On August 7, 2024, Techstars said it would cut 17% of its global team and end its Techstars-powered, J.P. Morgan-branded accelerator programs once the AdvancingCities fund was fully deployed. The announcement did not say that Techstars was shutting down all its accelerators: the company said other programs and their schedules would remain unchanged.
Why did Techstars announce layoffs?
Techstars CEO David Cohen said the company had overbuilt and overhired while trying to scale. In an employee email on August 7, 2024, he said Techstars was investing in around 700 startups a year despite having built capacity for thousands of annual investments. He described the 17% reduction as a cut to the global team, not a stated percentage of any particular office or department.
Cohen said the reductions would come predominantly from engineering, portfolio services, and sales and partnerships. He wrote that the company would stop focusing on scaling and shift its attention to being better for founders. The email did not provide a complete breakdown of affected roles or employees. Techstars’ announcement.
Which J.P. Morgan programs were ending?
The announcement concerned Techstars-powered accelerator programs branded with J.P. Morgan and associated with the AdvancingCities fund. Cohen said they would come to an end when that fund was fully deployed, which Techstars expected by the end of 2024. This was a planned endpoint tied to the fund, not a statement that J.P. Morgan was ending every relationship with Techstars.
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TechCrunch reported that the AdvancingCities fund was $80 million, launched in 2022, and supported a Techstars accelerator focused on equitable access to funding for diverse founders across the United States. A J.P. Morgan spokesperson told TechCrunch the fund was expected to be fully deployed by the end of 2024. The reporting establishes the expectation at the time; it does not confirm the final deployment date or outcome. TechCrunch’s report.
Did Techstars shut down its other accelerators?
No. Techstars said the J.P. Morgan-branded programs were the exception to the staffing changes’ impact on accelerator teams, and that other accelerator programs and their schedules would not change. The 2024 announcement should therefore be read as ending a specific set of fund-linked programs, not as ending Techstars’ accelerator operations altogether.
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Techstars’ newsroom lists accelerator cohorts in 2026, confirming that the organization continued announcing accelerator activity after the 2024 changes. That later activity does not establish the status of every individual program or the eventual fate of the AdvancingCities fund. Techstars newsroom.
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What the announcement does—and does not—establish
- Established: Techstars announced a 17% reduction in its global team on August 7, 2024, and cited overbuilding and overhiring during an effort to scale.
- Established: The Techstars-powered J.P. Morgan-branded accelerators associated with AdvancingCities were planned to end when the fund was fully deployed; other accelerator programs and schedules were said to be unchanged.
- Not established in the cited reporting: The fund’s final deployment date or result, a complete list of the programs that ultimately closed, or a full breakdown of employees affected.
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