Our seed accelerators and founder programs are some of the most highly-sought after startup programs globally.
Community: Starting a company is solitary and challenging. Working with other people going through the same challenges makes a huge difference. Founders who’ve gone through our program tell us that the Spacelb community is extremely valuable.
Advice: Starting a company is solitary. Working with your peers going through the same challenges makes a huge difference.
Curriculum: spacelb brings in a wide variety of experts focused on marketing, culture, startup accounting, product design, sales, finance, and more. Think a Startup MBA on steroids
Support: We’ll work together on your business and product strategy, growth metrics and investor pitches.
Network: You’ll have access to founders, mentors and our own staff. Thanks to our massive network, startups build relationships and partnerships that wouldn’t be possible at their size without spacelb. Need an intro to a customer? Early access to a new platform feature? API access blocked? Stuck at the border? We have connections.
Money: Being a spacelb Startups company will validate your business, and our network will help you connect with investors when the time is right.
SpaceLb accelerators have one goal: to help entrepreneurs succeed. During each four-month program, we surround companies with the best mentors and an unrivaled network of corporate partners, investors, and alumni. We provide funding and fundraising opportunities, workshops and curated resources, not to mention countless moments where you can learn from your peers. It’s a proven model that’s helped build thousands of successful companies, all over the world.
You may be wondering: what kind of companies does spacelb invest in? And what stage are they typically at?
Short answer: It doesn’t matter what kind of stage you’re at — as long as you’re ready to accelerate your company, and you have good answers for these key questions:
We’ve accelerated teams that came into our programs with zero revenue, and we’ve also accelerated teams that came in with millions of dollars in revenue. The common thread between all those companies is the stellar founders, who could prove that they were the best people for the job, and that there was a real market that they could capture.
Later in the process, we’ll want to get to know you and understand why you think your team has the unfair advantage over all the other companies out there. Spacelb wants to see what you’ve accomplished in the past, how long the team has been together, and how well you work together.
We base our decision-making on the following criteria (ranked in order of importance), when we’re going through the selection process to pick the 10 companies we’ll work with in each program:
The big takeaway here is that the ‘team’ component is the most important. Out of the applications we receive, the ones that stand out showcase a team that has what it takes to get the job done. So whether it’s their first time as founders straight out of college or much later on in their life — or anywhere in between — it’s really about the individuals themselves, and how they demonstrate their persistence, their ability to learn, and why they’re the best people to make this particular company succeed.
"Market" means: is there a sizable market right now? It’s not just about how big the market appears to be but is now the right time to enter it? What signals have you identified that it’s growing or will be in the future?
Traction can be many different things. You don’t necessarily need to have revenue, paying customers, or even signups — but you must have some form of validation that you’re building something people want. Perhaps that’s a prototype, survey responses that validate your core assumption, or interest from corporations who want your solution to their problem.
And then there’s the idea. It may be the least important of the six, but it’s still important. More important, however, is the fact that ideas can change over time based on data and feedback. We’ve seen companies pivot during the program — especially during the COVID-19 pandemic or other moments of sudden change.
Applications for spacelb open six times a year. We’re constantly talking with founders — before applications open, while applications are open, and of course throughout the interview process. We encourage you to get in touch well before applications close for the program you are interested in so we can get to know you more thoroughly, and so that you can have the best possible experience with the application process.
Here Are Some Ways For Us To Connect:
How To Prepare For Office Hours
Office hours are an opportunity for you to share details of what you're working on with spacelb staff, get feedback, and learn more about our mentorship-driven accelerators.
What you want to avoid is asking questions about things that are already available online. The 15 to 30 minutes will go extremely fast, and you want to spend that time helping us get to know you, your team, and your product.
Please note: The request for office hours is in fact a request. While we would love to meet with everyone, we have limited slots available. If office hour slots are filled, you will still be able to Apply, meet us in person at any of our Meet and Greets, attend a Virtual Meet and Greet. Or you may want to consider Office Hours with another one of our mentorship-driven accelerators.
If your request is accepted, the accelerator staff will send you their calendar booking link with details to meet virtually or in person.
We Will run many accelerators during the year. Some are city programs, enmeshed in the local startup ecosystem, and some partner with major corporations to provide deep industry expertise and opportunities. With so many options, choosing the right accelerator for you and your company can feel overwhelming.
Spacelb staff work together extremely closely on accelerator applications. We strongly recommend that you sign up for office hours before you apply, so that we can help direct you to the programs that will be a good fit for you.
Each term you can apply to one program and select a second choice. Plus, during the application review process, we’ll recommend other spacelb accelerators to you if we think you’re a better fit for another program.
You can find all FAQ here
At pre-seed we like to lead your round and will set the terms. We can bring in other angels at this stage if you need additional capital to get you off the ground. At seed stage, we look to another investor to lead the round and will naturally follow their terms.
We lead your pre-seed round with an investment depending on the project, usually in exchange for an ownership stake.
We've broken down all the stages of our pre-seed investment process, so you can see exactly how it works. From initial submission, we'll aim to get back to you within a couple of weeks if we are interested in taking you through to the next round of our investment process.
We are generally the first capital into the majority of our companies to date. These companies have ranged from prototype to pre-launch to launch and even post revenue. We appreciate different businesses are at different stages when they learn about us. But from the point you have a prototype (pre-revenue) through to when you have early revenue, we are happy to learn more about what you do and consider you for investment. If you think you are at a point in the business at which xxx’s platform of support can really help you step up your plans, then it’s likely the time we should invest. This is really our sweet spot for providing rocket fuel for startups on their journey ahead.
For pre-seed (where we usually lead the round), we like to use documents based largely on the standard spacelb terms that we helped co-ordinate with the help of many other investors in the eco-system.
Successful companies, in our experience, come in many different shapes and sizes, but have a few attributes in common at the early stage. These include: the quality of the founding team, how well they’ve considered their customer, the market size of their opportunity and their customers’ challenges, how this represents itself in the product they’ve created, and lastly how much funding is required to really demonstrate product market fit. The better articulated the above points are, the more comfort we feel in whether we can deliver value to the founding team.
