Consumer AI

6-week equity-free program

6-week equity-free program for consumer AI startups ready to scale

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Program highlights:
  • Equity-free
  • Entirely online, with a Bay Area hybrid event to close out the program
  • 6 weeks of focused sessions and growth
  • 20+ fireside chats with top founders and investors in consumer AI
For founders scaling their consumer AI products to millions of users.

Across categories such as learning & education, health & wellness, social & companions, games & media, voice agents & live CX.

Program

The program is designed around three modules to guide your growth step by step.

AI Infrastructure

Evolve your conversational AI pipeline for the best user experience.

  • Learn how to solve core challenges in building best-in-class real-time conversational AI, from ASR, LLM, and TTS technologies to routing, safety, knowledge, and memory.
  • Discover how to measure and track your app's success for you and your investors. Leverage telemetry and live experimentation to improve end-user experience.
  • Explore popular use-cases, vertical-specific templates, and lessons from founders who've built successful consumer AI products.

Track lead:

Speakers:

Growth

Acquire and retain millions of users, faster and smarter.

  • Explore scaling in the age of AI, where lean teams can have an outsized impact.
  • Learn directly from founders who will share their own playbooks: the wins, lessons, and insights that don’t make it to LinkedIn.

Track lead:

Speakers:

Fundraising

Connect and step into the VC mindset on consumer startups

  • Get into the VC mindset and understand what really matters to them when evaluating consumer startups.
  • Go behind the scenes to see how investors separate signal and noise, and hear the unfiltered stories of why they decided to back their latest bets.

Track lead:

Speakers:

Hands-on workshops

Speakers & mentors

Credits & grants

Fireside chats

Fast scale frameworks

VC introductions

Application
Process

Selection will be on a rolling basis, so we encourage them to apply early.

Application deadline

10 December

Selection process

1 December - 15 December

Program duration

2 January - 20 February

Finale Demo Day

3 March

Meet your future investor

100+ investors in the network

Personal intros

One-on-one meetings with investors from the Inworld AI and TRMNL4 networks, giving you dedicated time to discuss your startup and explore a potential fit for future funding.

Finale Demo Day

Pitch your startup and connect with leading consumer VCs from the Inworld AI and TRMNL4 networks. Not just contacts, but real connections with 100+ investors to help you raise your next round.

March 3, 2026, San Francisco, USA

Speakers
and mentors

Moritz Baier-Lentz
Partner at Lightspeed
Leads gaming & interactive investments at a top global VC ($29B+ AUM), backing founders behind platforms like Fortnite, Call of Duty, and League of Legends.
James Groeneveld
CIO at Character AI
ML systems engineer with experience at Character.AI and Google Brain; Harvard background.
Alexander Chekan
Corporate Development at Flo Health Inc.
Health tech operator supporting Flo’s growth to 75M+ monthly users and leading new product development across the Palta ecosystem.
Avisha Mehra Naganath
Talent Partner at Khosla Ventures
Operating at a $15B+ venture fund, leading board recruiting and executive talent strategy across 350+ portfolio companies.
Laurentiu Balasa
Co-Founder at Bible Chat
Serial founder & angel investor behind 3B+ consumer app downloads, 8 companies founded, 4 successful exits.
Josh Constine
Partner at SignalFire
Former TechCrunch Editor-at-Large with 3,000+ stories and 190+ stage interviews; now venture partner at SignalFire.
Kylan Gibbs
CEO/Co-founder at Inworld
Co-founder & CEO at Inworld AI. Previously at DeepMind (Google) and Bain & Company. MPhil, University of Cambridge.
Michael Carney
Venture Capital & Private Equity Senior Partner Manager at Google
10+ years at Google helping startups scale with performance marketing & growth strategy; active advisor & angel supporting founders globally.
Dimitri Dekanozishvili
Co-founder at Talkpal
Building an AI language learning platform used by 1M+ learners across web and mobile.
Tabish Ahmedck
CEO & Founder at Little Umbrella
Creates cross-platform social AI games, including one that hit 20M players in 3 months.
Ashray Urs
Head of Streamlabs at Logitech
Building AI-powered tools that help streamers grow audiences and monetize more effectively.
Michael Stewart
PhD, Investment Managing Partner at M12 Microsoft
PhD/MBA VC focused on AI and semiconductors, with 21 investments and 4 exits.
Jean Wang
Senior Director of Product at Inworld
Senior Director of Product at Inworld AI. Former Product Manager at Scale AI. Princeton alum, Engineering and Operations Research.
Sameer Singh
Partner at Speedinvest
Early-stage investor specializing in network effects across consumer and self-serve products.
Elias Belfrage
Product Experience Specialist at Lovable
Shaping one of the fastest-growing AI creative platforms, recently backed with a $200M Series A.
Fai Nur
CEO/Co-founder at Status
Built a product with 5M+ users; YC W22 alum. ex-Snap & Meta; Northwestern & Harvard Law alum.
Sean Pinnock
CEO at Avalon
Leading a next-gen MMO project backed by BITKRAFT, Hashed, and Coinbase Ventures ($10M+ raised in 2024).
Dmytro Mindra
Engineering Manager at Superhuman (formerly Grammarly). Ex-Oracle
Engineering leader at Superhuman (formerly Grammarly), ex-Oracle. Teaching MBA students best practices in software leadership and organizational behavior.
Alexis Sursock
Co-founder at Luvu
a16z-backed founder with early 75K+ user growth and strong retention; comes from Duolingo + top AI product background.
Robert Ravanshenas
Partner at Maven Ventures
Partner at Consumer AI-focused VC, investing in the next generation of iconic technology companies.
Jasper Brand
Partner at Bitkraft Ventures
Invests across gaming, AI, and consumer interactive platforms at BITKRAFT Ventures ($1B+ AUM).
Cheryl Fichter
Director of GTM at Inworld
Director of GTM at Inworld AI. Formerly at Microsoft’s venture fund M12 and Senior Technology Strategist at Microsoft.
Ilya Liasun
Sr. Manager at Pinterest
Built & sold VOCHI to Pinterest. Now leading ML at Pinterest + angel investing in early consumer AI teams.
Florin Radu
COO at Inworld
COO at Inworld AI. Formerly in corporate development at Sony Music and investment banking at Credit Suisse. Stanford MBA.
Igor Poletaev
Chief Science Officer at Inworld
Chief Science Officer (CSO) at Inworld AI. Ex-Google Tech Lead / Manager and co-creator of the world’s #1 Inworld TTS 1 Max model.
Alex Mashrabov
Founder at Higgsfield AI
Founder at Higgsfield AI; 1x exit for $166M; ex-Director of Generative AI at Snap; 2x ACM ICPC World Finals

Cohort startup
credits

30+ friendly deals — $500K+ value

Each selected startup will receive $10K in Inworld credits, usable for Inworld models and all leading third-party models (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, etc.), and access to the Inworld platform, including:

  1. Inworld TTS, the #1 TTS model in the world, with sub-500ms latency, multilingual support, cloning and more, at 20x cost savings vs. incumbents.

  2. Inworld Runtime, the best way to build and optimize realtime interactive AI experiences; lightning-fast with integrated telemetry and A/B testing.

  1. $10k in AWS Promotional Credits for up to 2 years

  2. One-on-one meetings with AWS Experts

  1. 6 months of free Notion towards a Plus Plan.

  2. Unlimited AI for 6 months.

  1. 12 free months off a CMS site plan

  1. 100% discount for 3 months of sales engagement with Reply

  2. Up to 50% discount afterwards

  1. 3 months of free attribution + access to any AppsFlyer products and services for the duration of the trial.

  2. 15% discount

  1. 6 months free of Zendesk Customer Support Suite and Zendesk Sales CRM

  2. 15% discount on the first annual subscription after a 6-month initial free period

  1. Up to 90% discount on HubSpot:

    Raised up to $2M: 90% off Year 1 | 50% off Year 2 | 25% off Year 3

    Raised over $2M (up to Series A): 50% off Year 1 | 25% off Year 2

  1. Personalised 1:1 guidance during the program.

Organizers

The Consumer AI Accelerator is organized by Inworld AI and TRMNL4, partnering to empower consumer AI startups worldwide.

Inworld is the infrastructure layer for realtime conversational AI at consumer scale. We provide the complete stack for building and operating realtime interactive AI experiences. This includes models, pipelines, infrastructure, telemetry, and optimization purpose-built for high-scale, low-latency, multimodal applications.

Inworld is backed by $125M from leading investors, including Lightspeed, Kleiner Perkins, S32, Founders Fund, Microsoft M12, Stanford, and Bitkraft, among others.

[terminal] — a startup ecosystem connecting startups, investors, and global tech players in the consumer space. We run acceleration programs with Meta and Snapchat, work with 100+ experts and 300+ investors, and help founders access everything they need to grow.

Co-organizers

A multi-stage venture capital firm focused on accelerating disruptive innovations and trends in the Enterprise, Consumer, Health, and Fintech sectors. Over the past two decades, the Lightspeed team has backed hundreds of entrepreneurs and helped build more than 500 companies globally.

Pilot is an accounting firm that specializes in providing expert bookkeeping, tax preparation, CFO and COO services specifically designed for startups and small businesses.

Recent inworld
cases

Wishroll / Status

Wishroll / Status Drove growth to 500K+ DAUs while increasing time spent to 1.5 hours per day and cutting costs by over 95%.

Logitech Streamlabs

Logitech Streamlabs built a real-time multimodal streaming assistant with round-trip P95 latency under 500ms.

Bible Chat

Bible Chat scaled their AI voice features to millions of users with Inworld TTS, while reducing costs by over 90%.

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FAQ

Who are the organizers?

  • The Consumer AI Accelerator is organized by Inworld AI together with TRMNL4.

    Inworld is the infrastructure layer for realtime conversational AI at consumer scale. We provide the complete stack for building and operating realtime interactive AI experiences. This includes models, pipelines, infrastructure, telemetry, and optimization purpose-built for high-scale, low-latency, multimodal applications.

    TRMNL4 is a startup ecosystem connecting startups, investors, and global tech players in the consumer space. We run accelerator programs with Meta and Snapchat, work with 100+ experts and 300+ investors, and help founders access everything they need to grow.The Consumer AI Accelerator is organized by Inworld AI together with TRMNL4.

How to join the Consumer AI accelerator

  • Fill out the application form. Once submitted, you’ll receive a confirmation email.  If you don’t see it, please check your spam folder.

    Timeline:
    December 10, 2025:  Application deadline
    December 1–15, 2025: Selection process (screening, deck review, interview)
    January 2, 2026 – February 20, 2026: Program runs
    March 3, 2026: Program finale (Demo Day Dinner in San Francisco)

    You’ll receive updates at each stage via email.

How is the process organized?

  • You’ll meet your mentor from Inworld AI, who will support you throughout the 6-week program.
  • Each week includes deep-dive online workshops, case studies, and one-on-one mentoring for your specific challenges.
  • You’ll also have access to our Knowledge Library with content on marketing, products, and scaling consumer startups.
  • We use WhatsApp for communication, Zoom for live sessions, and our T4.Platform for expert interaction and content access.
  • At the end of the program, we host an in-person Demo Day Dinner in San Francisco. If you can’t attend in person, you’ll be able to join remotely and present online.
  • We’ll also support fundraising through warm introductions to 100+ consumer-focused investors in the TRMNL4 & InworldAI networks.

How much time do I need to commit to the program?

  • You’ll need to commit 3 hours per week for the core sessions (3 lectures). In addition, you will get access to advisors on the TRMNL4 platform. You can view profiles, choose who you want to meet, and instantly book a session via Calendly. This part is optional and depends on how much time you want to spend.

As a founder, can I involve my team in the program?

  • Yes, we encourage you to invite all team members who would find the session topic useful.

How many startups are going to take part in the program?

  • The Consumer AI accelerator by Inworld AI & TRMNL4 will feature between 15 and 30  startups that will work closely with the Inworld AI team & industry experts.

What are the entry requirements?

  • The program is primarily designed for AI-native consumer startups, in categories such as learning & education, health & wellness, social & companions, games & media, and voice agents & live CX.
  • Your product should already be in production with real users (not just in the prototype stage).

Is participation free?

  • The Consumer AI Accelerator is free. Inworld AI and TRMNL4 support startups without requiring equity or fees.

Can I raise investment for my startup after this accelerator?

  • At the end of the program, selected participants will receive warm introductions to Inworld AI’s and TRMNL4’s investment networks, which include over 100 investors actively investing in consumer AI. These introductions are designed to support your fundraising efforts; however, we cannot guarantee that your startup will receive funding.

What do I need to do to become a part of TRMNL4?

  • Participants in the Consumer AI accelerator will become part of our network and join more than 240 founders for ongoing activities. But, even if you don’t make it into the program, feel free to apply to T4.Community for 100+ hours of workshop sessions, network & more opportunities. Check it out here.

I'd like to partner with you, who do I need to contact?

  • If you want to join as a partner and share your service or expertise, send us an email at [email protected]
  • If you’re an investor, check out more info on the TRMNL4 website and fill out the form to join the network.
  • For media and other interested parties, check out our Contact page for more information.
  • If you wish to share your expertise with our founders, please contact us at [email protected]. Describe your background and how you would like to cooperate. Please note that we are a community-oriented, not-for-profit organization, so we do not engage external expertise for commercial purposes.
  • If you want to partner with Inworld AI or explore collaboration opportunities, reach out to us at [email protected].
  • If you’re a startup looking to leverage Inworld AI’s infrastructure, check out our website to learn more about available tools and programs.
  • For media inquiries or general questions, visit the Contact page or email [email protected] for more details.

How will the applications be judged?

We’ll evaluate applications based on the main requirements we’ve shared:

  • AI-native consumer products.
  • The product should already be live and used by real users.
  • Your team should include at least 3 technical members.
  • The company must be officially incorporated.
  • We look for demonstrated results: product innovation, technical advantage, early traction, and strong investment potential.
  • Open to teams globally. You can apply from anywhere in the world.
Anna Shchehula

Growth & Partnerships, TRMNL4

[email protected]

Lidiya Terpel

Growth Lead, Inworld AI

[email protected]

Organizers team

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