After four incredible weeks, we’re excited to be graduating our very first Pre-Accelerator cohort — a batch of 50 pre-launch and early stage founders who wanted to develop their idea into an MVP.
Virtually delivered through live webinars, Q&As and our community platform, we met attendees (from L.A to Melbourne!) with diverse ideas looking to improve industries including beauty, fintech and real estate:
🚉 Dash Tabor’s TUBR
a mobile app tackling overcrowding on Public Transport.
🛋️ Maria Greiner’s WeFindFlats
a platform that makes moving abroad fun and easy.
🔨 Stephen Lewin’s GetMyEquipment
an equipment rental marketplace for the construction industry.
💅 Zhyldyz Sadyralieva’s Beauty on the Move
a Mobile beauty service booking platform.
🗑️ Al Costa’s TeknTrash
a startup that uses AI to locate products at disposal sites and thus providing consumer data.
🎙️ Deborah Igunma’s Clef
a platform to trade your favourite musicians.
🏘️ Alphonso Slinger’s NHSC
a social enterprise with a focus on affordable housing and adjacent opportunities.
AGAINST THE GRAIN
Against the preconceived notion that it wouldn’t retain ‘value’, we offered our Pre-Accelerator programme entirely free, yet saw these amazing stats:
- A week-on-week 80% attendance rate
The SeedReady courses have really made me realise I need to go back to the basics and review my market research more regularly. I’ve more clarity on knowing what I need and how I need to collect it.
Dash Tabor — founder of TUBR and attendee
- Over 20 hours of 1:1 coaching sessions delivered
Nzilani Kaunda — our Pre-Accelerator Manager
“The participants were amazing! It was such a diverse group from different parts of the world working on completely different ideas yet they share the same passion to grow together. There was great engagement throughout and I believe this will continue in our community. I can’t wait to see how these businesses grow!”
- 9 start-ups pitching in our final Startup Showcase: an intimate ‘demo day’-like event that very early stage startups typically wouldn’t be able to access.
David let me in to see the showcase for the first virtual SeedReady pre-accelerator cohort, I got to see many early stage ideas flourish and show off what they had accomplished in a one month programme. It was very insightful and the founders did an amazing job, so well done to the team!
James Lethem — Innovation Consultant
EMPOWERING EVERY ENTREPRENEUR, EVERYWHERE
A 2019 report by Startup Genome found that a founder’s participation in ecosystems (for global and local relationships) plays a huge role in a startup’s success, or failure.
This inspired us to redesign and rethink the structures of current accelerators, that would typically require equity or are limited to founders in the right geographical place. The Pre-Accelerator was a result of that; an iteration of free live classes, virtual networking sessions and an online community and networking sessions — in a bid to support entrepreneurs, everywhere.
As we come to a close (and start preparing for our second instalment of this programme!) we’d like to thank our Founder Friends who helped us deliver our first virtual programme:
- Casper Arboll from Perenna
- Kevin Mascarenhas from Natural Flow Consultancy
- Michal Madura, Anna Grabara & Kataryzna Spytkowska from Edisonda
- James Church from Robot Mascot
Lastly, to our incredible cohort of founders — we look forward to seeing how your ideas shape the industries of tomorrow! 💥