Shadow the best.
Build the next big thing.

The Soma Capital Fellowship offers a better pathway to starting something new: the ability to work with a company experiencing hypergrowth, learn the ropes, then try it yourself.

Stay in touch for the next cohort
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✨ About the Fellowship

It's like a backstage pass to startup building.

The Soma Capital Fellowship offers highly motivated, entrepreneurial students the opportunity to work for a company experiencing hypergrowth, receive mentorship from founders and advisers, and then launch their own venture.

This is all backed by Soma Capital, a seed-stage venture capital firm that's been an early backer of some of the most innovative companies, including Cruise, Rappi, Lambda School, Houseparty, and 200+ more.

⇢ Learn more about why we launched the Fellowship (Medium)

⇢ Learn more about Soma Capital

📈 Program

Learn, build, scale. With Soma's help.

The Fellowship is divided into two stages: internship and incubation.

You'll start off working for a seed-stage Soma Capital portfolio company as a design, engineering, or business intern, then hone your idea with Soma's help in the incubation stage.

Work with an early stage Soma Capital company

  • Join a seed-stage Soma Capital portfolio company experiencing rapid growth as a design, engineering, or business intern
  • Work closely with and get mentored by a Soma Capital backed founder

Get support from Soma and the community as you hone your idea

  • Biweekly office hours with the Soma team and weekly check-ins
  • A community of driven and brilliant young entrepreneurs, as well as access to all Fellowship alumni
  • Meet successful founders through office hours, hackathons, and Fellowship-exclusive talks

Benefit from an instant network and pathway to fundraising

As fellows, you'll have access to:
  • Soma Capital's advisors, including co-founder of Scribd
  • Soma Capital's sister fund, Bow Capital, and their advisors and portfolio companies, including founder of Qualcomm and Shaq O'Neal
  • Soma Capital's LP base: founder of Tinder, government leaders globally, and family office of FAANG founders
  • Network of amazing aspiring founders and builders through the growing Soma Capital fellows community
👋 Some participating companies

Who you might work for

The host companies are kind of a “book in action” about how to bring a company from 0 to 1 and the readers (us) are reading for the purposes of learning to start a company.
Peter Pao-Huang
Fellow, Summer 2020

ElectroNeek

ElectroNeek serves as a robotic process automation platform for creating digital workforce and personal assistants.

Sym

Sym empowers engineers to create the perfect security and privacy workflows.

Embrace

Embrace is the only performance monitoring and debugging platform built for mobile apps.

Calii

Calii automates the food supply chain, connecting producers directly to households, restaurants and retailers.

Nayya

Nayya uses AI and data science to personalize the way that employees choose and use their existing employee benefits.

Nabis

Nabis equips cannabis brands with a lightning-fast distribution network and a software platform that makes it easy to ship wholesale orders within 36 hours.

Shelf Engine

Shelf Engine is a provider of an automated prediction engine that recommends what to order everyday.

Dover

Dover finds and engages the best candidates for your team.
⭐️ Advisors and Speakers

Some of the experts you'll have access to

Investor

Aneel Ranadive

Founder, Soma Capital
Founder

Jason Boehmig

Founder, Ironclad
Expert

Amy Snook

COO at Haus and former Chief of Staff at Glossier
Investor

Jeremy Zhu

Investor, Google's growth equity fund
Design

Teresa Man

Lead Designer, Superhuman
Founder

Austen Allred

Founder, Lambda School
Expert

Fred Daso

Writer, Forbes
Expert

SB Master

Founder of Master-McNeil, the agency that named Paypal
Founder

Jake Loosararian

Founder, Gecko Robotics
Expert

Siri Chilazi

Researcher, Harvard Kennedy School

Stay in touch for the next cohort

We're announcing plans for the next cohort of Fellows soon

Sign up for updates ⇢

Frequently asked questions

Who is Startup Shadowing @Soma for?
  • This program is strictly for aspiring founders; the internship is meant to help you prepare for the incubation period where you will found your own company. 
  • We will evaluate candidates based on their founder fit and expertise in their respected vertical (engineering, design, business, etc).
Is this program paid?
  • Yes, companies pay a monthly stipend to fellows. The rate is decided upon between fellows and companies, but please keep in mind that early stage companies may not have the ability to match salaries of larger tech companies (Google, Facebook).
  • The biggest value of the internship is the opportunity to work closely with a founder, ask specific questions, learn from first-hand experience, and obtain a lifelong mentor. 
Can I choose to work at a specific company?
  • Finalists can choose up to 5 preferred companies, and your preferences will be take into consideration during companies' vetting process
Can I interact with portfolio companies other than the one I work at?
  • Yes! We will organize virtual panels and fireside chats with other seed and later stage companies in our portfolio and network
How long is the fellowship?
  • You will shadow a founder during fall, participate in the incubation program & build your own startup in the spring, and present your final pitch to Soma Capital's investment committee at the beginning of Q2.
Will this be full time?
  • Startup Shadowing @Soma has two modules: internship and incubation. The internship program will be full time; the incubation program will be part time but is expected to be time intensive as working on a startup is!
Is the incubator portion of the program mandatory?
  • Yes! You should be committed to building something through the incubation period.
Is this program open to non-students?
  • Yes, although most companies are looking for students (undergrad and graduate). 
Is the internship full time?
  • Yes! You should be taking the fall semester off. 
Do I need to drop out for the incubation?
  • No! The incubation can be done alongside school. 
Do I need an idea to apply?
  • While an idea is not needed, most qualified candidates are already working on a project or a startup.
Any other questions?
  • Email Jess Li at jessica@somacap.com with any other questions you have!