Startupbootcamp Mini-accelerator in Cape Town

Whip your start-up venture into top-notch, investor-ready shape at Europe’s leading accelerator’s free small business bootcamp

If your start-up venture is chugging along just fine and gaining momentum, but still needs the necessary boost to take it from a small-scale passion project to global success story, then listen up!  The award-winning international accelerator programme Startupbootcamp will be hosting a special Cape Town event on Friday, 13 March 2015 at the V&A Waterfront’s OPEN in Workshop 17 (upstairs in the Watershed buidling) that’s aimed at getting your project whipped into shape and making it even more attractive for potential investors.

The one-day mini-session will kick off the organisation’s future launch in South Africa and differs from its standard 3-month programme  as it, according to co-founder Marc Wesselink, “is not about getting investment, but about learning to make and grow a business”. 

More specifically, the mini-Startupbootcamps (there’s also one in Johannesburg on 10 March) will help entrepreneurs hone their pitching skills, obtain a better understanding of business modelling and network with top corporates and investors. 

“With mini-Startupbootcamps we want to show our potential partners what we can do in one day and let them imagine what we could do in three months - it’s a way for us to get to know a few of the start-ups before launching [full] accelerators,” clarifies Marc.

Founded in Copenhagen in 2010, Startupbootcamp is a global network of industry focused start-up accelerators that, as  Marc asserts, “take start-ups global by giving them direct access to an international network of the most relevant partners, investors and mentors in their sector”. If you’re wondering how, well the organisation, which won the Best Startup Accelerator award at the 2014 Europas, makes use of a 3-month process that focuses on exposing and connecting small- to medium sized enterprises and tech-related ventures to their expanding community of top-level mentors and advisors. At the end of the programme, start-ups get a chance to pitch to major investors and venture capitalists for funding at the so-called Investors’ Demo Day.  In that way they have accelerated 220 companies in the last four years and today are scaling up to 110 companies per year.

*Startups & Startupbootcamp Team, June 2014 Amsterdam Class on Demo Day

HOW TO APPLY FOR THE 2015 STARTUPBOOTCAMP MINI-ACCELERATOR IN CAPE TOWN

Applications for the mini-bootcamp can be done online and there is no fee.

Entries close on 3 March, and successful pitchers will be notified a week after the closing date.

According to the organisers, ideal start-ups for the mini-accelerator are those SMEs or tech-related ventures that are a maximum of two years old and that already have a Minimum Viable Product (must also already have customers and be pre-revenue).

Do note: Startupbootcamp will only be accepting five start-ups per mini-bootcamp in South Africa, and it is a closed event.    

Didn’t make the cut for the StartupBootCamp mini- accelerator?  Fear not, here are some tech networking events and conferences in Cape Town that can help you out!

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