5050 has helped create 55 companies—many of which wouldn't exist otherwise.

Most participants who joined 5050 were unsure about entrepreneurship and only applied because a friend or labmate had recommended them.

Know a brilliant scientist or engineer who could benefit from 5050?

We started supporting Mark Budde, the founder of Plasmidsaurus, in the inaugural 5050 cohort. He was still a postdoc at Caltech, researching mammalian synthetic cell circuits.

We helped him realize the workflows he built to speed up his research could be the foundation of a great business. He set up a shack in his backyard and began delivering overnight plasmid sequencing.

Two years post-founding, Plasmidsaurus is the fastest-growing startup we’ve seen, profitable, and serving scientists across 50 U.S. states and most European countries.

The story of Plasmidsaurus

FAQ

  • Scientists, engineers, builders, and hackers interested in entrepreneurship. Whether you're at the early stages of building a company or deciding whether entrepreneurship is right for you, we can help you accelerate the journey to build a company to solve humanity’s biggest problems.

  • Deep tech companies require deep technical expertise to drive breakthroughs in areas like: energy, climate tech, materials, bioengineering, transportation, hardware, computation, communication, health, aerospace, and AI. If you're building something that could be a civilizationally important tech, we'd probably call it deep tech!

  • Not at all. Many cohort members are simply talented, curious, and ambitious builders. We'll use the cohort to make your idea even stronger.

  • One weekly session during the week. Sessions are usually in the evenings, but two will happen on Saturday for a half-day session. Every 5050 participant joins a weekly 1-hour long group office hour with 50Y Partners and has access to additional individual check-ins as needed. 5050 has a cohort-wide Friday - Sunday retreat. The cohort runs for 16 weeks.

  • Nope! The program is free.

  • The goal of 5050 is to help more indispensable companies get started! Scientists and engineers are the best people to solve some of the world’s biggest problems; we want to increase their chances of success regardless of whether 50Y backs the founders who go through the program!

  • Shoot us an email at ale@50y.com.