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🦏 Part of Silicon Valley VC History, The 1st & largest startup residency program in Silicon Valley founded by @timdraper🚀 APPLY NOW ⬇️

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Tommorow It Begins. T-12 hours. Are You In? by @draperuniversity

And that’s a wrap on the 2025 DraperU x @stellarorg Founder Residency Program!

For three weeks, 20 Web3 companies built the future right here in San Mateo - growing their startups with the support of world class mentors and resources 🚀

📽️ @danielconranfarrell @shreyamawandia by @draperuniversity

We’ve just wrapped up our flagship residency program (S25).

This summer, 77 founders from 22 countries stayed with us in San Mateo.

Over five weeks, they lived, built, and survived together — learning from Silicon Valley legends who have shaped our current reality.

To our S25 cohort—this one’s for you.

📹 @ridham_yadav @danielconranfarrell by @draperuniversity

MEET THE APEX COHORT: KENOMIC 🇪🇸

Our Draper University x Cardano Apex Growth Accelerator is underway!

Over the next few weeks, we'll introduce you to the founders building the future of Web3, AI, DeFi, and beyond as part of our 10-week accelerator in Silicon Valley.

First up: Kenomic! 🚀

Launching a token shouldn't require coordinating five different tools, teams, and service providers.

Meet Kenomic, a startup building AI-powered infrastructure to simplify the entire token lifecycle - from tokenomics design and simulations to smart contracts, deployment, and ongoing management.

Founded by Rayco Tarrida Ortega and Carmen Alvarez-Margaride Marcos in Madrid, Kenomic is working to make token launches more accessible, predictable, and scalable for both human founders and AI agents.

Through the accelerator, the team is focused on turning its technology into a scalable business.

Welcome to Silicon Valley, Kenomic! 🚀 by @draperuniversity

BEFORE IT WAS OBVIOUS: BAIDU
A $9 million deal negotiated in the back of a taxi. A stake that would eventually be worth more than $20 billion.

In 2000, Tim Draper was in Beijing, negotiating with Robin Li, the founder of a young Chinese search engine called Baidu.

Tim had already invested in six search engines. He believed China would need its own search infrastructure as internet adoption grew, and he saw Robin as the right founder to build it.

But there was a problem.

Robin wanted $9 million for 28% of Baidu. Tim thought the valuation was too high for a Chinese search company at the time. Robin wouldn't budge.

The negotiations continued in a taxi on the way to dinner.

Ultimately, Tim decided to make the deal.

He believed in the founder, the opportunity, and the future of China's internet market enough to accept a price he wasn't initially comfortable with.

That 28% stake would eventually be worth more than $20 billion, according to Tim's account.

Tim also worked with Robin on the paid-search business model that would become fundamental to Baidu's success.

The lesson? Sometimes the biggest opportunities aren't the ones that look cheap or obvious. They're the ones where you recognize a founder and a market worth believing in before everyone else does.

And sometimes, the deal that changes everything gets made in the back of a taxi 🚖 by @draperuniversity

MEET THE F26 HERO TRAINING COHORT: ANTA BIOTECH

Meet the founders turning ambitious ideas into reality.

Over the coming weeks, we're introducing the startups and founders in Draper University's Fall 2026 Hero Training cohort. They’re bringing sci-fi ideas to life across space tech, AI, biotech, robotics, and beyond.

First up: ANTA Biotech.

The next biology lab might be on a spacecraft 🛰️

ANTA is developing portable, automated sample-preparation tools for genomic analysis where conventional laboratories cannot operate - from remote field sites to low Earth orbit.

Making samples analyzable on site could change how scientists work in extreme environments.

Meet Anjali Gupta, representing ANTA Biotech in the current Draper University Hero Training cohort.

Follow along as we introduce the founders building what comes next. by @draperuniversity

The Space Economy Needs More Than Rockets.
As access to orbit expands, an entirely new infrastructure stack has to be built around it. Launch is one layer, but spacecraft also need transportation, platforms, protection, servicing, and ways to operate for longer once they arrive.

That’s exactly where several Draper University Ventures portfolio companies are building:
🚀 SeaGate Space is developing offshore launch infrastructure, creating new options for where and how missions can reach orbit.
⚛️ Applied Atomics is working on advanced propulsion – the mobility layer that helps spacecraft and payloads move after launch.
🛰️ Symphony Space is building modular orbital infrastructure through its Adagio platform, designed to give payloads the power, communications, thermal management, and other systems they need to operate in space.
🤖 ORBES is developing robotic spacecraft for inspecting and eventually maintaining orbital infrastructure, moving toward a future where expensive assets can be serviced rather than simply replaced.
🛡️ Melagen Labs is working on radiation shielding designed to protect electronics and critical systems against the extreme conditions of space.

What’s interesting isn’t just each company individually. It’s what they look like together: launch, mobility, platforms, protection, servicing. These are the kinds of layers that turn access to a new environment into an actual economy.

And we’re starting to see the pieces connect: ORBES and Symphony Space have already announced plans for Exo-ORB to fly aboard Symphony’s Adagio platform – an early example of different parts of the orbital infrastructure stack working together.

The next space race isn’t only about who gets there first. It’s about who builds what everyone else will need once they arrive.

Rockets opened access to space, but infrastructure is what turns space into an actual economy. Ports. Transportation. Power. Protection. Maintenance. Platforms.

The same layers that allowed economies to scale on Earth now have to be built in orbit. And a new generation of DraperU Ventures founders is building them. by @draperuniversity

BEFORE IT WAS OBVIOUS: DOCUSIGN
Today, signing a contract from your phone feels completely normal.
In the early 2000s, it didn’t.

Agreements still moved through printers, scanners, fax machines, couriers, and email attachments. The workflow was slow, but familiar enough that most people accepted it as simply how business worked.

DocuSign’s bet was that the signature itself could become digital infrastructure: send a document, sign it securely from anywhere, and keep the entire agreement process online.

That sounds obvious now precisely because the behavior became so universal. But replacing paper wasn’t just a product problem. The company had to overcome habits, security concerns, legal questions, and the simple inertia of a process businesses had used for decades.

Draper Associates backed DocuSign as part of a portfolio built around technologies that challenged entrenched ways of doing things. Today, DocuSign has become synonymous with electronic signatures and expanded far beyond signing into broader agreement management.

Why it matters for builders: innovation doesn’t always require inventing a completely new behavior. Sometimes the opportunity is hiding inside a process everyone already uses – but nobody has bothered to make dramatically easier. The fact that people tolerate friction doesn’t mean they want it. by @draperuniversity

Two founders from the DraperU Ventures portfolio made it onto Payload’s 2026 Pioneers list. 🚀

Congratulations to Muhammad Hunain, founder of Melagen Labs, and Anna Shaposhnik, founder of ORBES!

Muhammad is developing radiation shielding and testing infrastructure to help spacecraft withstand harsh environments. Anna is building autonomous space robots for filming and inspection.

Different challenges with a shared ambition to make more possible in space. We’re proud to back founders building the infrastructure the next space economy will need.

Meet the 2026 Payload Pioneers: https://payloadspace.com/category/payload-pioneers-2026/ by @draperuniversity

Draper University at @TechCrunch Disrupt! 🚀

Our team, Tessa and Shajeha, spent time connecting with investors, founders, and ecosystem partners at TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco.

From meeting new investors to exploring opportunities for our upcoming VC dinners, we're excited to keep building connections across the startup ecosystem.

Great to see the DraperU team out there making things happen! by @draperuniversity

Space is becoming infrastructure.

Years ago, @TimDraper and the Draper ecosystem backed @SpaceX early, when private space transportation itself was still a radical idea. At the time, one of the biggest challenges in commercial space was simply getting to orbit reliably and at a lower cost.

SpaceX helped change the economics of launch and made access to orbit dramatically more frequent and reusable. That progress created a new set of problems and opportunities.

Once getting to space is no longer the only challenge, the question becomes what happens after launch. How do spacecraft move once they’re there? Where do payloads live? How do we protect orbital assets, inspect them, repair them, and keep them operating for longer?

That is the shift we’re watching now. The next generation of space companies isn’t only building rockets. They’re building the systems, platforms, services, and infrastructure required for an actual economy to function beyond Earth.

Across the Draper University Ventures portfolio, founders are already working on different pieces of that future.

The first era of commercial space was about access. The next is about what we build with it. by @draperuniversity

Two programs kicked off at Draper University this week: Hero Training and the DraperU x Cardano Apex Growth Accelerator! 🚀

Our founders have arrived on campus, ready for weeks of building, growth, fundraising, and making connections in Silicon Valley.

Excited to welcome our new Hero Training cohort and the Apex Accelerator founders joining us in partnership with the Cardano Foundation and Orion Fund!

A few moments from their first week on campus 📸

Welcome to DraperU. Let’s get to work! by @draperuniversity