STAGE 3: INCUBATION & ACCELERATION Western Australia has seen an increasing number of pre-accelerator programs, accelerators, seed accelerators and incubators launch in the last three years. In this report we define an accelerator as a structured program to help innovative early stage companies swiftly come to market. They generally provide mentoring, structured programs (often of 3 to 6 month duration) and provide opportunities for potential investors to meet startups - generally in the form of a 'demo day'. Startup teams must apply to attend. We differentiate accelerators from seed-accelerators in that seed-accelerators provide seed funding for companies that attend the program. this is often in the range of $20,000 to $150,000 for a small portion of equity. In this report we define an incubator as an unstructured program and environment for developing innovative early stage companies. As with accelerators mentoring and administrative assistance can be provided, and investment may or may not be involved. In Israel seed-incubators are a common model, and in the USA seed-accelerators are increasingly favoured. RAC SEEDSPARK 1 ST Seed-fund startup accelerator in WA Launched in 2014 by the RAC and led by Jamin Hirte and Nathan Sturcke (RAC) in partnership with Spacecubed, SeedSpark is WA’s first corporate accelerator program providing seedfunding for Western Australia startups. In its first run in September 2014, 220+ startups entered a 5 week selection and education process, of which 3 ideas were awarded $42,500 and their teams entered into an 8 week RAC-supported accelerator program. SeedSpark returned in October 2015, this time involving RAC’s 820,000 members in the selection process and with $60,000 in funding. In a demonstration of how the local startup ecosystem is honing skills and reinforcing itself, two of the three first year SeedSpark winners had been successful graduates of the Founder Institute Perth. FUSION FOUNDERS PROGRAM 32 Investable tech businessess The Fusion Founder Program, developed by the investor-led startup studio Atomic Sky was founded in 2012 by Andy Lamb and Simon Macfarlane and is an intensive 3 month business building program for tech startups run at Atomic Sky. Aimed at building the capability of founders, the program brings together experienced entrepreneur and industry mentors, guest speakers, in-house workshops, collaboration sessions and startup seminars for the 8 startups participating in each cohort. The program includes membership of TechHub and access to a mentor network, discounted software development, hosting credits and marketing and PR services. By the end of the program, a founder should be able to present a viable, investable business to potential clients and investors. AMCOM UPSTART $320K Investment in first tech startup cohort Launched in early 2015 with the support of Amcom, Upstart was the first tech accelerator in WA and first to provide seed funding in return for equity. The program was founded by Robert Nathan (eGroup WA) and Tony Grist (Amcom Chair) and offered $40,000 in return for an 8% equity stake. It ran for 13 weeks at Spacecubed with 8 startups and 32 mentors, including local VCs Rob Newman and Matt Macfarlane as lead mentors, investing $320,000 in total in its first cohort. Fact: 25% of startup founders in the first cohort were women and 25% were French! FOUNDERS INSTITUTE 15 Founder Institute graduates The Founder Institute is a leading global idea-stage accelerator program to support the development of tech startup businesses across the world by providing high-potential entrepreneurs with a Silicon Valley developed curriculum and mentorship. The Perth chapter was launched in 2013 by Directors Claire McGregor and Dash Dhakshinamoorthy and graduated 15 startups in 2013 and 2014 through its 4 month program. It maintains a network of 20-40 experienced mentors per semester. A Directors’ Prize is awarded to send a founder at the end of each semester to Silicon Valley for 10 days to attend Founder Lab, which follows on from the Founder Institute and links founders to venture capitalists and advisors on the global stage. Andrew Hall and Kirsten Rose are the 2015 Perth Directors. START SOMETHING 37 Deep research ideas mobilised Start Something is a pilot activity of UWA’s new Innovation Quarter (IQ), an initiative to foster innovation, industry engagement and entrepreneurship for students, staff and the wider community. Developed in partnership with Peter Rossdeutscher (Innovation Cluster) and with content provided and implemented by Atomic Sky, the program is designed to build researcher and post-graduate student entrepreneurship capability and build up the skills needed to commercialise their research and better engage with industry. 122 researchers attended Start Something’s first commercialisation seminars, with 37 researchers completing the commercialisation workshops with a focus on social impact, sciences, engineering and technology, with 3 prize-winners. It is intended to extend the program to other universities and research organisations. CURTIN ACCELERATE $20K Four researcher startups launched Curtin Accelerate is Curtin University’s annual program run over 11 weeks to support first-time entrepreneurs develop their earl stage innovative business idea. It is open to students, staff and Curtin University alumni. In 2015, 4 teams were selected to commercialise their ideas, receive mentorship, access to work space, industry networks and receive $5,000 in equity-free grant funding. Teams then pitch their developed ideas at a Demo Day to potential investors. The first round concluded in March 2014 and was run by Jeremy Lu (GroupMap); the developed businesses included a flexible work skills program, development of precision agriculture algorithms, a system to insert referees into job applications, and the synthesising of a quad copter with a jump jet for drones. A second round launched in October 2015 and will be be run by VC Matt MacFarlane (Yuwaa Capital) in 2016. 24
“ <strong>STARTUP</strong>S BEGET <strong>STARTUP</strong>S. PEOPLE WHO WORK FOR <strong>STARTUP</strong>S START THEIR OWN. PEOPLE WHO GET RICH FROM <strong>STARTUP</strong>S FUND NEW ONES. I SUSPECT THIS KIND OF ORGANIC GROWTH IS THE ONLY WAY TO PRODUCE A <strong>STARTUP</strong> HUB, BECAUSE IT’S THE ONLY WAY TO GROW THE EXPERTISE YOU NEED.” 45 PAUL GRAHAM FOUNDER, YCOMBINATOR
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