As our beautiful stunted mutant of a company seems to be taking roots, I am looking around for possible incubators/acceleration programmes. This is quite tricky, because they tend to cater to for-profit businesses. This wiki contains links and one-line description of programmes that might be a good match for companies as “far out” as Edgeryders LBG. Needs an Edgeryders account to be edited.
- The Unreasonable Institute. Targets both for-profit and not-for-profit businesses, but requires to demonstrate impact and have already generated at least minimal revenue. Their own revenue model is very clever and aligns their interest with that of the mentored companies: they get paid on the extra revenue generated after the acceleration program.
- ODINE. EU-funded incubator for businesses built on open data. Not interested in equity. On the other hand, not sure that they can attract solid mentors.
- GBSI Online Accelerator. Targets or-profit, non-profit, and hybrid enterprises. I think it looks interesting because you do it mainly online (only requires one trip to the US) and they seem to have a well structured program. Strengthened business model, Refined business plan, Financial plan for scaling, Organizational development, Talent management and building Operational excellence at scale. Deadline October 20.
- Ycombinator. Us based VC funded accelerator (and early stage incubator) that Targets mainly for profit tech startups. They also do early stage seed investments through a new fellowship program. It has recently started working with non-profit startups that leverage tech to disrupt how access to healthcare/food security/etc is provided to the most disadvantaged. I think they are relevant because 1) they know the tech business space really really well and we could learn a lot from participating 2) their approach separates operations and the service/product offered by the start-up, investing only in the latter which helps founders focus on the mission and product development (read interview with founder of Watsi,the first non profit startup they took in).
- Matter. US based accelerator focusing on media tech startups. They also do early stage seed investments. I think this is relevant because while many of us produce a lot of high quality content in Edgeryders, we have yet to really make good use of it to support community members work. The ability to do so sustainably requires us to come up with a viable model and these guys may be a good fit for developingg some of the ideas we have.
- CEL, they run an accelerator for startups that are testing new ideas and technologies to create positive social change. "We offer top line infrastructure and strategic support to help leaders develop their ideas into strong organizations capable of producing tangible results". Also I like the fact that they have a really simple contact form which indicates flexibility rather than a cookie cutter approach...