It was the year 2005 when Y Combinator, the world’s pioneering startup accelerator, introduced its first generation of startups. Among other companies in this group was Reddit, and it would be followed in years to come by other authentic unicorns such as Airbnb, Dropbox, Coinbase, Stripe and many more. 

Just five years later, Valencia – and Spain – saw the birth of its first startup accelerator: Bbooster. Although today it has been renamed as Draper B1 and is focused on venture capital, Valencian entrepreneur Enrique Penichet’s initiative has paved the way for entities such as the Plug and Play Tech Center, Lanzadera, GoHub, Demium, Innsomnia, KM Zero, Social Nest Foundation and others, which earned our ecosystem the deserved reputation of ‘city of accelerators’. 

Essentially, the definition of a startup accelerator can be narrowed down to the following sentence: ‘an organisation that supports early-stage business projects through a mentoring program spanning a fixed period of time, with the ultimate goal of facilitating access to investment’. 

Demium is one of the accelerators in Valencia with a slightly different model. Starting off as a startup incubator, it focused on attracting potential entrepreneurs whether they had a business idea or not. Nowadays it defines itself as a ‘Talent Investor‘, according to its marketing manager María Balaguer. 

“In 2020 we founded Think Bigger Capital, our ‘Asset Management Company’, which invests the first 100,000€ ticket in companies approved by its investment committee, with the possibility of investing up to 500,000€ more in following rounds. This way we accompany our entrepreneurs in all the initial stages”, explains Balaguer. 

Demium evolved to become a hybrid of acceleration and investment. “With Think Bigger Capital we have opened a new acceleration line with which we attract projects with already defined ideas and add value to them through our new program of strategy acceleration and access to the investment fund”. However, the essence is still “to teach them to think and establish a mindset based on Lean Startup concepts and agile methodologies, so that they can have their own criteria to accompany them throughout their professional life”, says Balaguer.

“In our 6-month program, we have mentors and collaborators with plenty of experience to teach them about the dos and don’ts. We help them create a network and work in a team. Looking after and empowering the Demium Family is one of our greatest assets”, affirms the accelerator. 

“Accelerators have to be at the service of what entrepreneurs and startups need and they, in turn, have to be at the service of what the market demands. The world is changing, and we are experiencing a new revolution, a technological revolution. In this respect, startups play a fundamental role. Everyday there is more and better talent interested in entrepreneurship and many projects are needed to shape the new reality we are experiencing.” 

startup accelerators

 

Regarding how they imagine the accelerators of the future, at Demium they believe that “they will have to be able to respond to the needs of startups and work together with third parties to enhance synergies with other agents more than ever.”

 

Access to corporate and specialisation, the winning formula

In order to solve the challenges facing large companies, the specialisation and technological depth of the solutions provided by startups are differential elements. “Artificial intelligence, the internet of things, 5G connectivity, augmented reality, and cybersecurity encompass the technologies that help us analyse, predict, and make more efficient decisions,” the director of GoHub Patricia Pastor recently told us regarding ‘deep tech’ solutions. 

At Plug and Play they also focus their efforts on the startup + corporate binomial. The Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm, whose Valencian headquarters represents its European base, highlights in its value proposition the ease of connecting its accelerated companies with a network of more than 600 corporate partners from multiple industries (Zurich, Generali, Burger King, Pepsico, L´Oréal, Nike, Red Bull…). In addition to the traditional investment model, these potential connections are also carried out from their own innovation platform: Playbook. 

On the other hand, Lanzadera began its activity back in 2013. The accelerator was launched by Juan Roig who, according to ‘Success Story: Mercadona’ by journalist Javier Alfonso, was convinced to do so after reading ‘Startup Nation’. Since its creation, it has supported more than 900 startups that have obtained more than 350€ million in investment. And it keeps reinventing itself, the latest example being the pop-up store recently opened in a shopping centre.

Its general manager, Javier Jiménez, helps us understand that transition between the initial, current and future models. “Lanzadera is growing and in order to support more startups in each sector we have also had to increase resources, expand the team, incorporate new profiles and rely on experts and large corporations that are very good in their sectors, in order to guarantee high-quality mentorships that are as profitable as possible for entrepreneurs.” 

In fact, programs in collaboration with large companies are one of the twists in Lanzadera’s path. “These collaborations are the open innovation program that large companies are betting on to develop innovation strategies together with startups,” explains Jiménez. “It is about corporations defining an open innovation challenge for startups to solve through proofs of concept”, an approach that entities such as IBM, Acciona, Glovo, PlayStation have already joined. “In 10 years’ time, Lanzadera plans to adapt to the needs of the entrepreneurial ecosystem, contributing where it is useful but without losing the mission of mentoring and supporting startups for them to grow, generate jobs and employment in their environment and do so with a solid foundation and a good management model. That is the philosophy that we will always maintain”, concludes its general manager.

Wayra is another accelerator that stands out at the national level in this field, focusing on innovative projects related to major global trends such as artificial intelligence, fintech, health and wellness, and sustainability. In 2021, Telefónica’s startups division invested a total of 2.7€ million in 19 startups that will have the opportunity to reach millions of customers and scale along with the operator. 

FI Boost, which accelerates B2B startups and prepares a match for them with corporate clients, also has its sights set on the startup-company connection. “The accelerator must seek differentiation in order to be chosen by the startup,” says its representative Lluís Costa. 

Based on the examples analysed, there is no doubt that the future of accelerators lies in facilitating startup-company cooperation.

 

 

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