Inside the Foundery contract

I was scrolling through LinkedIn on the Monday before Christmas when a post about a flashy new launchpad program backed by Nikhil Kamath and Kishore Biyani popped up on my feed. All the major business outlets seemed to be covering it. Slick branding, big names, and promises of a 90‑day residential “co‑founder factory.” It sounded impressive, and I was genuinely intrigued.

Being a startup founder myself, I thought this could be a great accelerator program, especially considering the heavyweight mentors attached to it. So I clicked through to their website and started the application process. Right before hitting apply, I stopped and opened their Terms & Conditions.

I’m very glad I did. The document read like a nuclear bomb disguised as a Secret Santa present. What followed was one of the densest clusters of red flags I have seen in the Indian startup ecosystem: a document that looks less like the foundation of a modern accelerator and more like a pay‑to‑play reality‑show audition combined with a high‑control employment bond and a sweeping intellectual‑property land grab, and, in my opinion, dangerously close to slavery.

Important disclaimer: This is not legal advice. This is a critical analysis and opinion based on the Terms & Conditions of The Foundery as shared on their website.

Behind the “co‑founder factory” marketing

On the surface, The Foundery sells a seductive story. You apply to a “first‑of‑its‑kind business launchpad,” go through multiple rounds of selection, and if you make it, you enter a 5‑day bootcamp followed by roughly 90 days of residency at their “Centre.” At the end, if you’re good enough, you could be invited to become a “co‑founder” of a launch‑ready brand, with up to USD 500,000 (around INR 4 crore) in funding and up to 25% equity.

What the marketing doesn’t emphasize is that this comes wrapped in an extremely one‑sided contract.

You pay a non‑refundable INR 5,000 + GST just to apply. There is no guarantee of investment, no guarantee of a co‑founder role, and no guarantee of any particular equity. Meanwhile, simply by participating, you sign away a remarkable number of rights: over your image, your story, your social media handles, your data, your freedom to speak publicly about the program, and even over ideas and IP you create “during and after” the program.

And that’s before we get to the threat of clawbacks and “cost recovery” if you fail to play by their rules.

Red flag #1: a reality‑show‑style IP and likeness grab

The first major red flag is the sheer aggressiveness of The Foundery’s intellectual property and publicity clauses.

Every interview, video, AMA, behind‑the‑scenes clip, or other promotional content involving you is defined as their property. Not just for the duration of the program. In perpetuity, worldwide, across the universe.

All photographs, videos, and voice recordings you submit or that they capture become part of “Submission Materials” that they can exploit however they like, forever, in any media. You don’t get to say no later. You don’t get to ask for it to be taken down if the experience turns sour.

You are also required to waive moral rights, publicity rights, and all related rights, and agree not to enforce them. They get to use your name, image, voice, social handles, and content in their advertising and storytelling, permanently. You, by contrast, are heavily constrained in what you can say publicly.

For founders used to standard accelerator agreements, where the program gets a limited license to use your logo and a few photos, this is not normal. This is television‑show waiver territory: where you are the content.

Red Flag #2: “any and all IP… during and after the program”

Most accelerators work on a very simple principle: you or your company owns what you build. The accelerator gets a sliver of equity and some marketing rights. They don’t own your product.

The Foundery flips this on its head. Its terms state that any and all intellectual property that is generated, ideated, created, or produced during and after the program, including during Bootcamp, Residency, and in any co‑founder role, “shall belong and vest absolutely in” the relevant affiliate. In other words, if you work on ideas, frameworks, prototypes, or content as part of this journey, the IP belongs to them, not to you or any company you might otherwise set up.

The phrase “during and after the program” is particularly alarming. It is broad and vague and gives them scope to argue that things you build after you leave are wrapped into their ownership, especially if they can link it back to work done while you were inside their ecosystem.

This is not a standard accelerator clause. It reads like a venture studio that wants to own everything you touch, coupled with legal language that leaves you minimal room to carve out anything of your own.

Red flag #3: a hidden bond disguised as “costs”

The Foundery doesn’t just want your IP. It also wants leverage over your physical location and your ability to walk away.

If you are offered a co‑founder role, you are obliged to relocate to Mumbai (or another designated location) and work from their affiliate’s office. If you fail to relocate, don’t complete the bootcamp or residency, or don’t perform “co‑founder responsibilities” to their satisfaction, they reserve the right to disqualify you and to seek “recovery / clawback of any investment made or costs and expenses incurred” in connection with you.

Those “costs” are defined in the document: INR 10,00,000 in fixed costs per selectee and approximately INR 20,000 per day in variable costs for residency/bootcamp—supposedly covering room, board, mentors, and so on. Over a 90‑day program, that’s around INR 28 lakhs.

In a normal startup context, investors understand that their capital is at risk. If things don’t work out, they don’t sue you to get the burn rate back. Here, by contrast, the T&Cs explicitly create a path where you could be presented with a multi‑lakh “bill” for having dared to leave or failed to relocate.

Is such a claim enforceable? That’s a separate question for lawyers and courts. What matters from a founder’s perspective is that the threat exists, on paper, as a lever they can pull if you try to exit.

Red flag #4: one‑way indemnities, near‑zero responsibility

Layered on top of the IP and cost structure is an asymmetrical web of indemnities. Over and over, the T&Cs require you to indemnify them.

You indemnify them for third‑party IP disputes relating to your idea. You indemnify them if you cannot attend or complete the program. They explicitly state that your absence causes them “immense and irreparable loss.” You indemnify them for health issues, misrepresentations, disruptions, and more.

At the same time, they disclaim almost all liability in the other direction: for illness or injury, for program changes or cancellation, for travel and logistics, for website and data issues, and for any business or earnings losses you suffer. You are also asked to expressly waive rights to sue them in many scenarios.

This is not a balanced commercial agreement between partners. This is a waiver stack: you promise not to come after them while promising to cover them if someone comes after you.

Red flag #5: gag clauses and narrative capture

If the program goes badly for you, don’t expect to be able to talk freely about it.

The Foundery’s T&Cs give it very tight control over your communications. You cannot speak to the media or post publicly about the program without their written approval. You are barred from sharing internal documents. You can’t share behind‑the‑scenes content, parody, or anything that might be seen as disparaging. Breaches can lead to disqualification and potentially legal action.

At the same time, you may be required to amplify their narrative (upon written approval, of course): posting promotional content about The Foundery on your own social media, in the form and frequency they prescribe. And because they own the media they create around you, they can keep using your story, face, and quotes forever, regardless of how you feel about it later.

Practically, this means the only story that gets told is the one The Foundery approves. If something goes wrong, your ability to warn others is contractually muzzled—while they keep your success story footage in their library forever, even if you no longer view it as a success.

Red flag #6: absolute discretion, zero real recourse

The T&Cs are saturated with “sole and absolute discretion” language. They can alter almost anything: the number of applicants, selection criteria, schedules, judges, locations, online versus offline format, and even the Terms & Conditions themselves, at any time. They can replace you with a backup applicant. They can disqualify you for nonconformity.

Their decisions are described as final, binding, non‑appealable, and non‑contestable. You have no right to audit, no right to question selection criteria, and no meaningful route to challenge any decision or change. They can also dig into your civil, criminal, financial, credit, and employment history and disqualify you at any stage if they dislike what they find or believe you misrepresented something.

This isn’t a partnership. It’s a game show where the producers hold every card, and you sign away your right to complain about the rules.

Compared with real accelerators, this isn’t just “harsh” it’s upside‑down

Put The Foundry next to actual accelerators like Y Combinator, Techstars, Sequoia Surge, or even good local programs, and the differences are stark.

Who owns the company and IP?: In real accelerators, you or your company owns the business and the IP. The accelerator invests for a minority stake and gets some promo rights. At The Foundery, you may simply be slotted in as a minority co‑founder in a company they architect and own, with IP contractually assigned to their affiliate.
Who pays whom?: YC and Techstars don’t charge an application fee. They put money into your startup, accepting that they might lose it. At The Foundery, you pay to apply, and you sign a contract that defines a very large “cost” per participant, which they explicitly reserve the right to claw back from you if they claim breach.
What happens if you leave?: in real accelerators, if you drop out or disappear, you might lose access or damage your reputation, but they don’t invoice you for their burn. At The Foundery, the T&Cs create a scenario where walking away could, in theory, come with a seven‑figure rupee price tag.
How much control do they have over your voice?: Typical accelerators encourage you to share your journey. They want alumni stories out in the wild. The Foundery binds you with gag clauses and keeps full control over your media narrative.

Treating The Foundry like a peer of YC or Techstars, just because it has big names attached and nice decks, is a category error. The legal reality is closer to a high‑control talent show and venture studio rolled into one.

The MBA comparison: clever marketing, false equivalence

The other big comparison The Foundery leans on is with MBAs: “high‑priced MBAs are obsolete,” and “you don’t pay college fees; you get capital instead.” Some outlets repeat this almost word-for-word.

But if you look at the details, the “MBA alternative” claim collapses.

At a top MBA program, you pay tuition and in return get an education, a credential, and an alumni network. Once you’ve paid, the school can’t later sue you to recover the cost of the library or the air‑conditioning if you drop out. They don’t own your future startup IP or your LinkedIn profile picture “across the universe.” And you are free to criticize the school in public for the rest of your life.

At The Foundery, you don’t pay the INR 28‑lakh “cost” upfront. But you sign a contract that allows them to present it as a liability if you “breach.” You give away IP rights during and after the program. You hand them your likeness and your story forever. You submit to gag clauses restricting what you can say about your experience.

That’s not an MBA alternative. It’s a cleverly marketed slavery bond.

How “brochure journalism” helped this fly under the radar

Perhaps the most depressing part of this saga is not just The Foundery’s own legal design, but how happily mainstream business media reproduced the brochure without asking the most basic questions a founder should want answered.

Across outlets—The Hindu, CNBC‑TV18, Economic Times (B2B and ETtech), Mint, Business Standard, Entrepreneur India, and others—the pattern is strikingly similar.

Article after article trumpets the “90‑day residential launchpad,” the “co‑founder factory,” the “up to INR 4 crore” in funding and “up to 25% equity,” the anti‑MBA rhetoric, and the celebrity mentor list. Almost none of them mention the IP assignment “during and after the program,” the cost and investment clawback language, the gag clauses, or the fact that you’re getting a minority stake in their companies, not necessarily in your own.

Almost none mentions that participants pay a nonrefundable fee just to apply. None explains that the equity is in companies owned and promoted by the organizers’ affiliates, not necessarily in your own existing startup. The most aggressive clauses, the “during and after the program” IP assignment, the perpetual rights over your image and content “across the universe,” the definition of fixed and variable costs, and the explicit reservation of rights to recover those costs and any investment if you “breach” by failing to relocate or complete, are nowhere to be found.

Some pieces even manage to quote the “you don’t pay college fees” line in the same breath as mentioning the INR 5,000 registration fee, without pausing to ask whether that is normal for high‑quality accelerators or how it squares with the clawback language in the T&Cs.

For a founder reading these glowing articles, the impression is of a generous MBA alternative backed by icons of Indian business, not of a high‑control venture studio with reality‑show‑style contracts.

Whether these are paid pieces or just lazy journalism barely matters to the founder reading them. The result is the same: a lopsided, legally aggressive scheme is painted as a feel‑good, founder‑first initiative. The key warnings are either buried in small print or not mentioned at all.

So, is it a scam?

Calling The Foundery a scam in the criminal sense—like a fake lottery—would be too simplistic. It is almost certainly a real program run by real people; Think9 and WTFund are known entities. If you get selected, you will go to a physical location, attend sessions, meet mentors, possibly appear on camera, and maybe even be offered a co‑founder role in a real company.

But in the world of serious founders and venture capital, the terms are what many would describe as predatory or, at best, an extremely bad deal dressed up as an opportunity.

You are paying them to audition via a non‑refundable fee. You risk carrying a contingent liability of tens of lakhs of rupees in “costs” if they decide you breached. You build companies where they own the majority equity and all the IP. You sign broad indemnities and waive most avenues to hold them accountable. They get a pipeline of screened talent and ideas, rich media content for their brand, and maximum legal optionality. You, meanwhile, surrender control over your work, image, and narrative for a small chance at a minority stake.

In that sense, while this may not be a “scam” in the legal sense of the word. For a serious founder, it comes dangerously close to a Christmas‑themed bait‑and‑switch contract to slavery.

My advice is simple

If you are a talented founder with a real idea and alternatives, then run.

Apply to YC, Techstars, Antler, Sequoia Surge, or solid local accelerators. They don’t charge application fees. They don’t claim ownership over your likeness across the universe. They don’t threaten to sue you for their program costs if things don’t work out. Most importantly, they invest in your company. They don’t ask you to sign your company and yourself over to them.