Startup conferences are loud and unproductive. LinkedIn DMs go nowhere. Cold email doesn't scale. Sphere gives founders one AI-matched connection — a real co-founder lead, advisor, investor, or collaborator — with full context on why they fit.
The advice is always the same: go to conferences, build your network, find a co-founder at a hackathon. This works if you went to Stanford and your old roommate is now a partner at Sequoia. For everyone else, startup networking is a grind of awkward conversations and business cards that go nowhere.
LinkedIn DMs have a sub-5% response rate. Cold email is worse. Conference apps show you everyone in the room — but give you no reason to talk to any of them specifically. The result: you spend four days at a conference, talk to forty people, and come home with zero meaningful connections.
The missing piece is context. What you're building. What stage you're at. What you actually need — a technical co-founder, a seed check, someone who's done B2B SaaS sales before. And why the other person should care about meeting you specifically.
Sphere provides that context. You tell it what you're building and what you're looking for. It identifies one person in its network who fits — and delivers a warm, contextual introduction to both of you at the same time. No cold outreach. No spray and pray. One deliberate match, one strong reason to connect.
One match at a time, across every gap in the founder stack.
The co-founder hunt is the hardest hiring problem in startups. LinkedIn DMs go unread. YC co-founder matching is a lottery. Sphere asks what you're building, your technical gaps, your working style, and what you need to unlock the next stage — then finds one specific person who fits, with a clear explanation of why.
Most advisor relationships start with warm intros from mutual contacts. If you don't have those contacts yet — especially for domain-specific expertise outside your network — you're stuck. Sphere identifies advisors with direct experience in your sector and stage. One warm introduction, both sides briefed on why it's a fit.
Building a company is isolated. Your friends from before don't get it. Your team can't hear it. Finding one other founder at a similar stage who understands what "the hardest week since we started" actually means — that's not a networking goal. It's a survival need. Sphere finds them.
The best founder conversations don't happen in conference rooms. They happen side-by-side, on a run, over 45 minutes with no agenda. Sphere matches by activity, schedule, and location — so the relationship builds alongside something you're both already doing. A co-founder lead, a future investor, or a genuine peer. Often all three.
Three steps. No conference badge required.
What are you building? What stage are you at? What kind of person would move the needle for you right now — a technical co-founder, a series A investor, a founder friend, a running partner? Sphere asks the right questions.
Sphere searches its founder and professional network and identifies one match. It explains why: the sector overlap, the complementary skills, the shared context. Not a list to cold email — one warm lead, reasoned and relevant.
Both sides receive the same introduction simultaneously. You both know why you're being connected. You take it from there — a call, a coffee, a Slack DM. If it's not the right fit, Sphere finds you another match. No pressure, no awkward follow-up.
Most co-founder relationships start through existing networks — university contacts, previous colleagues, or warm introductions. The problem is that great co-founders are rarely in your existing circle. Platforms like Y Combinator's co-founder matching, LinkedIn, and AngelList have tried to solve this, but they all suffer from the same issue: too much noise, too little signal. Sphere takes a different approach. It asks what you're building, what you need in a co-founder, and what kind of working relationship you want — then makes one specific, AI-reasoned introduction.
LinkedIn is the default, but it's built for job seeking — not founder collaboration. Conference apps are event-specific and ephemeral. Lunchclub and Bumble Bizz have tried curated introductions, but their matching is shallow and context-free. Sphere is built specifically for the kind of high-stakes, high-trust introductions founders actually need: co-founders, advisors, seed investors, early collaborators. It gives you one match at a time, with a clear explanation of why that person fits what you're building.
LinkedIn is a broadcast platform — you post into the void and hope the right person sees it. Outbound DMs go to spam. InMail costs money and gets ignored. It's optimised for recruiters, not founders. Sphere flips this: instead of you broadcasting and hoping, Sphere identifies one specific person who fits your context — and makes the introduction to both of you simultaneously. You both receive the same message, with the same context, at the same time. A warm introduction, not a cold outreach.
Yes. Sphere's professional matching category includes co-founders, advisors, investors, and collaborators. When you tell Sphere what you're building and what kind of relationship you're looking for, it searches across the founder and investor community in its network to find one specific match. Not a list to cold email — one person, one warm introduction, with context on why they're relevant to your stage and sector.
Join the Sphere waitlist. Tell us what you're building and what you need. We'll find the right person — and explain exactly why we chose them.
Join Sphere WaitlistNo app to download. Waitlist via Telegram.