The FCAT Fellowship was introduced in 2024 as a collaboration between American Underground and the Fidelity Center for Applied Technology (FCAT). It is an eight-week “pre-accelerator” program designed to help early-stage, tech-driven startups speed up their growth through access to resources and community.
The program offers participating startups hands-on workshops, access to a global network of mentors, a year of coworking membership, and invaluable exposure (in part via a cap-off Demo Day). Per AU, this package amounts to roughly $500K in value.
Last year, the FCAT Fellowship’s inaugural cohort included some of the most active and engaged early-stage tech startups we’ve come across. Now, AU and FCAT are preparing to embark on a fresh eight-week journey with the fellowship’s second cohort.
That cohort was announced last Thursday at Grep-a-Palooza, for which the FCAT Fellowship was a sponsor. Here, we want to introduce the new cohort in more depth. So check out the seven participating startups below (and get ready to see them at their own Demo Day, which will surely be here before we know it).
AlphaU ai (New Jersey)
Founder: Deepika Chopra
AlphaU is the first AI-native decision infrastructure for private capital—replacing gut calls, Excel models, and disconnected tools with a system that scores, simulates, and recommends. Built for VCs, PE firms, and M&A teams, AlphaU empowers investors to move from fragmented workflows to a unified, AI-powered copilot for sourcing, diligence, valuation, and decision-making.
Fineas.AI (Boston, Massachusetts)
Founder: Kobena Idun
Fineas.AI’s mission is to universalize access to financial literacy. To do this, they’ve built an AI agent layer for personalized investment research to automate workflows for retail investors.
Interrupt 13 (Raleigh, NC)
Founder: Chris Flora
Interrupt 13 simplifies AI for startups & SMBs, building it seamlessly into human-driven workflows. The startup’s AI-native collaborative workspace fuses structured document management with real-time chat between clients’ team members and custom, autonomous AI agents. Users engage with multiple AIs and humans in shared channels, where agents can access and update docs based on strict permissions. Every member of a client’s team can manage their own team of AI agents and supercharge productivity.
Kahmino (Raleigh, NC)
Founder: Taylor Casey
Everyone wants to love where they live. Yet despite innumerable real estate agents, platforms like Zillow, and a sea of blogs, there is still no structured, scalable way to help individuals confidently choose where to live before choosing their bed/bath count. “I’ll rent first to learn the area” is heard too often. Whether someone values top schools, nightlife, access to green space (or all three!), Kahmino delivers personalized, curated neighborhood recommendations to help users move with confidence. (See past coverage from GrepBeat.)
Mindr (Durham, NC)
Founder: Adam Schultz
Mindr is developing an AI-based mobile app with humans in the loop that provides daily activities and coaching to people at risk for Alzheimer’s and dementia in order to reduce their risk and improve their overall health. (See past coverage from GrepBeat.)
My AI Transformation (Durham, NC)
Founder: Dirk Nicol
My AI Transformation creates role‑specific AI teammates that work as part of existing teams. The startup’s first teammate, Maggie AI, reviews web pages from a marketing perspective: Users can paste any URL, and Maggie performs a 30‑second, best‑practice audit; highlights strengths & issues on a live screenshot; and outputs a ranked downloadable action plan. There is no code, tags, or integrations—just actionable insight that turns hours of manual review into minutes.
Quellios (Raleigh, NC)
Founder: Mark Felice
Quellios is developing a non-invasive, wearable AI platform that continuously monitors inflammation, starting with digestive disorders as a gateway to broader cardiometabolic impact. The startup tracks users’ inflammatory responses to food, activity, and environment—providing real-time, personalized insights to improve outcomes. Its patent-pending technology enables continuous inflammation monitoring via smartphone camera, transforming how digestive disorders are tracked, understood, and managed.
Following eight weeks and 13 in-person sessions throughout the summer, founders from this second FCAT cohort will present their startups at a live, public Demo Day. Place and time TBA.
(Click here to see GrepBeat’s coverage of the inaugural, 2024 cohort’s Demo Day.)
