Post by Founder Institute

184 startups launched. 409 mentors. 2,151 events. 13,200+ attendees. One region that the world keeps sleeping on. Australia and New Zealand have the talent, the universities, and the entrepreneurial hunger. What idea-stage founders have always lacked is the structure to turn that into something real. That's the gap Benjamin Chong has spent 13 years closing. Benjamin didn't start as an accelerator director. He started as a founder, building, growing, and exiting tech businesses across Australia, the US, and the UK since the 1990s. E-commerce before broadband. Media portfolios sold to publicly listed companies. He'd seen how companies are built from zero. In 2011, he flew to Menlo Park and sat in a garage with Adeo Ressi. He came back and packed 250 people into a room in Sydney. Three months later, the first Founder Institute (Australia & New Zealand) program launched. Benjamin built the rest. Today, he runs one of the longest-standing FI chapters in the world alongside co-director Paul Krajewski, a senior product manager and startup founder known for pushing founders to answer the hard questions before the market does. The chapter is also backed by Addisons, a national law firm specializing in startups, offering office hours and tailored legal support exclusively for FI founders. The results show up. Evan Wong joined as a university student with one idea. Inside the program, he met a mentor who became Checkbox's third co-founder. In January 2026, Checkbox raised a $23M Series A led by Touring Capital at a valuation above $100M. He's not just running a program. He's building a generation of founders in a region that has everything it needs and finally has someone who keeps showing up. "We're equipping idea-stage founders to accelerate their progress and make a huge impact." Meet Benjamin and the Founder Institute (Australia & New Zealand) chapter!