Early stage B2B startups from Ukraine and other Eastern European countries are invited to apply for a three-month Startup Wise Guys acceleration program, which will take place this spring in Tallinn.
Twenty-five pre-selected teams will participate in three-day finals on February 20-22 in Tallinn. The program will include more than 20 one-on-one mentor and investor meetings, as well as business training.
After the finals, the acceleration program for 11 selected startups will start on March 13. In Tallinn, teams will benefit from intensive business training and meetings with over 150 international mentors to shape their business model, build their products, get their first paying customers and sell their ideas to investors.
Each startup will receive seed investment of €20,000.
Currently, the program has the largest budget so far. The total of €389,000 has been raised on the Funderbeam public crowdfunding platform from more than 120 investors. This makes it the first accelerator in Europe to raise funding via public equity crowdfunding, according to the organizers.
“This means the ability to have even better content of the business training curriculum and access to some of the best investor meetups in the CEE region,” comments Cristobal Alonso, global CEO of Startup Wise Guys.
“We are looking for B2B startups that have already some traction or minimum viable product, but what we are seeking even more are great teams that have what it takes, are ready to sweat and suffer to make their dreams come true. If you are a founder of B2B startup, don’t hesitate and join the Startup Wise Guys family for probably the best 3 months in your business journey!” he adds.
December 2016 marked the first exit of Startup Wise Guys portfolio company: Estonia-based startup VitalFields was acquired by a large US corporation. The portfolio also includes such startups as Wolfprint, Investly, Sorry as a Service, Leaf.fm, Sport ID, Shipitwise, and other companies which have been valued at above two million euros and raised more than €500,000 in funding.
“Startup Wise Guys is the best program in the world! When I become an investor, I’ll only be investing in companies that graduate from business accelerators,” says Sandis Kondrats, CEO of Anatomy Next, Latvian startup from previous batch that has already raised €300,000 in funding less than a month after graduating from Startup Wise Guys program.
In an effort to bring value and boost startup ecosystem in the countries neighbouring the Baltic region, Startup Wise Guys has launched a roadshow of events for startups in Tallinn, Vilnius, Kaunas, Budapest, Kyiv (Kiev), Belgrade, Zagreb, Riga, Warsaw and Bucharest. As part of the events, startups will get mentoring on their business models and pitches, as well as participate in local pitch battles to get fast-track to Startup Wise Guys finals for the next batch.
Startup Wise Guys is a leading B2B startup accelerator in Europe and among top ten investors in the Nordic region.
Remarkably, for previous program in Riga Ukrainian startups were the second most active to sign up, after local Latvian startups
- Please click here to apply (till January 31). For further information please contact Zane Bojāre at zane@startupwiseguys.com or by phone (+37129706733).
