What happens at Cicada GrowLab
“At GrowLab, we help founders build our future food system.”
We get asked all the time ‘what exactly will we do in GrowLab’? So we are lifting the veil and giving you a peek into what happens during our agrifood tech accelerator GrowLab. This is the story of how we work with a select group of six high potential pre-seed stage agri and food tech startups each year.
The program
GrowLab is a national program, open to participants from across Australia — in fact, we’ve had companies from Israel and the US go through our program.
Our unashamed focus over the relative short time of the program is to supercharge each by distilling and accelerating the early-stage business fundamentals that is so critical to get right (but often not). And as a vertically focused deep tech accelerator, we have the ability to go very deep into subject matter that specific to your industry whether that be content or connections.
So how do we go about that? Here’s a rundown of what goes on during that time.
We split the GrowLab experience in half, with the first 12 weeks being far more structured and culminating in a demo day, and the second 12 weeks providing the space and support to ‘do what they said they would’ avoiding that sense of falling off the post-accelerator cliff!
What an average week looks like
Ok, so there aren’t many “average” weeks, but those that are look something like this:
Here’s what each of these sessions will look like:
Weekly 1:1
Every week, each team has a 30 minute check-in with the program manager on their goals, progress and blockers. This is a short, sharp session to make sure you have the right mentors to help you with whatever you need and keep on track with priorities.
Weekly all hands
Every Monday, all of the GrowLab and MedLab companies gather together, here we do three things:
- Share and celebrate any big wins also share the big challenges to let the collective brainpower of twelve deeptech startups lean in to help.
- Awards for best hustle and most resourceful.
- Ask for help with whatever you need to reach your goals, this should be crystallised in the 30 minute 1:1 with the program manager earlier in the day.
Content Session
Each week we have a content in which an expert will come and teach all of the GrowLab (and MedLab companies!) about a key skill. From building a team, to distribution in ag, to food regulation to raising venture capital funding, to IP strategy and many more. These sessions will give you the basis of everything you need to know to build an outstanding agtech or foodtech startup.
Week 1–8
Building a great company serving farmers or food industries is a hard thing to do from our home base in Sydney, so we spend a few weeks of the program based out of regional centres to get to know our customers better than ever.
To kick things off we will head out to Gunnedah’s AgQuip to spend a few days with all of the GrowLab companies together getting to know each other, setting your goals for the next 12 weeks and, of course, spending plenty of time at AgQuip. We’ll grab a house for all of us to stay in, we’ll eat, sleep and work hard in the house together.
Then, from week two things settle into the regular weekly rhythm, as we work with you connecting you to mentors and pushing you towards the goals you set way back in the first week. This will be the time when you can put your head down and work on the business.
Around week 6 we will head out to Moree to spend a week hands on in the community, you will have a chance to spend a couple of days hands on in the farming system of your choice. Whether it’s cropping, horticulture or livestock you are targeting you’ll get to grips with the reality of being an Australian farmer.
Week 10–12 Pitching, pitching, pitching
With the last few weeks of the structured part of GrowLab our attention turns to absolutely nailing the pitches. We’ll have three weekly pitch practice sessions, this will take up a big chunk of your time for the last few weeks. We’ll mix things up by having the MedLab companies join for some of the pitch practices so you won’t be seeing the same pitches a dozen times!
Week 12 — Investor-only Demo Day
The structured part of GrowLab ends with an invite only demo day, alongside our friends from MedLab. You will be pitching to a select room of Australia’s leading deep tech investors.
Week 13 — Festival of Deep Tech
To celebrate everything you’ve achieved you’ll have the chance to show off you and your company at Cicada’s first Festival of Deeptech. With over 1,000 attendees expected over the day, you’ll meet lots of future hires, partners, journalists and suppliers all in one convenient place. In the evening all of the GrowLab teams will showcase the amazing things they have achieved, all for an audience of 400+ people.
Week 14–24
For the remainder of GrowLab you’ll continue to have access to all of the amazing facilities at Cicada. From rapid prototyping in our Engine Shop to the share office spaces, meeting rooms and, of course, all of the wonderful community events. You’ll still have plenty of access to the mentors and GrowLab program team during this time. Here’s your chance to do all of the things you’ve planned during the past three months.
One thing that should be clear — it’s hard. Our purpose is to accelerate you — not just your business progress, but your thinking, the way you learn, to create new good working habits that scale beyond GrowLab.
Sometimes it will be hard, some teams will fail others will succeed way beyond their own expectations. It’s our job at GrowLab to surround you with all of the resources you need to be successful, or to expose any weaknesses so they can be fixed. Being part of GrowLab won’t be easy, but it will place a rocket under you as you for Mr Market.
