We are in "soft release" mode (even though we are on Hacker News lol). We are currently collecting startup applications from students at my school, which is also where most of our current aspiring investors come from.
On the other point, you are indeed right. With Seedrunners, startups from all over the world and not only US startups will be able to access capital from the investor categories I mentioned previously. Our current legal structure allows us to receive investment from any person that is a "resident in the EU, EEA, Switzerland or any other country where they may legally receive financial promotions of the nature provided by Seedrunners, and are legally entitled to invest in the type of investment offered".
In a sense, it is a necessary evil to have such a restrictive list.
One, creating scarcity helps us build interest in Seedrunners.
Two, we carefully review and help each of our startup build their application (as it is in our interest for every one of them to have the best profile possible for the rankings). Something we could not realistically do if we were to receive thousands of applications.
Finally, and most importantly, it has a significant marketing power when it comes to investors to guarantee that every startup is led by founders coming from the best schools in the world.
Once we have proven that Seedrunners works and have the necessary financial resources, we will easily be able to open Seedrunners to all startup applicants (same goes for community membership).
I totally agree with your point.
But while it is true that Yale is not currently in our upcoming startups batches it will be very soon. Indeed, every month we plan to expand the list of schools and countries from which we accept startup applicants – until eventually allowing startups applicants from all corners of the world.
But at this time we don’t want to spread ourselves too thin. We rather do a few small consecutive batches well (France first, UK second, US third) and then expand from there once we have proven that Seedrunners works and have the resources to scale up.