The Fall 2024 cohort of the Sway for Future Accelerator program has officially begun. Over the next twelve weeks, seven technology startups will work through our holistic, mentor-driven curriculum — learning not just how to build a better product, but how to build a better business, a better team, and a more resilient version of themselves as founders.
The Sway Accelerator supports founders through one-on-one expert mentorship, access to curated business resources, collaborative workspace, and an active community of investors, operators, and alumni. Our goal is simple but demanding: develop the best entrepreneurs we possibly can — founders who are equally serious about impact and about building businesses that last.
The Companies
This cohort was selected from a competitive application pool based on team strength, market insight, product differentiation, and founder coachability. Each company brings a distinct perspective and a specific problem they have committed to solving. Here is an introduction to all seven.
BAR-i
Founded by Jamie Edwards and Scott Douthitt, BAR-i is a precision inventory platform for bars and restaurants. The core insight is straightforward but powerful: most hospitality operations have no reliable way to reconcile ounces purchased against ounces sold. BAR-i closes that gap, delivering an average 3% reduction in beverage costs — a margin improvement that, at any meaningful volume, translates directly into profitability and owner control. In an industry defined by razor-thin margins and high turnover, data-driven cost management is a genuine competitive advantage. www.bar-i.com
Business & Education Alliance
Led by Executive Director Theresa Klinitski, the Business & Education Alliance is building the infrastructure layer between education and employment. Their Career-Connected Learning (CCL) MARKETPLACE connects students, educators, and businesses in a structured ecosystem that directly addresses the persistent skills gap — the growing mismatch between what schools teach and what employers actually need. This is workforce development reimagined from the ground up: not a job board, but a coordinated learning-to-career pipeline. www.businessandeducationalliance.org
Catalan
Ron Hardman built Catalan after seeing firsthand how much time small independent schools waste on administrative tasks that should be automated. The SaaS platform handles registration, staffing coordination, and attendance tracking through a unified, customizable system — freeing administrators and educators to focus on what actually matters. For independent schools that serve communities underrepresented in the mainstream education market, operational efficiency is the difference between sustainability and closure. www.catalanpro.com
Factorem
Alexandra Zhang and Hardik Dobariya founded Factorem to solve a problem that has slowed hardware innovation for decades: the friction, opacity, and cost of custom parts manufacturing. Using AI, Factorem delivers instant quotes, automated defect detection, and intelligent factory matching — compressing what previously took days into a streamlined, real-time process. The results are not incremental: production timelines shrink by 50%, costs fall by 30%. For any company that builds physical products, Factorem is the supply chain partner that was missing. www.factorem.co
The Footy Travelers
Colin Martin and Mike Tirone built The Footy Travelers around a conviction that has proven commercially durable: shared passion is the strongest possible foundation for community. Their media brand and travel community connects soccer fans through shared adventures, a podcast, editorial content, and merchandise — with a consistent emphasis on inclusivity and authentic cross-cultural connection. In a media landscape fragmented by algorithm-driven content, The Footy Travelers is building something harder to replicate: genuine belonging. www.footytravelers.com
Mente
Wes Hill and Patrick Codd founded Mente after identifying a stubborn inefficiency at the center of surgical operations: instrument tracking. Their RFID-based system automates surgical instrument counts in real time — eliminating a major source of OR delays, procedural errors, and administrative waste. The business case is compelling on multiple dimensions: reduced costs for hospital systems, improved workflows for surgical teams, and enhanced patient safety outcomes. As healthcare systems face mounting pressure to do more with less, Mente's approach is precisely calibrated to the moment. www.mentemedical.com
RollUp, Inc.
Connor and Bella Santana launched RollUp, Inc. with a simple observation: junk removal is a large, fragmented, inefficient market that operates the same way it did thirty years ago. Their rideshare-style app connects customers with local haulers, enabling real-time price negotiation and job tracking that neither party has ever had access to before. The model creates value on both sides simultaneously — convenience and transparency for customers, income flexibility for haulers — while building a platform that promotes more sustainable, community-embedded waste management. www.rollupapp.com
What the Program Looks Like From the Inside
The twelve-week Sway Accelerator is not a speaker series and it is not a networking event with a name. It is an intensive working engagement designed around each founder's specific stage, challenges, and goals. Every participant receives one-on-one mentorship from practitioners who have built, scaled, and exited companies — not advisors who talk about it. Every week builds on the previous one, moving from early-stage positioning and customer discovery through financial modeling, fundraising strategy, and pitch preparation.
What distinguishes the Sway program is its dual focus on personal and business development. We have found — consistently, across every cohort we have run — that the most common reason early-stage companies stall is not product-market fit. It is the founder's own clarity, emotional resilience, and capacity to make high-stakes decisions under uncertainty. The program is designed to develop both.
"We do not select companies for this program on traction metrics alone. We select founders who are genuinely coachable, who are solving a problem they deeply understand, and who have the combination of drive and self-awareness to use twelve weeks of intensive support well." — Priya Sharma, Principal, Sway for Future
Twelve Weeks That Change the Trajectory
Alumni of the Sway Accelerator consistently describe the program as a compression of two to three years of learning into three months. That is not an accident — it is the design. The goal is not to give founders a credential or a community photo. The goal is to materially change the trajectory of their company and their growth as a leader.
We are proud of this cohort before they have done a single day of the program, because the quality of the founder is the leading indicator of everything that follows. We look forward to sharing their progress — and their Demo Day pitches — in the weeks ahead.