--- title: Founder Fellowship EWOR, Often Called Europe's Y Combinator, Opens San Francisco Team With Oscar Winner Charles Ferguson description: Berlin founder fellowship EWOR names Oscar winner Charles Ferguson, Katie Madding and Gigi Brett to a San Francisco team after US applications rose 237%. author: Darie Nani (Editor-in-Chief) date: 2026-09-22T12:40:18.902Z updated: 2026-09-22T12:40:18.914Z canonical: https://www.sovereignmagazine.com/article/ewor-san-francisco-team-charles-ferguson image: https://cdn.nanimediahouse.com/ewor-sf-leadership-team.webp categories: Startups, Business content_type: News region: San Francisco publication: Sovereign Magazine about: - type: Organization name: EWOR description: EWOR is a Berlin-based fellowship for early-stage founders. It gives fellows up to €500,000 in funding and weekly one-to-one mentoring from unicorn founders of Adjust, ProGlove and SumUp who work for EWOR full time, and it opened a San Francisco leadership team in 2026. url: https://www.ewor.com/ --- EWOR, a Berlin founder fellowship that says it accepts about 0.1% of applicants, has named a leadership team in San Francisco after US applications rose 237% in twelve months. The team includes Charles Ferguson, who sold FrontPage to Microsoft in 1996 and later won an Oscar for his documentary Inside Job, former Adjust chief product officer Katie Madding, and three-time founder Gigi Brett. Fellows receive up to €500,000 in funding and weekly one-to-one mentoring from the founders of Adjust, ProGlove and SumUp, who now work for EWOR full time. EWOR does not ask founders to move, and supports them wherever they live. The fellowship holds its first San Francisco Demo Day on 9 October, where 10 founders will pitch to several hundred investors. ## EWOR's Founder Fellowship Model and the Rise in US Applications > "Talent is spread evenly across the world. Opportunity is not." > — Daniel Dippold Daniel Dippold, EWOR's founder and chief executive, said the San Francisco team follows its applicants. "Our job is to close that gap for the world's best founders wherever they are," he said. "For a growing number of them, that now means San Francisco, so that's where we are." EWOR says founders who join go on to raise €8.5 million on average, and that a quarter of recent joiners have raised at nine-figure valuations in the past six months. Its partners are founders of companies worth between €100 million and €10 billion, and they work with fellows from as early as the idea stage. The company raised €60 million in 2025, split between a €30 million Series A for the fellowship and a €30 million investment fund. ## EWOR and Y Combinator Deal Terms EWOR describes itself as harder to get into than Y Combinator. Y Combinator's standard deal is $500,000, made up of $125,000 for 7% of the company and a further $375,000 on an uncapped SAFE, with the same terms for every startup in a batch. EWOR runs two tracks. Founders at the idea stage can receive up to €300,000, and those with early traction receive €500,000, in each case as a small priced investment followed by an uncapped SAFE. There are no fixed batches or set curriculum, and mentoring is arranged around each founder. Fellows already spend a two-month residency in San Francisco, and until now EWOR's investor showcase, the Grand Pitch, has been held in Europe. ## Charles Ferguson, From FrontPage to Early AI Investing Ferguson co-founded Vermeer Technologies, whose FrontPage web design software Microsoft bought in 1996. He holds a PhD in political science from MIT, and his 2010 film Inside Job, about the causes of the 2008 financial crisis, won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. He has been a Brookings fellow, sits on the board of the French-American Foundation and is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations. As an investor he backed Etched, [Perplexity](https://www.sovereignmagazine.com/article/perplexity-blocks-time-markdown-ads-ai-agents), CopilotKit and Paradigm early. "Great founders need the same things: support from best-in-class mentors, access to the San Francisco startup ecosystem, and a superb global network," said Ferguson. "EWOR is already the world's most selective founder fellowship, now expanding with US applications up 237% this year, and with EWOR Fellows raising an average of $10 million after Demo Day. So I'm honored to help lead EWOR's US growth and its integration within San Francisco's world-leading ecosystem." ## Katie Madding and Gigi Brett Join EWOR in San Francisco Madding was the third US hire at the mobile measurement company Adjust and became its chief product officer. AppLovin bought Adjust for $1 billion in 2021. She then ran Emhance, Google's official partner for game playtesting, as chief executive, taking it from an idea to recurring revenue with customers including Activision Blizzard King. "What led me to EWOR were my lonely nights as a pre-seed CEO, when I sat alone with decisions, turning to AI for answers when what I really needed was a founder who'd been where I was," said Madding. "That's what we're building: the world's best product for founders, so they can pour their energy into the work only they can do, basically the support I had dreamt of when I was CEO." Brett joins as chief investment officer and is moving from Cape Town to San Francisco. She has founded three companies in health and education. The first, Batelle, grew to a team of 60 alongside a unicorn founder. The second, Upstream, made the first preconception product designed for men and ran a pilot with US Navy SEALs. Her most recent company, PreSeed, has a database of sperm donors that covers around 10% of all registered donors in the US. "My whole career has been about beginnings, from conception to early childhood health, and the lesson never changes: the further upstream you go, the higher the impact," said Brett. "Joining EWOR, I get to work at the most upstream point there is, supporting founders from as early as the idea stage, when the right help changes everything that follows." ## EWOR Fellows Accepted in 2026 This year's intake includes Martin Varsavsky, who has founded six unicorns and is now working on Certuma, an AI doctor the company says is the first to seek FDA approval, and Lars Hinrichs, the founder of Xing, whose new company Simsalasim is a mobile carrier offering unlimited data across 100 countries for €10 a month via eSIM. Maya Polackal, a researcher at Harvard Medical School and Boston University, has joined to set up the AI lab EOMIND. Earlier fellows include Jörgen Tveit, whose energy storage company Thaleron raised a €13 million pre-seed round, at the time the largest in Europe by a first-time founder, and Leonard Dorlöchter, whose company peaq reached a $3.5 billion valuation within two years of his joining EWOR. ## FAQ **Q: What is the EWOR fellowship?** EWOR is a Berlin-based fellowship for early-stage founders. It gives each fellow up to €500,000 in funding and weekly one-to-one mentoring from the founders of Adjust, ProGlove and SumUp, who work for EWOR full time. Founders can take part from wherever they live, and there are no fixed batches. **Q: What is the acceptance rate for the EWOR fellowship?** EWOR says it accepts about 0.1% of applicants, taking in a few dozen founders a year. It describes itself as harder to get into than Y Combinator. **Q: Does EWOR take equity?** Yes. Its funding is an investment rather than a grant, made up of a small priced investment followed by an uncapped SAFE, which converts into shares in a later funding round. Idea-stage founders can receive up to €300,000 and founders with early traction receive €500,000. **Q: Who is the CEO of EWOR?** Daniel Dippold is EWOR's founder and chief executive. The fellowship's new San Francisco team includes Charles Ferguson, Katie Madding and chief investment officer Gigi Brett. **About EWOR** EWOR is a Berlin-based fellowship for early-stage founders. It gives fellows up to €500,000 in funding and weekly one-to-one mentoring from unicorn founders of Adjust, ProGlove and SumUp who work for EWOR full time, and it opened a San Francisco leadership team in 2026. [Website](https://www.ewor.com/)