Any startup wants to go through an acceleration program, but not every accelerator is happy to see everyone. Therefore, startups, as a rule, go through a thorough competition before they receive an offer to participate in the program.
We selected the best accelerators in Russia and the USA. As a bonus, we list industry accelerators such as fintech, biotech, and agrotech for niche enthusiasts.
In Russia, Internet technology, biotechnology, the spirit of entrepreneurship and concern for society are held in high esteem.
Accelerator 500 Startups and Sberbank
This is a program for IT startups, organized by Sberbank with the support of one of the most powerful teams in the world and IT business. The accelerator is looking for startups in the fields of e-commerce, digital medicine, robotics and more.
The emphasis is on gaining practical experience. Participants will be able to launch pilot projects and find full-time clients.
Accelerator IIDF is the largest accelerator in Europe: more than 300 startups have already passed the program. It is designed for three months, and the main focus is on startups in the field of devices, mobile and Internet technologies.
Each startup gets an individual tracker, access to educational and consulting sessions. You can seek help from experts in the fields of marketing, hiring employees, team building, attracting investments, legal issues, accounting, sales, market analysis, competitors and metrics.
A global venture alliance is an international company that develops a global innovation ecosystem.
The company is engaged in several areas at once:
- acceleration programs for the development of startups;
- educational courses for entrepreneurs and venture investors;
- projects with corporations to create an innovative environment;
- venture capital funds investing in startups in Russia and abroad;
A global network of high-tech development experts.
There are two acceleration programs within the GVA: GVAccelerator for ten weeks and Startup BootCamp for three days working with GVA experts.
For three years, GVA raised $ 25 million, created 710 jobs, and looked at 250 business founders in the acceleration program. The estimated cost of the founded companies is $ 130 million.
Fintech lab
Russia’s first specialized acceleration program for fintech startups. Participants are allowed to create or modify the product in close cooperation with representatives of banks, present their decisions to the top management of financial institutions.
The accelerator and its partners are looking for projects in the following areas:
- identification and biometrics,
- robotics,
- solutions for small and medium-sized businesses,
- machine learning,
- big data, and
- data-driven marketing.
Philtech Accelerator is an intensive development program for early-stage social technology startups that offer technological solutions to social problems.
This accelerator is for you, if Internet technology is the “engine” of the solution, the project is scalable, people and companies from other cities and countries can easily connect to it, and it is focused not only on making a profit but on solving a specific socially significant problem.
Those who are friends with English, about whose product we can say “breakthrough”, who despise the comfort zone, should consider filing an application with one of the American accelerators.
Y combination – Digital Agency London
Accelerator, founded by Paul Graham in 2005. It is one of the most active and largest incubator funds in the industry. During the existence of Y Combinator, more than 1,500 young teams successfully completed the program and received investments. The total cost of participating companies amounted to more than $ 100 billion, which makes Y Combinator graduates one of the most attractive for investors.
Airbnb (estimated at $ 31 billion), Stripe (estimated at $ 20 billion), Dropbox (estimated at $ 10 billion), Coinbase (estimated at $ 1.6 billion) and others passed through this accelerator.
500 startups
The International Venture Fund and accelerator, which has invested in approximately 1,700 startups since 2010. The fund consists of four large funds and 14 smaller ones in different regions. Seed Accelerator Rankings Project calls this accelerator one of the most prestigious.
Accelerator graduates were Eat App, Visual.ly, Canva, Grab. The most famous outputs were the projects Makerbot (Stratasys Corporation bought the manufacturer of 3D printers Makerbot for $ 402 million) and Wildfire (Google acquired a platform for promotion in social networks for $ 450 million).
Alchemist is the accelerator for b2b startups. This is a program for serious startups developing products for companies. In return, the projects will receive $ 30 thousand. Prefer startups, which were founded by strong programmers.
Startups are offered mentoring assistance from industry professionals, as well as the opportunity to enter Fortune 100 companies for an initial test of the target audience.
Starta accelerator is a New York-based technology startup accelerator launched by Starta Capital in 2015. The accelerator is aimed at helping technology companies with East European roots.
The acceleration program is designed to overcome cultural differences, adapt business models, organize sales and attract investment. Basic requirements for startups are a competitive product and a business model suitable for global expansion.
