Every founder we work with is chasing the same thing in the end: a business that works, that customers want, that can grow past them. But the road there looks completely different depending on where you're standing. The founder who's just committed to building full time needs something different from the founder who's already selling and is now eyeing a market on the other side of the world. We're launching two new cohorts this August with exactly that in mind, and applications for both are now open.
Catalyst: for founders building the foundations that actually hold
If you've been putting in the hours, over 8 a week, often a lot more, and you're ready to stop guessing and start building with intent, Catalyst is for you. It's our live-delivery cohort programme for early stage founders, and it runs for 9 weeks: 8 core workshops, three hours each, delivered mostly online with two in-person sessions, one in Edinburgh and one in Stirling.
What makes Catalyst different is that it doesn't treat "early stage" as a single problem to solve. It walks you through the real sequence a founder has to work through:
- Understanding your customer properly, using the Jobs-to-Be-Done methodology to get at what people actually need
- Running low-cost experiments that genuinely test your assumptions, rather than just confirming what you already hoped was true
- Building something tangible, whether that's an early wireframe or a working MVP
- Learning how to get and grow your first customers without burning through cash you don't have yet
- Getting hands-on with how AI tools can speed up your early-stage decisions, because that's simply part of building now
The programme is open to any sector, and we're recruiting an enterprising cohort of 60 founders. It is a deliberate design to make room for sustained attention and knowledge-exchange.
If you're thinking about applying, it helps to know how the calendar unfolds: applications close 6th September, with onboarding starting the following week on the 14th. You'll meet the rest of your cohort at a welcome social on 24th September, ahead of the first workshop on the 29th, so nobody's walking into week one cold.
The programme then runs through to 24th November. Sitting near its centre is a full demo day on 29th October, where you'll pitch what you've built to investors and mentors. The wider Techscaler ecosystem will be in the room too, people who can open doors well beyond the programme itself.
By the end, you'll have real clarity on what your next move actually is, built on validation that people want what you're building. That combination, clarity paired with proof, is what growth readiness looks like in practice.
Our third cohort to Singapore: for founders ready to take that growth global
For founders in Medtech, Healthtech, Biotech, or Life Sciences who've already started looking toward Asia, or who know they need to, we're opening our third cohort to Singapore this Autumn.
Two weeks on the ground in Singapore, from 24th October to 7th November, timed to land right alongside Singapore's Week of Innovation and Technology (SWITCH), one of the region's biggest innovation events.
This is a tight cohort, just ten founders and senior leaders, and that's exactly what makes the access work. Everyone in the room carries real weight in the conversations happening around them. That means arriving with a product mature enough to put in front of customers, or a regulatory strategy already aligned to the APAC market. Ideally both, but we know most founders are still building toward that second half.
The two weeks themselves are shaped around a simple idea: earn the room, then use it.
Week one: Drops you straight into SWITCH, where the investors and partners who define that ecosystem are gathered in one place, along with the buyers who matter most to whatever you're building.
Week two: Hands the reins back to you, built entirely around the relationships and openings you've identified as genuinely worth your time.
You won't be figuring any of this out as you go, either. The run-up starts weeks before you fly:
- An online cohort mixer in September, so you're meeting the rest of the group before you're all on the ground together
- A pre-departure workshop in October, built to sharpen your plan before you're standing in front of the people who could change it
- Mentorship sessions running throughout, with people who know the Singapore and wider APAC market from the inside
For anyone engaging with a Techscaler international programme, Techscaler covers the flights and hotel, plus workspace access and mentorship, built on the belief that cost shouldn't be the reason a founder with real traction stays disconnected from international growth.
The application deadline is 9am on 24th August. If you're not a Techscaler member yet, that's a separate step, and it needs to happen first: apply for membership by noon on 18th August here, which gives us time to process it before you can apply to be on the Singapore cohort itself.
Two programmes, one belief
Neither of these offerings exists in isolation. They're both expressions of the same conviction that's driven Techscaler from the start: that founders deserve support built around where they actually are, not where a programme assumes they should be. Whether you're laying your first foundations or opening a door into Southeast Asia, the ambition behind both is the same. Get you moving, and get you moving well.
Applications for both are now open.
Click here to apply to Catalyst.
Click here to apply to our third cohort to Singapore.
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