Techstars’ $80M partnership with J.P. Morgan is on the rocks, employees say

Techstars had begun assembling cohorts and deploying out of the fund since 2022 with a goal to back more than 400 companies founded by underrepresented founders. It led to the creation of Techstars programs in at least eight cities, including Oakland, Atlanta, and Miami.

But by August 2023, when this meeting took place, J.P. Morgan’s team had become “disengaged,” a characterization that seven people associated with the program made to TechCrunch independently. Gavet admitted in the meeting that the fractured relationship was not entirely the bank’s fault: Missteps by Techstars had caused much of the tension.