Description
Description (EN): Project’s background:
One of the greatest challenges in company creation is the standstill in the pre-launch phase of a startup – many teams are formed and many ideas developed at hackathons, but these mostly die out with the end of the event. This means even the teams that have developed solid ideas tend to fail as they lack the skills and support needed to make it to the commitment phase. This calls for a link that would pick up promising teams and support them in team-building and commitment. As a response, the EstLat-Accelerate project seeks to tackle these early-phase challenges by introducing a new approach in the region – pre-acceleration. Pre-acceleration programmes are usually designed to support (first-time) entrepreneurs with new ideas who are gearing up to join a full-time acceleration programme or to find other forms of seed investment, but are just not yet ready for it. As such, pre-acceleration programmes focus on the pre-seed stage, taking people from having an initial idea to having a fully formed and committed team and raising the quality of their startups (and thus their chances of survival).
As a cooperation programme that supports company creation, EstLat-Accelerate is very much in line with respective strategies in Estonia and Latvia. Startup Estonia, for example, has set a goal of reaching 1000 Estonian startups by 2020 (from the current 450 startups). Similarly, the Latvian Ministry of Economics has approved an action plan to double the number of Latvian startups within the next 3.5 years (from 240 startups). The proposed project will offer its contribution both in terms of new startups as well as testing out the pre-acceleration model that could be further replicated.
Cross-border nature:
EstLat-Accelerate seeks to test the concept of pre-acceleration jointly in Estonia and Latvia for a number of reasons. Most importantly, the project will make use of the complementary strengths that these small home markets have and encourage the creation of cross-border startup teams that have diverse skills and high internationalisation ambitions already from the start. The project will also be closely involved with the startup communities of both countries, supporting mutual information exchange and collaboration opportunities and using respective partner networks to increase the impact of the project (e.g. in terms involving highly skilled mentors and bringing more visibility to the project events and results). By the end of the project, it is expected that ca. 20 startup teams have graduated from the programme, at least 10 new startups will be registered in the programme area and a considerable contribution will be made to turning the Estonian-Latvian business environment more active and the startup communities more intertwined.
Objectives:
The main aim of EstLat-Accelerate is to prepare and carry out three pre-acceleration programmes that are jointly organised in Tartu and Riga. Each round of pre-acceleration takes ca. 4 months and has an overall ICT focus. Participants apply for the programme on an individual basis, but will form cross-border teams with complementary skills during the first phase of the programme, followed by developing their initial idea concepts into technically and commercially feasible business ideas and graduating from the programme. As such, the project’s objectives are to attract ambitious (first-time) entrepreneurs to the programme and to support them in team-building and idea validation so to prepare high-quality startup teams who are ready for pre-seed financing. On a wider level, EstLat-Accelerate seeks to strengthen the Estonian-Latvian startup ecosystem by using the partners’ strengths to create a better value offer for potential entrepreneurs, thus increasing the attractiveness of the region and supporting the image of the region as a startup hotbed.
Main activities:
Each round of the pre-acceleration programme has four distinct phases – involvement, hackathons, mentoring and graduation. In the involvement phase, efforts are focused on engaging potential entrepreneurs from both Estonia and Latvia in the programme and selecting participants for the next phase. The hackathon phase is designed to encourage cross-border team creation and to narrow down the circle of participants to teams with the most promising ideas. The teams who pass the hackathon phase are admitted to the mentoring programme, which is a series of individual meetings and joint events with highly experienced entrepreneurs and business coaches. After getting feedback to their business ideas and advancing their business models with the help of mentors, the startup teams graduate from the programme by pitching their work to potential investors at the graduation day. After graduation, the project partners will provide follow-up support to the teams regarding e.g. registering their company, preparing for fundraising, joining a full-time acceleration programme and securing additional funding from grants.
Read more Achievements (EN): The pre-acceleration program was designed to support first-time entrepreneurs, who has new ideas and are gearing up to join a full-time acceleration programme or who are looking for other forms of seed investment but are just not yet ready for it. The pre-acceleration program focused on the pre-seed stage, taking people from having an initial idea of having a fully formed and committed team and raising the quality of their startups and chances of survival.
Each round of the pre-acceleration program had four distinct phases – involvement, hackathons, mentoring, and graduation. In the involvement phase, efforts were focused on engaging potential entrepreneurs from both Estonia and Latvia in the program. The hackathon phase was designed to encourage cross-border team creation and to narrow down the circle of participants to teams with the most promising ideas. The teams who passed the application evaluation round were admitted to the mentoring program, which was a series of individual meetings and joint events with highly experienced entrepreneurs and business coaches. After getting feedback on their business ideas and advancing their business models with the help of mentors, the startup teams graduated from the program by pitching their work to potential investors on their graduation day.
The pre-acceleration program was repeated in three rounds and was supported by various communication and dissemination activities.
Main achievements:
28 joint pre-acceleration events organized (including 7 ideation workshops, 3 hackathons, 6 mentoring workshops, 3 mentoring academies, 6 graduation days, 2 study visits and 1 alumni event).
38 teams pre-accelerated through mentoring programs.
434 participants at project events.
brochure “Quick guide to acceleration” published.
The EstLat-Accelerate demonstrated the partners’ joint effort to:
increase the attractiveness and mutual synergies of the Estonian-Latvian startup scene.
provide hands-on support to potential entrepreneurs in their effort to “start-up”.
promote the willingness to cooperate across borders by supporting the creation of cross-border companies.
raise general awareness on how to do business across borders.
provide follow-up support to the participants for creating long-term cooperation opportunities.
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Website: https://old.estlat.eu/
Expected Results (EN): The share of entrepreneurs and new businesses in the region, which are ready for cross-border cooperation
Expected Outputs (EN): The proposed project offers the following contribution to the result indicators:
*Participants at project events, except management meetings – 210;
*Jointly organised events, except management meetings – 24.
The project will contribute to the result indicators in the following manner:
1) Participants at project events – ca. 70 people will be accepted at the start of each round (altogether 210), including 20 participants (altogether 60) who will pass the workshop/hackathon events and participate in the mentoring programme. The 60 participants of the mentoring programme will be supported in developing their ideas into feasible products/services and are encouraged to officially register their startup and proceed to a full-time acceleration programme. Besides the participants themselves, the graduation days will bring together coaches, mentors, investors and other entrepreneurs, in this sense increasing the number of participants even further (ca. +300 people, 50 per graduation day).
2) Jointly organized events – altogether 24 events will be organised, including 6 ideation workshops, 3 hackathons, 6 mentoring workshops, 3 mentoring academies and 6 graduation days. Thereby, the workshop and hackathon phase is open to ca. 210 participants based on their applications and the mentoring phase is meant for the most promising participants, ca. 60 potential entrepreneurs who will receive more extensive support. The graduation day will mainly attract the Estonian-Latvian startup community players, but will be open to public and thus anyone interested (e.g. in applying for the next round, in the Estonian-Latvian startup scene, in meeting the teams/mentors) will be welcome.
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Thematic information
Specific Objective:
Increased entrepreneurial cross-border cooperation in the programme area
Thematic Objective:
(03) enhancing the competitiveness of SMEs by:
Investment Priority:
(03a) promoting entrepreneurship, in particular by facilitating the economic exploitation of new ideas and fostering the creation of new firms, including through business incubators
