Category Archives: accelerator

Join us September 9th for MIT’s Educational Accelerator Demo Day!

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I’m wrapping up “boot camp” with this year’s MIT Global Founders’ Skills Accelerator (GFSA) cohort this week, and wanted to let you know about our Educational Accelerator Demo Day on September 9th! As Associate Director of the Martin Trust Center and the Director of the GFSA program, it’s been an amazing summer for me, helping to shape our teams of entrepreneurs and guiding them as they prepare to present their companies.

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On Demo Day, each of the groups that have been working in the accelerator will reveal their company to a live audience. This event is free and open to the public – just register here and then join us at MIT Kresge Auditorium; the program runs from 4 – 7 pm, and Dharmesh Shah, founder and CTO of HubSpot will be our keynote speaker.

Demo Day is the culmination of three months of intensive work and focus by our student teams in the educational accelerator. It’s the first chance to present their world-changing products and services to an audience of MIT students, mentors, friends, investors, and potential customers.

Who are this year’s Entrepreneurs?

Our 2016 cohort is bigger than last year with 86 entrepreneurs on 17 teams. We can’t reveal the companies or their concepts until September 9th, but innovative ideas will be presented by the fantastic teams – in vertical industries from healthcare to energy to logistics. To give you an idea of what Demo Day involves, here’s a round-up of inspiring startups from Demo Day in prior years.

As the premier university student accelerator in the world, the MIT GFSA provides a capstone educational opportunity for MIT student entrepreneurs and prepares them to hit “escape velocity” and launch their companies into the real world. We hope you can join us for this amazing event.

We’re Live Streaming too!

Can’t be there live? You can still watch the live stream. (Visit now and mark your calendar.)

After the Boston event, we’re on to New York on September 15 and San Francisco on September 22 to present Demo Day in those cities as well.

 

P.S. We’ll also be announcing a name change for the GFSA program at Demo Day … stay tuned.

Exploring China Accelerators

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china startup imageIn my role as Entrepreneur in Residence at MIT and Program Director for MIT’s Global Founders’ Skill Accelerator (GFSA), I’ve been researching accelerator programs worldwide, and I thought I’d share some of that research in a series of blog posts. This is the fifth post in the series; you can read the other posts starting here.

While startups are emerging in thousands all over China, the local startups should realize that an accelerator program does not guarantee success—it simply provides the means to success. As most accelerator programs end after a few months, the knowledge and business wisdom that participating startups carry from the program are believed to last for a long time. For understanding how an accelerator program works in China, new startups can review the following article: Where are the startup incubators and accelerators in Asia? Here’s 100 of ‘em. This exhaustive list comprises accelerator programs in the entire Asia Pacific region, so readers are advised to selectively review the ones located in China.

The major accelerator activity has developed in the Chinese capital of Beijing—in a localized environment known as the “Silicon Valley in China.” The Zhongguancun Science Park showcases all the elements needed to boost a hungry startup business. This science park offers countless accelerator programs as well as venture capital funds. The startups in China have quickly taken advantage of vertical accelerators that offer highly specialized mentorship and support based on deep domain knowledge.

American Giants Offering Accelerators for the Asian Region

US accelerators are also seeing the global potential for their services. The basic elements of innovation, like as capital, information, technology and talent, are increasingly integrated across national territories. The Microsoft Ventures Accelerator in Beijing serves as a strategic partner for Chinese startups to broaden their global reach and develop these startups into world-class enterprises. In spite of having only been established recently, the Microsoft Ventures Accelerator has already been recognized by local governments, enterprises, and the investor community.

This unique program partners with visionary entrepreneurs to help startups flourish in China and Asia-Pacific at large. Since its inception in China in July 2012, this accelerator has provided participating startups with modern workspace, free cloud services, and direct market contact. The core elements of this accelerator program are leading technology, teambuilding, development of business skills. Through its access to the capital market, marketing and HR compliance services, the program develops the entrepreneurial capabilities of all participating startups. To date, the participants of this program have each received an average of RMB1-1.5 million worth of resources (approximately $230,000 USD) Visit Microsoft Ventures for more information.

Accelerators for Specialized Markets

According to Edtech Accelerators in Asia Gain Popularity, the growing popularity of entrepreneurship has propelled the rise of specialized accelerators for industry verticals such as health, finance, energy, or education. The greater diversity of verticals in accelerator programs has also motivated accelerator facilitators to include enterprises that use specialized accelerators services like outsourced R&D.

If you want to read my next post in this series check back here on my blog or follow me on LinkedIn or Twitter.

Exploring India Accelerators

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In my role as Entrepreneur in Residence at MIT and Program Director for MIT’s Global Founders’ Skill Accelerator (GFSA), I’ve been researching accelerator programs worldwide, and I thought I’d share some of that research in a series of blog posts. This is the fourth post in the series; read the other posts starting here.

Most startups in India, irrespective of the apparent strength of their products, realized that they needed external support in the form of incubators and accelerators to grow and mature. At the early stages of incubation, most of these ambitious startups simply received funding, but as business complications began to surface, the need for mentorship, expert guidance, training, even technology-enabled office space became necessary components of accelerator programs. Though differing in operational models, the accelerators and incubators share one common goal—to provide an impetus to a brilliant business idea so that the idea succeeds and sustains as a commercial venture in this competitive world.

The accelerators provide mentors, guides, and a platform to raise issues ranging from venture capitals, legal problems, to technology enablement. Most accelerators in India expect equity in a startup in return for the valuable support system they provide. The accelerator program in some cases can charge a fixed fee and no equity for all the rendered services, and considers the startup success to be their biggest reward.

Here are some future predictions for the Indian accelerator program market as outlined in the Indian media platform YourStory:

  • To expand their global reach, accelerators will launch both online and offline programs.
  • The funding will shift from early-stage companies to late-stage companies. In 2014, and 300+ Indian startups have received over $5 billion.
  • As more corporate like Microsoft, Coca Cola, or PayPal continue to set up their own accelerator programs, the corporate giants will increasingly focus on funding startups.
  • Some accelerators will experiment with venture building models.
  • More vertical accelerators will surface in the advertising, medical, and food industries.
  • Investor networks and non-profit networks will collaborate to provide support and resources to startups.
  • Under-funded or direction-less accelerators will shut down.

A recent byproduct of this growing trend of “boosted entrepreneurship” is the growth of specialized accelerators for vertical markets, such as education, finance, or health. More and more, industry-specific accelerators are filling up the Indian accelerators landscape.

There has been a sharp rise in the number of Indian accelerator programs in the last few years. The best part is that this growth has come pretty much equally in all spheres. The rising wave has left its undercurrents in all spheres of Indian business, beginning with colleges with their own incubator cells, and global accelerators like Kyron Global Accelerators have turned to the Indian market for expansions. This particular accelerator aims to fund 300 Indian startups by 2020.

This article on the Top 50 Incubators & Accelerators in India, by Truelancer, lists the top India-based incubator and accelerator programs by region, and is a great resource.

If you want to read my next post in this series check back here on my blog or follow me on LinkedIn or Twitter.

Some of the Best Academic Accelerator Programs in the U.S.

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In my role as Entrepreneur in Residence at MIT and Program Director for MIT’s Global Founders’ Skill Accelerator (GFSA), I’ve been researching accelerator programs worldwide, and I thought I’d share some of that research in a series of blog posts. This is the third post in the series; read the other posts starting here.

 MITThe accelerator community in the U.S. can be broadly divided into two segments: The accelerators owned by university campuses and the independent accelerator programs. Educational accelerators, driven by universities, bring unique capabilities and access to talent.

In my work with MIT, I’ve observed a very ambitious group that was also very aligned with the MIT community culture, which supports the teams through its educational process and ecosystem.

Naturally, I’ll start with MIT, but also highlight other excellent accelerator programs.

The Martin Trust Center at MIT has played a pivotal role in fostering a spirit of innovation and entrepreneurship among the student community. According to reported estimates at the end of 2014, 30,200 active companies were founded by living MIT alumni—employing 4.6 million people and generating annual world revenues of nearly $2 trillion. These MIT alumni startups collectively represent the 10th largest economy in the world (you can get even more stats here).

The Martin Trust Center offers a series of entrepreneurship courses for undergraduates and graduate students, hardware infrastructure, collaborative workspace, meeting rooms, videoconference system, and even coffee and snacks to inspire young innovators. The advisory panel boasting the brightest minds in the industry is available to provide guidance; while the MIT Global Founders’ Skills Accelerator (MIT GFSA) and events like Speaker Series’, Roundtable sessions, or MIT $100K competition are additional facilities to boost entrepreneurship around the campus.

The Harvard Rock Accelerator Program serves both student entrepreneurs and student investors who work together to grow and sustain a startup operation. This one-year long program offers 10-20 founding teams with each funding $8,000 in seed capital, excellent mentors, and peer exchange sessions till completion.

Stanford’s StartX Accelerator Program helps Stanford’s top entrepreneurs through a combination of empirical studies and collaborative expertise. This unique accelerator program does not charge any fee and takes zero equity from student companies. This program has managed to attract funds from leading investors like Greylock Partners and Andreessen Horowitz, boasts over 200 mentors who are field experts—including individuals from Twitter, LinkedIn, Google, and other luminaries in Silicon Valley, delivers custom education, and offers the latest technological resources.

The Babson College Butler Venture Accelerator Program has packed in seed-funding, advising, workspace, mentoring, and even self-assessments and peer support in a highly focused program. Additionally, this program includes the Glavin Office of Multicultural & International Education, where immigration attorneys offer work authorization guidelines to international students with restrictive visas.

In 6 college startup programs beyond Harvard and MIT, Beta Boston provides a roundup of some serious accelerator-program owners beyond the likes of MIT and Harvard, who offer strong accelerator programs in Massachusetts.

Does your college or university offer an accelerator program? How do you think it stacks up? Let me know below under “Leave a Reply.”

If you want to read my next post in this series check back here on my blog or follow me on LinkedIn or Twitter.