Scaling and Growing the World’s Most Interconnected Startup Community
This article is a sequel to our earlier publication, Building the World’s Most Interconnected Startup Community which entails Startup Grind’s move to a virtual community and how we built what is now one of the most widely spread global virtual startup communities in the world.
In May 2020 we started our Startup Membership, an online community of startup’s from across the globe coming together on one platform and getting the education, opportunities, and access they need to build, grow, and scale with the support of Startup Grind and it’s global network.
Today, we have 3,825 startups from across 109 countries and 47 unique industries which are part of this membership. Since the membership was launched, we have made 1743 double opt-in investor & mentor introductions for our startup members, conducted close to 100 educational events & roundtable discussions, provided value to our members in numerous ways like providing them with widespread media exposure, connecting them with mentors, promoting their products to our community, etc.
While providing support through all these initiatives, we were constantly looking to find new ways to educate and inspire the startups in our membership. We are an inclusive community and strongly believe in the idea of making friends and learning from each other. Extending this to our membership, we started industry-focused chapters, which would be a channel for members from the same industry to come together and engage in specialized discussions. And the best part… These chapters are run by top startup founders who are part of our Startup Membership!
Industry Chapters
We recently launched 4 Industry Chapters for members. Industry Chapters are groups that are run by thought leaders in that particular industry and host monthly virtual events with speakers and facilitate networking to bring the members of the industry together. As a matter of fact, all the chapter directors of these industry chapters are the founders of some of the best startups from within our membership. The Chapter Directors run monthly events in four different industries. We started off with B2B SaaS and FinTech chapters to test out the program. Upon their success, we also started an AI chapter and our newest addition is an EduTech chapter which will be hosting its first event very soon!
Interestingly enough, the speaker of the Fin-tech chapters’ next event met the chapter director through Startup Grind’s investor matchmaking process. Even though the connection didn’t fulfill its initial purpose, they stayed in touch and ended up collaborating in another way!
You can check out the chapters and learn more about them on the Industry Chapters page here.
We live in a dynamic world with ever-changing trends and to keep our membership tandem with these changes, and keeping our members engaged, it is essential to come up with new ways of interacting with our startups and delivering value to them. That’s where our quarterly startup summits come in.
Quarterly Startup Summits
While the Startup Membership is an ongoing program with which startups gain value and interact all year round, this year, we have started conducting quarterly Startup Summits which are essentially 1 day-long boot camps. We group the startups into cohorts called ‘Accelerate’, each cohort associated with one Startup Summit. During the summit, the Accelerate startups engage in a host of different activities and events such as tailored roundtable discussions, exclusive keynotes & workshops, pitching opportunities in front of 100’s of conference attendees, investor matchmaking, Demo Day participation, etc.
The first of these quarterly summits came earlier this year in February in tandem with our Global Conference. The massive success of this event led us to hold another summit, bigger and better than last time. This time it was linked to our Europe Conference and it didn’t disappoint.
In addition to the thousands of startup members who were invited to this summit, 77 startups were selected for Accelerate. These startups were matched with investors in our investor program and over 150 double opt-in introductions were made over 1 week. The Accelerate startups also got pitch opportunities, exhibition booths, dedicated medium features, Demo Day selection which you’ll read more about soon, and much more!
Quickfire Demo Day
On the 30th of June, we hosted our second Demo Day, a pitch competition in which the 10 best startups from the current Accelerate cohort go up against each other giving high-pressure quickfire pitches followed by a rebuttal session with the judges.
This time, we had 10 startups from across the US, UK, Spain, Estonia, and Canada pitching in front of an audience of over 100 VCs and angel investors and our three esteemed judges, Christie Pitts, Jillian Cohn, and Naeem Raza.
The startups were judged based on the quality of their pitches, how clearly they were able to explain their product/service, and also, their Q&A with the judges. The competition at both our Demo Day’s was so intense that for a second time in a row, we ended up having a tie for second place. While the runners-up title was shared between GoCoach and Cledara, Otis AI was declared the winner of this time’s Demo Day!
Below, you can find this list of all the startups which pitched at the Demo Day. If you’d like to connect with any of the founders, email me at aayush@startupgrind.com
Demo Day Startups
There were 67 more startups that were part of our Accelerate Cohort at the Summit. You can check them out here and of course, happy to connect you with the founders.
Winner- Otis AI
United States | Artificial Intelligence | Founder: Miguel Guerrero
Unless your digital marketing assistant uses AI, Otis is not your typical marketing assistant. Designed for small businesses, Otis harnesses the power of artificial intelligence and first-party customer data to maximize digital ad performance. Their mobile-first digital marketing solution is designed to deliver results by automating your publishing, tracking, and optimization efforts.
You can check out their product on their website here- Otis AI
Runners up- Cledara
United Kingdom | Fintech / Finance | Founder: Brad van Leeuwen
It’s common for businesses to feel overwhelmed when it comes to managing SaaS, but Cledara aims to simplify the whole process from start to finish. Their platform helps companies manage, control, and automate their SaaS so that they can scale operational processes, comply with regulations, and save money. You don’t need more sass in your life, you need Cledara.
Runners up- GoCoach
United States | Education | Founder: Kristy McCann Flynn
GoCoach has a team of coaches from all industries who are on a mission to teach hard and soft skills to young professionals. From entry-level accountants to experienced HR managers, there’s coaching for everyone to be found at GoCoach.
8Chilli
United States | Healthcare | Founder: Aravind Upadhyaya
Democratising access to surgical training around the world via 3D interactive immersive experiential training and in doing so creating the world’s largest data lake of 3D data for training medical robots to usher in an era of autonomous surgeries.
Aphrodite
United States | SaaS | Founder: Daniel Dietzel
Aphrodite provides unparalleled insights into every dollar in your business and helps you maintain situational awareness unlike any other app of its kind. Skip the spreadsheets and watch as your data comes to life through the power of Aphrodite, with visualizations and insights that update every 15 minutes. No matter how hard we try, we can’t find this company’s Achilles heel.
Raison
Estonia | Fintech / Finance | Founder: Alexander Zaytsev
So many people in the world get giddy when companies they follow get close to their IPO. It’s an opportunity for their followers and supporters to get in on the ground floor. Raison thinks you should be getting in even earlier with a platform that allows users to invest in companies before their IPO. We can’t think of a Raison to not come to see them at the conference.
Paymob Smart Payments
United Kingdom | Fintech / Finance | Founder: Kosta Du
We’ve all had at least one experience, be it with a restaurant or a small store, where we are getting ready to buy something only to find they only accept cash. In today’s world, small companies are beginning to have access to tools that allow them to be more flexible and convenient for their customers. Paymob Smart Payments is the next big thing, which will allow any smartphone to become a payment terminal in minutes with no attachments or modifications.
ClimateTrade
Spain | Renewable/Environment | Founder: Francisco Benedito
ClimateTrade is the leading climate marketplace that provides offsetting and other sustainable products to the organizations directly, without intermediaries. They offer an amazing UX, cost savings of about 30%, traceability of the funds, and transparency of transactions.
Periculum Technologies
Canada | Fintech/ Finance | Founder: Michael Collins
Periculum is an alternate credit assessment solution for underserved markets, and our vision is to unlock credit for the developing world to accelerate economic empowerment. Periculum provides companies and institutions across Africa with a machine learning, alternate credit assessment solution. Our machine learning model had an 80% default prediction accuracy, better than FICO, Equifax, and TransUnion
ApTap
United Kingdom | Fintech/ Finance | Founder: Nadal Sarkytbayev
In the modern era, subscription-based payments are everywhere and everything. Despite its utility and simplification, it opens up a whole host of new and complicated problems for consumers who often struggle to keep track of every service they subscribe to. Aptap provides a subscription control center, which works with your bank to show you a detailed and organized list of all your subscriptions and gives you the opportunity to easily cancel and compare subscription services in one place.
The Road Ahead
Before the pandemic, Startup Grind’s startup program was primarily associated with the startup exhibition at the Global and Europe conferences. However, since then, we have spread our wings and expanded our reach beyond any physical boundaries. Taking our community online by building the startup membership, launching the industry chapters, and conducting the quarterly startup summits has provided a solid base for our community and with the return of physical conferences just around the corner, we see great things ahead!
Interested in applying to be a member? Click here
