About the Program
The program rolls out for 10 consecutive weeks and consists of weekly meetings 1:1 where you (re)define areas of your business (go to market, sales&marketing, product fit etc) that we both consider important to focus on. These meetings will give you the opportunity to discuss with different experts so that you get a constructive feedback on how to make it work.
Besides these weekly diagnosis you will have tones of feedback on your product through speed meeting sessions. Throughout the program you have access to 1:1 meetings with investors and have the chance to interact with top speakers.
Our entire focus is to develop your product and predict as many challenges as possible in order to see your company scaling. Our team will make sure that you have everything that you need in order to move your company to the next stage of development.
The entire program structure will be presented to you once you get accepted in the program.
- Keeping updated with the latest trends in terms of tech startups in Romania
- Exploring different ideas with the startups they are working with. Widening their perception
- Flexibility in how to deal with their mentee
- Enhance their personal branding and PR for their own company
- Have the satisfaction of giving back to the community they are living in
- Part of an exciting acceleration program with a lot of energy and enthusiasm.
You can apply to be one of our mentors if you have what it takes. Send us an email to info@techcelerator.ro and let’s connect !
After the first selection, when we get to know each other more we offer to each startup from the program a team made out of: 1 Lead mentor and acceleration team with whom we create an informal group (for those 2 months of acceleration). We complete this group with different experts based on each startup needs.
Additionally, you will meet GapMinder partners that will follow closely your company evolution throughout the program and after it. Based on your evolution / progress in those approx. 10 weeks, you can be positively surprised at the end of the program (or even earlier) to have access to additional 50k euro.
The mentors have the role to question and explore all the areas you might have missed or to place your idea / product in a different perspective. They will share with you your professional experience from the market they are mostly active on and where they have real examples. No theory just practicality.
We assigned those mentors to challenge your idea and make you see from a wider perspective. From all those mentoring sessions you select whatever you believe it’s suitable for your company. We highly recommend that you make sure you perfectly understand the advices and don’t take it as general truths. It is your company and your decision is what matters
The mentors are romanian and international entrepreneurs (BusinessAngel or VS), people with experience in consultancy companies and management. We started collaborating with in 2014 when they were part of some of our acceleration programs (for RICAP / SPRINTPOINT)
The mentors pool is regularly updating and growing as we are constantly interested in meeting experienced entrepreneurs with expertise that matches the needs of our startups (cleantech, social media, finance, marketing, Sales) and they are willing to give back to the community.
We focus on covering whatever necessary so that your company have what it takes to take off and scale your business.
We are a team of 4 people in Bucharest and in Cluj Napoca. This is completed but the team of the Investment Fund which works closely with the accelerator team.
All the Funds’ partners are also advisors for Techcelerator program.
The Techcelerator team is a combination of different areas of professional experience. From working directly in accelerators (RICAP, SPRINTPOINT, hub:raum, VentureCup) to working for different international companies.
More about Techcelerator team: https://techcelerator.ro/our-team/
More about GapMinder team: http://gapminder.vc/our-team/
POC is a demonstration, its scope is to verify different concepts or theories with high applicability. POC is therefore a prototype which aims to determin the fesability but doesn’t have delivrable.
Generally, POC validates two things: “People need that producs” and “I have the capacity to build that product”
MVP is a development technique in which a new product is developed with enough functionalities / features to satisfy early adopters. The final product with the complete set of functionalities is drawn after a first feedback from the users.
MVP validates that “people need the product AND that they are willing to buy it”. The clients don’t see POC because it is built in-house. They can only have access to MVP and thats the product they should be willing to pay for. With an MVP product you can start production whereas in POC phase production is not an option.
Your product has to be at MVP or POC level in order to join our program.
We invite all founders with a product easy to scale at MVP or POC level (or more) to connect with us.
Because tech startup market in Romania is not matured, we accept applications from all the industries with priority: Medicine, Agriculture, Finance, Energy, Cyber security, Mobile, Digital Transformation etc.
If you don’t have a company registered in Romania you can still apply to our program but you need to register a company if you get selected (a mandatory task to get the 50k euro funding from GapMinder VC).
As an accelerator, Techcelerator (as opposed to classic incubator) offers access to funding and focuses a lot on mentoring in a short period of time. Techcelerator main role is to help your business valuation grow faster than what you could have done with your own resources. Then we offer you the possibility to get ready for next step: presenting to other VCs and Angel Investors. Therefor not only that you get access to funds but we will invest a lot of time in giving you best mentoring sessions, access to community, strategy consultancy and validation of your product.
Techcelerator is a program which comes from merging two acceleration programs with a long history of working with tech startups. The two accelerators RICAP & SPRINTPOINT have merged their teams and knowledge consisting of more than 10 year of experience in working with startups.