradigm; Katie Madding, former CEO of Emhance and Chief Product Officer at Adjust; and Gigi Brett, a three-time founder of Batelle, PreSeed Fertility and Upstream.
EWOR’s premise is that talent is spread evenly across the world but opportunity is not. Fellows receive up to $600,000 in capital and 1:1 weekly mentorship from unicorn builders associated with companies such as Adjust, ProGlove and SumUp, wherever they are, rather than being asked to relocate.
Founders who joined EWOR this year raised $10 million on average, according to the fellowship. EWOR also said that 25% of recent joiners have raised at nine-figure valuations in the past six months.
In addition, EWOR Fellows hire early team members and secure first customers through the fellowship’s global talent and customer network.
The growing share of US-based applicants comes as the fellowship expands in San Francisco. According to EWOR, the US applicants include founders already operating within one of the world’s densest startup markets.
“Talent is spread evenly across the world. Opportunity is not,” said Daniel Dippold, EWOR‘s founder and CEO. “Our job is to close that gap for the world’s best founders wherever they are. For a growing number of them, that now means San Francisco, so that’s where we are.”
From FrontPage to the Frontier of AI
Charles Ferguson sold FrontPage to Microsoft in 1996. He holds a PhD in political science from MIT, has published five books and won an Academy Award for his documentary Inside Job, an account of the 2008 financial crisis.
Ferguson is also an early investor in AI companies, with investments in Etched, Perplexity, CopilotKit and Paradigm.
His career includes work across the Atlantic, including a Brookings fellowship, a board seat at the French-American Foundation and a life membership of the Council on Foreign Relations.
“Great founders need the same things: support from best-in-class mentors, access to the San Francisco startup ecosystem, and a superb global network” said Ferguson.
“EWOR is already the world’s most selective founder fellowship, now expanding with US applications up 237% this year, and with EWOR Fellows raising an average of $10M after Demo Day. So I’m honored to help lead EWOR’s US growth and its integration within San Francisco’s world-leading ecosystem.”
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From Leading Startups to Supporting Founders
Katie Madding was Chief Product Officer and the third US hire at Adjust, which Palo Alto-based AppLovin acquired for $1 billion in 2021.
Madding later led Emhance as CEO. The company was Google’s official partner for game playtesting and was taken from an idea to recurring revenue with customers including Microsoft-owned Activision Blizzard King.
“What led me to EWOR were my lonely nights as a pre-seed CEO, when I sat alone with decisions, turning to AI for answers when what I really needed was a founder who’d been where I was,” said Madding.
“That’s what we’re building: the world’s best product for founders, so they can pour their energy into the work only they can do – basically the support I had dreamt of when I was CEO.”
Gigi Brett Joins as Chief Investment Officer
Gigi Brett joins EWOR as Chief Investment Officer and is relocating from Cape Town to San Francisco.
A three-time founder in health and education, Brett built Batelle with a unicorn founder and a team of 60. She later launched Upstream, described as the first preconception product designed for men, which ran a pilot with US Navy SEALs.
Her most recent company, PreSeed Fertility, has built a database of sperm donors that EWOR said now covers around 10% of all registered donors in the US.
“My whole career has been about beginnings, from conception to early childhood health, and the lesson never changes: the further upstream you go, the higher the impact,” said Brett.
“Joining EWOR, I get to work at the most upstream point there is, supporting founders from as early as the idea stage, when the right help changes everything that follows.”
EWOR’s Recently Accepted Founders
EWOR said a number of founders have recently been accepted into the EWOR Fellowship, including:
- Martin Varsavsky, a five-time unicorn founder now building Certuma, described as the first AI doctor seeking FDA approval.
- Lars Hinrichs, founder of Xing, now building Simsalasim, described as a global, AI-native mobile carrier offering unlimited data across 100 countries via eSIM.
- Maya Polackal, a Harvard Medical School and Boston University researcher now building EOMIND, a frontier AI lab.
- Carter Laren, a serial founder with $300 million in previous exits and an angel investor, now building Sprite, an AI agent platform directed by its own thoughts rather than a human’s.
- Thiri Shwesin Aung, a Harvard-trained environmental scientist turned founder now building Nyxium, an AI platform for deployable energy and industrial infrastructure decisions.
- Previous EWOR Fellows
Previous EWOR Fellows include Ricky Knox, an ex-unicorn founder with two nine-figure exits through Azimo and Tandem Bank.
Alfons Huber, a physicist, raised $23.6 million at a $322 million post-money valuation to turn roads into power plants with REPS GmbH.
Jörgen Tveit, founder of energy storage startup Thaleron, raised Europe’s largest-ever pre-seed round of $15 million by a first-time founder at the time.
Leonard T. Dorlöchter achieved a $3.5 billion valuation for peaq within two years of joining EWOR.
About EWOR
EWOR is a fellowship for outlier founders building transformative technology. The fellowship says entrepreneurs shape the future, while only a few create generational impact.
EWOR supports the top 0.1% with up to $600,000 in funding and weekly 1:1 mentorship from unicorn founders associated with Adjust, ProGlove and SumUp who now work full-time for EWOR.
The fellowship does not use standardised playbooks or rigid programming. Its virtual-first approach is tailored to each founder’s non-linear journey.
According to EWOR, its Fellows have achieved milestones ranging from raising a $15 million pre-seed round as a first-time founder to reaching a $3.5 billion valuation within two years of joining the fellowship.
