Neo launches Residency with $750k uncapped SAFE

Ali Partovi’s venture firm Neo is trying to make the accelerator “tax” look optional—at least for founders with enough leverage to be invited.

According to TechCrunch, Neo has launched “Neo Residency,” a three‑month program in San Francisco (plus a two‑week bootcamp in Oregon) for 12–15 startups, paired with a student track. The headline term is a $750,000 investment via an uncapped SAFE. Unlike the classic accelerator model—“give us 7% now for a modest check and a demo day”—Neo’s stake is deferred until the next priced round and floats with valuation. If the next round is priced at $15 million, Neo ends up with about 5%; if it’s $100 million, about 0.75%.

That structure is not charity; it’s contract design that shifts risk and optionality around. An uncapped SAFE gives Neo maximum upside exposure if a company raises at a low valuation, while the “valuation-sensitive dilution” pitch is a way of telling elite founders: if you’re truly the next breakout, you won’t pay much. Neo is underwriting a signal, not a curriculum.

TechCrunch contrasts Neo’s terms with Y Combinator’s standard deal: $125,000 for 7% plus an additional $375,000 on an uncapped MFN SAFE. Andreessen Horowitz’s Speedrun, meanwhile, typically invests $500,000 for 10% via a SAFE plus another $500,000 contingent on a quick next round. Neo is effectively saying the market has matured: the best founders don’t need a batch to find capital; they need a brand that pre-screens them for the next layer of gatekeepers.

The student track is even more revealing. Neo will give five to eight students a $40,000 “no strings” grant to take a semester off. There’s no requirement to incorporate, but the expectation is obvious: build loyalty early, then be first in line when a real company forms. It’s Y Combinator’s “founder pipeline” logic, but moved upstream into universities.

The interesting part isn’t whether Neo is “founder-friendly.” It’s whether this is genuine market innovation or just a more sophisticated wrapper around the same power structure: concentrated networks deciding who gets credibility, introductions, and the next check.

If Neo’s selection remains as exclusive as Partovi promises (capped at 20 teams per cohort, twice a year), then “low dilution” is less a revolution than a price discrimination strategy: founders with high bargaining power get better terms; everyone else still pays the accelerator toll—just to a different booth operator.

Still, the contract matters. Founder-friendly terms can force incumbents to compete on value rather than ownership extraction. If Neo’s model spreads, the accelerator business may finally have to justify itself as mentorship and infrastructure—not a compulsory equity tithe for access to a room full of investors who were going to fund the top companies anyway.