Startmate Accelerator Program (Australia and New Zealand)

What is the Startmate Accelerator?

• Put simply, they help you grow your early stage company much, much faster. You’ll spend 12 weeks laser-focused on your customer, building the best product and setting the foundations you need for exponential growth.
  • Founders/peers who will become some of the most important people in your founding journey.
  • Mentors who can unlock you, connect you, define your focus and keep you on track.
  • Clear and simple – $120k, no hooks or surprises – and a bulletproof path to raising.
  • Access to thousands of pre-vetted, talented operators hungry to join a high-growth startup

How do they give you an unfair advantage?

• Their belief in you changes what you (and others) think you’re capable of.
  • They hear it time and time again: having someone who sees something in you that no one else does is a powerful ambition raiser. They’ll push you, but they’ll also be your biggest champions forever – they’ll continue to invest in you every time you raise through their auto-deploy Continuity fund. Having the Startmate brand behind you will be a stamp of approval to every potential investor or employee you meet.
• Relentless focus on what is most important
  • The Accelerator is defined by customer obsession. You’ll spend 12 weeks having some of the most pivotal conversations of your startup’s life. You’ll be laser focused on listening, learning and building a product that your customers really, really want.
• Founders need other founders
  • Being a founder can be incredibly lonely. The most powerful thing that will happen to you at Startmate is that you’ll work alongside some of the most ambitious founders of this generation who are facing the same challenges you are. These founders will become some of the most important people in your journey.
• They invest in your potential
  • You’re never too early. You can be pre-product, pre-customers, pre-revenue – they’re here for it. They’re industry agnostic, they don’t care about your CV, and they have one of the most gender-diverse portfolios in ANZ (40% women co-founded companies across the last 6 cohorts).
• World-class mentors in your corner
  • Their mentors invest their own money in the fund that directly invests in you, meaning they will run through brick walls to see you succeed. You’ll have a squad of mentors who are deeply connected with the problem you’re solving.
• You’ll stand on the shoulders of the best startup community in ANZ
  • They’ve curated a community of 3,500+ of ANZ’s best founders, operators and investors. You’ll plug in to the very centre of this universe. Your unfair advantage is that you’ll get the first pick of the best fresh talent through their fellowships and a warm intro to any VC, angel investor, or mentor you need.

Eligibility Criteria

• They’re industry agnostic.
  • They’ve invested in companies spanning an insanely diverse range of industries. From ed-tech, health-tech, prop-tech and climate-tech to space-tech, fin-tech and legal-tech.
• You’re never too early.
  • 67% of Accelerator companies had no revenue when they applied and every cohort has had at least one company that is idea-stage and pre-MVP.
• They strive for equal representation.
  • Diversity builds smarter solutions. Since 2021, 40% of their companies have 1 or more women co-founders.
• Their goal is to find and fund the most ambitious early-stage founders in ANZ. This means they invest in pre-product founders. Generally, their early-stage founders usually meet at least one of the following criteria:
  • Have a problem they want to solve & are ready to go full-time
  • Started building an MVP or proof of concept
  • Have built an MVP or proof of concept
  • Have paying customers
  • Are pre-Series A
• To be selected for the Startmate accelerator, at least one of your co-founders need to be working on the startup full time.

For more information, visit Startmate.