TheVentureCity strengthens its commitment to startups with more investment and support
The new acceleration model of TheVentureCity, the Growth Accelerator, improves with a simple but high impact proposal:
- More investment. The investor ticket increases from 20 thousand dollars to 100 thousand dollars over the six months the program lasts, in exchange for 6% of the company.
- Better backing. The founder is the key element of each startup. TheVentureCity provides founders one to one relationships with experts who can empathize but also push them to achieve growth.
- Dedication. In TheVentureCity we only work with 25 startups per year between Miami and Madrid.
TheVentureCity’s commitment to those startups that are willing to grow and scale their business significantly while also looking to internationalise, is reinforced with the new conditions of the acceleration program. Startups with more than six months of double digit growth are eligible to join the “Garden”, a name we call accelerator of TheVentureCity.
One of the key elements of TheVentureCity’s proposal is the close, direct and committed relationship we build with the founders of each startups. Therefore, the conditions of the Garden are focused on them by offering the right support to achieve results.
From the outset, startups that are accepted into the Growth Accelerator will have an investmentticket of $100,000.00 during the first six months of the program in exchange for only 6% ownership of the company. This amount allows founders to focus during the program on the scalability of the company and its growth, without having to invest time in raising funds. Until now, our investment was $20,000.00. In addition, startups will have real, hands-on, effective involvement from TheVentureCity team, that not only includes their knowledge and experience but also the ability to empathize directly with the founders.
The team is also reinforced with the arrival of Andrés Dancausa, who has already created and grown two companies (SofiaSquare and iAhorro). He arrives to “help the startups discover what they do not yet know about their business and their market, using data and a growth plan. The first step is to find the knowledge gaps to learn how to solve them and interpret data”.
In TheVentureCity, the company and the founder are the main focus and Andrés Dancausa insists founders should “ not see us as mentors, but as an extension of their team to help and advise what to do at each step and to be the experienced expert in the room when things are complex.”
Laura González-Estéfani, TheVentureCity’s CEO, believes that “80% of the success of startups it’s due to its founder, who is methodical, who makes decisions based on data. Andrés has a 360 point of view of the industry and understands this process better than anyone else”.
TheVentureCity’s supports the Garden startups mainly in the areas of engineering, product, data and growth. There is a strong focus on the product and internationalization strategies.
First startups to graduate
In the first year of TheVentureCity, there are already three startups that have completed the growth accelerator program. These are three success stories from companies that have increased their growth thanks to the work of their own teams accompanied by experts from TheVentureCity. All of them are an example of decentralized innovation, commitment to the product and international vision.
1. Jobartis
Its founder, Luis Verdeja, has worked with the TheVentureCity team headquartered in Madrid.Jobartis is a platform that joins supply and demand of employment in Africa. In Angola, it’s already the second most visited website in the country and continues with its expansion in Cameroon, Zambia and Gabon. Verdeja has seen his company grow considerably during this year, and highlights that the program “has undoubtedly helped us to focus on the product, which has improved the most, and made us more methodical.”
2. 1DOC3
Javier Cardona and Nicolás López are the 1doc3 founders. From Bogota, they started a free platform to answer health related questions anonymously. The progress of the Colombian startup in TheVentureCity has resulted in a greater international expansion and constant growth over 15% per month.
3. Fastmind
The Fastmind’s journey in TheVentureCity has had a great impact on its product development. Eddy Prado, Jorge Prado and Luis Alejandro Hernández have grown up from Miami converting a simple game application into a powerful viralization tool that allows creators to share their scattered works on different platforms (ex: a song) through a single link.
This month we don’t stop. Our agenda for next weeks goes from São Pauloto Miami. These are the events we take part in. You can’t miss them!
Unbound Miami
October 30-31
Laura González-Estéfani will be one of the speakers in the Breaking Innovation Barriers in South Florida panel. Wednesday the 31st at 9:35.
Mastercard
Innovation Forum
November 7–8
Patricia de Loro will be part of the panel about Powering Digital Growth the 7th at 12:00 in Madrid.
INC Monterrey
November 8–10
Juan Camilo Garay (1DOC3), Adriana Avella (BEWE), Clelia Morales (WOOM) y Rosa Jiménez Cano, our Chief Ecosystem Relations, will participate in different panels.
Latinas in Tech Summit
November 15
You will listen to Mónica Simó Black, partner of TheVentureCity, in the panel about Investing in the Latina Startup Community at 13:20 in San Francisco.
CASE Brazil
28 to 30 November
Katya Skorobogatova, VP of Growth of TheVentureCity, will attend to this showcase for technology and innovation.
