Can an enterprise accelerator be a winner?

[David White]

Accelerators are playing an increasingly important role in the global startup community, and Southeast Asia is no exception. Accelerators have great potential to benefit startups, but it depends on each accelerator plan.

In the past five years, I have completed a total of six accelerator programs for the two startups I created. (My current startup Pand.ai specializes in conversational artificial intelligence or AI for financial services.) These experiences led me to six different markets, namely China, Switzerland, Malaysia, United Arab Emirates, Thailand and Taiwan.

Participation in these programs is part of my strategy to enter the market, so I carefully avoided proposals to provide seed funding in exchange for a minority stake. My experience is mostly positive, and I hope to provide some practical suggestions for entrepreneurs who want to join the accelerator.

Entrepreneurship accelerators are different from other institutions that support early entrepreneurship because they provide education, mentoring, and financing for a fixed amount of time. The goal is to kick-start the life cycle of these young companies and condense their knowledge and experience to just a few months.

Overall, there are currently three types of accelerators in Southeast Asia: micro venture capital (VC) funds, transition platforms, and enterprise accelerators.

The launch accelerator is a structure imported from the United States and is still a relatively unfamiliar concept in Southeast Asia. The early startup accelerator program was modeled on Silicon Valley's Y Combinator, which is a legendary accelerator that produces unicorns such as Airbnb and Dropbox.

They operate like micro-VC funds, they choose early startups or individuals and propose to invest a symbolic amount, usually ranging from $ 20,000 to $ 120,000, in exchange for about 6% to 8% equity.

In addition to funding, the founders participating in these accelerators also received mentoring and education. This is to prepare them for the "Demonstration Day", where the startup will be shown to potential investors. Once the startup has raised subsequent funding, these accelerators can successfully exit.

Personally, I find that business-to-consumer (B2C) startups often benefit more from this particular accelerator. Although its business model is not wrong, it requires the accelerator to have a strong operator that can guide inexperienced founders.

Y Combinator was founded by serial entrepreneur Paul Graham and later run by another successful serial entrepreneur Sam Altman, but in Southeast Asia, most of these accelerators are civil servants, corporate citizens, financiers or unverified businesses Home run, they have almost no successful experience. Painted in.

Because these accelerators often lack experience and strong operators in Southeast Asia, it's best to treat them as purely financial investors to help startups.

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