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AI Incubators in North America (2027): 13 US and Canadian Incubators for AI and Generative AI Startups, With Money, Equity and Intakes

AI Incubators in North America: 13 US and Canadian Incubators for AI Startups, Checked on Money, Equity and Intakes

An AI incubator is where you go before you are ready for an accelerator: when you have a research result, a prototype or only a strong idea, and you need months of space, technical help and sometimes a co-builder to turn it into a company. This guide covers incubators, venture studios and university AI incubators for AI and generative AI startups in the United States and Canada that still run, from AI House in Seattle and AI Fund in Mountain View to Mila's Venture Scientist Bootcamp in Montreal. We checked every programme on its own website on 3 November 2026 and took money, equity, eligibility and intakes from those pages only. Accelerators from the old version of this list moved to our separate guide, and programmes that closed or changed are listed near the end.
Quick answer: for an AI-only incubator that invests, AI House in Seattle (the former AI2 Incubator) puts in up to $600,000 on a SAFE for 7% common stock and takes applications on a rolling basis. If you are an engineer without an idea, AI Fund's 12-week Engineer in Residence programme hands you a vetted one. For researchers, Mila's Venture Scientist Bootcamp pays $10,000 per founder for four months in Montreal (its next session starts January 12, 2027), and Cornell Tech Runway supports PhD founders with up to $325,000 over two years. University AI incubators such as the Mayfield AI Garage (Berkeley, WashU), Berkeley SkyDeck Pad-13 and CMU Project Olympus favour their own students and alumni. For an equity-free option, Creative Destruction Lab has an Artificial Intelligence stream at nine North American sites, and NVIDIA Inception is a free programme, not an incubator, that you can join alongside any of them.
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Incubator or Accelerator: What Is the Difference?

An accelerator takes a company that already has a product, a team and usually some users, runs a fixed programme of about three months, invests a standard amount for equity and ends with a demo day. Y Combinator, a16z speedrun and Techstars work this way. An incubator starts earlier and lasts longer: it helps you test the idea, find the first customers, form or complete the team and, for AI startups, make the first technical decisions, often with office space, research access or compute. Some invest (AI House, Cornell Tech Runway), some pay a stipend (Mila, Mayfield AI Garage) and some take no money and no equity (Creative Destruction Lab). A venture studio such as AI Fund goes one step further and co-creates the company with you, often from an idea it brings. If you already have traction and want a cheque and a demo day, read our guide to AI accelerators in North America instead.

AI Incubators in the US and Canada Compared

ProgrammeWhereMoney and equity (official)Who can applyNext intake (official)
AI House (ex-AI2 Incubator)Seattle, at least one month in personUp to $600,000 SAFE at a $10M cap; 7% common stockApplied AI founders across North America, idea stage OKRolling
AI Fund Engineer in ResidenceMountain View, 12 weeks on-sitePre-seed capital if a company is formedEngineers; AI Fund brings the ideaApply on its site; no dates published
Mayfield AI Garage at BerkeleyBerkeley, 6 months$50,000 stipend per team; up to $350,000 Azure creditsUC Berkeley students and alumni up to 3 years out2026 applications closed
Mayfield AI Garage at WashUSt. Louis, May to November$50,000 stipend; up to $350,000 Azure creditsRun by WashU's Skandalaris Center2026 applications closed March 20
Berkeley SkyDeck Pad-13BerkeleyNo guaranteed investment; SkyDeck Fund may join a later roundAll industries; UC-affiliated and international startups a priorityBatch 24 applications open in January
CMU Project OlympusPittsburghNot stated; Spark grants offered by the Swartz CenterTeams with at least one CMU affiliate founderRolling
Cornell Tech RunwayNew York City (Roosevelt Island)Startup Postdocs: up to $325,000 of support over two yearsPhD founders and Cornell Tech graduatesNot published
Mila Venture Scientist BootcampMontreal, 4 months full time$10,000 per founder (max 2); Mila gets up to 2% only if you raise within 18 monthsSTEM founders in Canada; PhD, postdoc or recent graduateStarts January 12, 2027
DMZ IncubatorToronto, virtual available, 18 monthsNo cash, no fees; 2.5% equity in common sharesTech startups ready to scaleSpring 2027 cohort; applications year-round
Creative Destruction Lab (AI stream)Nine US and Canadian sitesNo fee, no equitySeed-stage science and technology startups2026/27 applications open
Amii ML Exploration and Level UpVirtual (Alberta)Free; possible Google Cloud and Claude creditsStartups adopting or growing AIApply on its site
Vector Institute FastLaneToronto and onlineNo cash; AI projects and talentCanadian companies with 1 to 500 employeesNot stated
NVIDIA Inception (not an incubator)OnlineFree, no equity; credits and discountsIncorporated companies under 10 years oldNo deadlines or cohorts
Sources: each programme's official website, checked 3 November 2026. "Not stated" or "not published" means the programme's own site does not say it. Terms change between intakes, so read the official page before you apply.

AI Incubators and Venture Studios in the United States

1. AI House, formerly AI2 Incubator (Seattle)

AI House is the new name of the AI2 Incubator, which rebranded in June 2026; agreements signed with the old entities stay in force. It incubates applied AI companies from the very start, including "white board ideas" with no company formed yet, and works side by side with founders on customer discovery, AI architecture, model evaluation, pilots, hiring and fundraising. It invests up to $600,000 on a SAFE with a $10 million cap, with early allocations usually starting at $100,000 for a solo founder or $200,000 for a team; its incubation economics are 7% in common stock. Founders from across North America can join, but each one spends at least one month in person at AI House in Seattle. Next intake: rolling, no batch dates. Best for: domain experts and solo founders who want a co-builder for an applied AI idea in fields such as healthcare, legal, logistics or manufacturing.

2. AI Fund Engineer in Residence (Mountain View)

AI Fund is a venture studio founded by Andrew Ng and backed by more than $370 million, according to its own site. Instead of taking an existing startup, its Engineer in Residence programme brings you in full time for 12 weeks, on-site at its Mountain View office, with a vetted idea from its pipeline; many ideas come from corporate partners such as AES, Mitsubishi Corporation, Mitsui and Nikkei. Your job is to turn the idea into a working product with real users. If the build justifies a company, you are the leading candidate for CEO, with pre-seed capital and AI Fund's continued involvement. AI Fund says the programme is not for founders set on their own pre-existing concept. Best for: strong AI engineers who want to become founders but do not have an idea yet.

3. Mayfield AI Garage at Berkeley

The Mayfield AI Garage at Berkeley is a six-month programme run by the venture firm Mayfield with UC Berkeley's College of Computing, Data Science, and Society and Berkeley SkyDeck, now in its second year. Selected teams get a stipend of $25,000 per founding team member up to $50,000, at least $50,000 and up to $350,000 in Microsoft Azure compute credits, NVIDIA Inception benefits, up to $25,000 in legal credits from Orrick, mentoring from Mayfield and a place in SkyDeck's Pad-13 incubator. It is open to current UC Berkeley students and alumni up to three years after graduation who are ideating or working on an AI project. Next intake: applications for the 2026 edition are closed; watch the page for the next one. Best for: Berkeley students and recent graduates with an AI prototype.

4. Mayfield AI Garage at WashU (St. Louis)

Mayfield runs the same model with Washington University in St. Louis: the Mayfield AI Garage @ WashU is hosted by WashU's Skandalaris Center between May and November. It offers a $50,000 stipend, up to $350,000 in Azure compute credits, NVIDIA Inception benefits, up to $25,000 in Orrick legal credits, Mayfield mentoring and access to the Skandalaris Center's Launchpad Program. Next intake: the 2026 applications were due on Friday, March 20, and the page gives no dates for the next call yet. Best for: AI founders in the WashU community.

5. Berkeley SkyDeck Pad-13 (Berkeley)

Berkeley SkyDeck is best known for its funded accelerator cohort (covered in our accelerators guide), but its Pad-13 track works as an incubator: between 60 and 80 Pad-13 teams per batch get access to some of the same resources as cohort teams, such as roundtables, workshops and events, without the guaranteed investment, parts of the mentorship programme or the demo day pitch. Pad-13 teams have no designated desks but can work in open areas. The Berkeley SkyDeck Fund has the option to invest up to 10% of a Pad-13 team's institutional round on the same terms as other investors. SkyDeck accepts all industries and says UC-affiliated and international startups are a priority. Next intake: applications for Batch 24 open in January. Best for: early AI teams that want a Berkeley base without giving up equity upfront.

6. Carnegie Mellon Project Olympus (Pittsburgh)

Project Olympus is the incubator programme of Carnegie Mellon's Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship, built to turn university research and ideas into startups. It is open to CMU founders at any stage, from concept to company creation, as long as the team has at least one CMU affiliate founder (faculty, staff, undergraduate, graduate student, postdoc or alumni). It helps with product and market fit and with a business model that can attract funding, and the Swartz Center also runs Project Olympus Spark Grants. Next intake: rolling. Best for: CMU researchers and alumni with AI and robotics ideas.

7. Cornell Tech Runway Startups (New York City)

Runway Startups at the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute calls itself part business school, part research institution and part startup incubator. Its Runway Startup Postdoc Program gives founders from leading universities up to $325,000 in support over two years, including a salary, research funding, campus workspace, intellectual property registration and use, and mentoring from Cornell Tech faculty and industry advisers. The 2026 cohort brought 13 startups to the Roosevelt Island campus, five of them led by PhD founders, with work spanning robotics, life sciences, fintech and artificial intelligence, and Cornell Tech says Runway companies have raised more than $315 million. Next intake: no current deadline is published. Best for: recent PhDs who want to build an AI company in New York with a salary.
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AI Incubators in Canada

8. Mila Venture Scientist Bootcamp (Montreal)

The Venture Scientist Bootcamp is the flagship incubator of Mila Ventures, part of Mila, the Quebec AI institute. It is a selective, four-month, full-time programme in Montreal for deep tech founders with strong STEM backgrounds: people finishing a PhD, doing a postdoc or within three years of a STEM degree, applying alone or as a team, with customer conversations, a prototype or a validated concept. Each founder gets $10,000, for up to two founders per team, plus a venture manager, office space at Mila and sessions with Mila researchers; Mila takes up to 2% only if you raise money within the next 18 months. You do not need an incorporated company, but Mila does not sponsor visas. Next intake: the session runs from January 12 to mid-May 2027 and decisions come by December 4, 2026. The page gives the application deadline as November 21, 2026 in its banner and November 28, 2026 under programme dates, so apply by the earlier date. Best for: AI researchers in Canada who want to become founders.

9. DMZ Incubator (Toronto)

The DMZ Incubator at Toronto Metropolitan University is an 18-month programme for tech startups, AI startups included, that want to scale and raise capital. DMZ onboards incubator startups twice a year, in fall and spring, with applications open year-round, and keeps each cohort to no more than ten companies. It charges no fees and takes no board seats; in return for its support, it takes a 2.5% equity stake in common shares. You work from DMZ in Toronto, with a virtual option. Earlier teams can join its nine-month Pre-Incubator to find their first customers. Next intake: the Spring 2027 cohort. Best for: Canadian AI startups with a product that need a long runway of support.

10. Creative Destruction Lab, Artificial Intelligence stream

Creative Destruction Lab (CDL), founded at the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management, is a non-profit programme for seed-stage science and technology startups. It charges no fee and takes no equity: founders attend five full-day sessions where mentors set the three most important objectives for the next eight weeks. Artificial Intelligence and Compute are among its streams. In North America it runs in Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Calgary, Halifax, Seattle, Texas, Wisconsin and Cleveland, so it is one of the few AI programmes on both sides of the border. Next intake: applications are open for the 2026/27 programme year. Best for: technical AI founders who want structured mentoring without giving up equity.

11. Amii ML Exploration and Level Up (Alberta and online)

Amii, the Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute, runs two free startup programmes. ML Exploration is a six-week virtual programme, fully sponsored by Amii (a value of $3,000), that helps a startup find its two to five best AI and machine learning opportunities with Amii's ML educators. Level Up is a free membership network for AI-powered startups ready to grow. Participants in either programme may qualify for up to $250,000 USD in Google Cloud credits and up to $30,000 USD in Claude API credits. Best for: startups that are adding AI to their product and need expert help more than money.

12. Vector Institute FastLane (Toronto)

FastLane is the Vector Institute's programme for Canadian startups that build AI into their products; more than 290 startups have taken part. It is support, not cash: bootcamps, applied AI projects, talent introductions and specialised tracks such as Machine Learning Associates, which pairs a startup with one or two ML associates for four months to build a proof of concept. Companies must be incorporated and operating in Canada with a technical team and have 1 to 500 employees. Best for: Canadian startups that need AI engineering help after an incubator.

A Free Programme That Is Not an Incubator

13. NVIDIA Inception

NVIDIA Inception often appears in lists of AI incubators, but it is a free membership programme, not an incubator: there are no cohorts, deadlines, cash or office space. It has no application fees, membership fees or equity requirements and offers training, preferred pricing on NVIDIA products, partner credits and investor connections. To join, your company must be incorporated, under 10 years old, have a working website and a clear use for NVIDIA technology. The Mayfield AI Garage programmes include its benefits. Best for: every AI startup that trains or runs models on GPUs, alongside a real incubator.
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AI Incubators That Closed, Changed or Moved to Our Accelerators Guide

The 2025 version of this article and its shorter versions mixed incubators, accelerators and corporate programmes. Here is what happened to the ones we could trace:
  • AI2 Incubator: renamed AI House in June 2026 (see above).
  • Mayfield AI Garage (2024 Bay Area call): Mayfield launched a $100M builder initiative for ideation-stage founders building AI teammates in 2024, with applications closing on October 15, 2024; the AI Garage now runs as university editions at Berkeley and WashU.
  • AI NexusLab: its old website now shows a domain error page.
  • AWS Generative AI Accelerator: its programme page now returns "not found".
  • Alchemist Accelerator: its FAQ says Alchemist no longer considers itself an accelerator; it is an early-stage venture firm for enterprise startups.
  • RocketSpace: its website did not load when we checked.
  • HackerNest: a grassroots non-profit that ran tech community events, not an incubator.
  • IndieBio and Imagine H2O: still running, but as programmes for biotech and water startups, not AI incubators.
  • Google.org Accelerator: Generative AI: for nonprofits, not startups.
  • Accelerators moved to our other guide: Y Combinator, Techstars, 500 Global, the Google for Startups Accelerator and Berkeley SkyDeck's funded cohort run fixed programmes for equity or credits, so they are compared in AI accelerators in North America.
  • Left out: Harvard Innovation Labs, Velocity at the University of Waterloo and NYU Tandon Future Labs, because we could not read their current terms on their official sites.
  • Removed: numbers the programmes' own sites do not confirm, such as "5,000 founders" for 500 Global, and guesses like "likely several months".
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Which AI Incubator Should You Choose?

  • You want an AI-only incubator that invests: AI House in Seattle (up to $600,000, rolling).
  • You are an engineer without an idea: AI Fund's Engineer in Residence programme in Mountain View.
  • You are a PhD or postdoc: Mila's Venture Scientist Bootcamp in Montreal or the Cornell Tech Runway Startup Postdoc Program in New York.
  • You are a student or recent graduate: the Mayfield AI Garage at Berkeley or WashU, Berkeley SkyDeck Pad-13 or CMU Project Olympus, depending on your university.
  • You do not want to give up equity: Creative Destruction Lab, Amii's free programmes and NVIDIA Inception.
  • You are in Canada and need 18 months of support: the DMZ Incubator in Toronto (2.5% equity, no fees).
  • You already have a product and users: skip the incubator and look at accelerators for AI startups.
  • You are outside North America: see our lists of AI incubators in Europe, deep tech incubators in Europe, startup incubators in Europe and startup incubators in Asia.
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How AI Founders in the US and Canada Use Incubators

Incubators pick founders who already talk to customers, so collect evidence first: our 30-day validation sprint is a quick way to get it. Build your investor list while you are still inside the programme: start with the angel investors for AI startups in North America, the VCs for AI startups and the early-stage VCs in North America. Non-dilutive money stretches an incubator stipend: see the deep tech grants in North America and, for women founders, the grants for female entrepreneurs in North America. If you are still choosing a base, compare the cities for AI startups in North America; Creative Destruction Lab's Cleveland site, for example, sits in one of the ecosystems in our Cleveland startups to watch.

FAQ About AI Incubators in North America

What is an AI incubator?

An AI incubator helps founders turn an AI idea, research result or prototype into a company, usually over several months, with space, technical and business coaching and sometimes money or compute credits. It starts earlier and runs longer than an accelerator, which takes companies that already have a product and runs a fixed programme of about three months.

What is the best AI incubator in North America in 2027?

It depends on your stage and affiliation. AI House in Seattle is the main AI-only incubator that invests (up to $600,000). Researchers should look at Mila's Venture Scientist Bootcamp and Cornell Tech Runway, students at the Mayfield AI Garage, SkyDeck Pad-13 and CMU Project Olympus, and founders who want to keep their equity at Creative Destruction Lab.

Is there a generative AI incubator for startups?

Yes. AI House incubates applied AI and generative AI companies in Seattle, AI Fund co-builds AI companies in Mountain View, and the Mayfield AI Garage supports students building AI products at Berkeley and WashU. Creative Destruction Lab's Artificial Intelligence stream also takes generative AI startups.

Which universities have AI startup incubators?

UC Berkeley (Mayfield AI Garage and SkyDeck Pad-13), Washington University in St. Louis (Mayfield AI Garage with the Skandalaris Center), Carnegie Mellon (Project Olympus), Cornell Tech (Runway Startups) and Toronto Metropolitan University (DMZ). In Montreal, the Mila institute runs the Venture Scientist Bootcamp.

What is the Mayfield AI Garage incubator programme?

A programme by the venture firm Mayfield for AI founders at universities. At Berkeley it runs for six months with a stipend of up to $50,000 per team, up to $350,000 in Azure credits, legal credits and a place in SkyDeck's Pad-13 incubator; the 2026 applications are closed. A WashU edition runs from May to November.

What happened to the AI2 Incubator?

It rebranded to AI House in June 2026. It still incubates applied AI startups in Seattle, invests up to $600,000 on a SAFE at a $10 million cap for 7% common stock and takes applications on a rolling basis.

When is the Mila Venture Scientist Bootcamp deadline?

Mila's page shows November 21, 2026 in its banner and November 28, 2026 under programme dates, with decisions by December 4, 2026. The session runs full time in Montreal from January 12 to mid-May 2027 and pays $10,000 per founder for up to two founders.

Which AI incubators take no equity?

Creative Destruction Lab charges no fee and takes no equity, and Amii's ML Exploration and Level Up programmes are free. Mila takes up to 2% only if you raise within 18 months, DMZ takes 2.5% and AI House 7%.

Is NVIDIA Inception an incubator?

No. It is a free programme with no cohorts, deadlines, cash or office space, offering training, preferred pricing, credits and investor connections to incorporated startups under 10 years old. You can join it alongside any incubator.

How can I get my AI startup noticed by incubators and investors?

Get covered where programme managers, investors and AI assistants look: Fe/male Switch publishes guest posts about startups in its blogs, and the guest post offer in this article earns you a backlink.

About the Author

Violetta Bonenkamp, also known as MeanCEO, is an experienced startup founder with an impressive educational background including an MBA and four other higher education degrees. She has over 20 years of work experience across multiple countries, including 5 years as a solopreneur and serial entrepreneur. Throughout her startup experience she has applied for multiple startup grants at the EU level, in the Netherlands and Malta, and her startups received quite a few of those. She’s been living, studying and working in many countries around the globe and her extensive multicultural experience has influenced her immensely.
2026-11-03 22:52 Top 15