Narrator (00:00:08) - Welcome back once again to Bringing Your Ideas to Life, the podcast from Oxfordshire. Today we are starting a two part exploration of Accelerator's. Head of Entrepreneurship and Managing Consultant at Accenture, Fabio Bianchi, is joined by three special guests to discuss what the role of accelerators is in different ecosystems, whether there are common formats for successful accelerator programmes, and how can programmes be tailored to deliver the best value for their participants. We hope you enjoy listening.

Fabio (00:00:38) - Thank you everyone for joining us. Welcome to our guests. We will start off with a quick round of introductions. We have three guests from three very different ecosystems and approaching the whole area of accelerators and startup support and scale up support in very different ways. So hopefully it's going to be an interesting discussion starting with the one closest to us geographically. If I can just ask Christina, the senior program manager at the Royal College of Engineering and lead for the Short Scale Up Accelerator. Welcome to see. I thank you for joining us. Would you like to introduce yourself and say a few words around what you're doing in your accelerator program?

Cristina (00:01:13) - Hi, and thank you very much for having me on the podcast here.

Cristina (00:01:17) - I lead Royal Academy of Engineering Acceleration program for leaders of UK based scale ups, and have previously supported early stage startups from across 16 emerging economies around the world.

Fabio (00:01:31) - Excellent. Thank you Christina, welcome. I believe the next closest person geographically to us is Barton Nova from FMB ventures. Barton is an investment manager there. Barton. Welcome.

Bartosz (00:01:44) - Thanks, Fabio. Thanks for for the invite and for having me on the podcast. Yeah, it's it's been a little north of six years now that I'm managing investments by FNP ventures, which is actually a micro fund of funds. We are not a VC per se. We invest in VCs in a limited partner capacity. And and yeah, since then, you know, north of 90 companies in six portfolios, very initially agnostic, but at this stage very deep tech focused and loving the vibe when it comes to central Eastern Europe and the Baltics. So, you know, FNP is the foundation for Polish science. It's our cornerstone investor in FNP ventures. So we're kind of linked to them.

Bartosz (00:02:25) - But FNP is a non-government, non-profit academic support institution. So the academic part steps back in right with with with you.

Fabio (00:02:33) - Excellent. Thank you Bartos. And finally, last but not least, by no means we have Oliver Redcap who is the head of business development for Accelerator Estonia. Welcome, Oliver.

Oliver (00:02:44) - Hello. Hello, everybody. Very happy to be here. Yeah, like like you mentioned Accelerate Estonia. We we are a governmental innovation lab. And and what that means is, even though we are a public sector organization, we work with private sector companies to help bring their innovative solutions to market. So usually these these companies, they need something from the public sector, whether it's whether they have some regulatory barriers, they need to change some law, for example, to bring their innovations to market. And we help them with that, to tackle those regulatory barriers and and help these innovative products and, and services to market.

Fabio (00:03:32) - Excellent. Welcome, Oliver. And I'll quickly introduce myself. I'm Fabio Bianchi.

Fabio (00:03:36) - I am the head of entrepreneurship here at Accenture, and we work across the world in building capacity or early stage ventures within universities and outside of universities, through capacity building programs and accelerator programs. And we have the pleasure and the privilege to collaborate with all three of the people on this podcast in different ways and different forms. I've had the pleasure of working with Christina for a number of years on, on, on delivering some of the work that the Royal Academy of Engineering does in supporting entrepreneurship and innovators across the world. With Oliver, we have recently been sort of exploring collaborations between Accenture and and Accelerate Estonia as a way of of expanding their unique offering to the UK and watch the space for some exciting announcements and similarly, watch this space for some announcements to do with Poland, where for a couple of years now we've been building a relationship and building a way of building the ecosystem. Together with Bartos and his colleagues at APM. I wanted to sort of start us off with sort of what we see in our respective roles, you know, leading very different programs, interacting with startups and innovation in very different ways that kind of what we see the real purpose of accelerator programs within an ecosystem.

Fabio (00:04:51) - If we look at some statistics, you know, here in the UK, we currently have sort of close to 200 accelerator programs that are operating. If you look at statistics, there's an increase in attendance of startups attending accelerator programs of roughly 75% year on year, which kind of leads to the question of of of what is the role of these programs, and are there too many accelerator programs in the world? So. You know, this is a this is the UK. Obviously Estonia and Poland are very different ecosystems and probably at different stages and with different priorities in the way the ecosystem is developing and in the way we support startups. But I'd like to sort of go around the room and sort of ask for thoughts around, around this. So what do you see in your experience and in the work you're doing as really the role that an accelerator program should be fulfilling within an ecosystem today? Christina, shall we start off with you?

Cristina (00:05:45) - Yes. So I think building an innovative and tech startup business is inherently risky, and accelerators have an important role in the ecosystem and de-risking growth of innovative and deep tech businesses.

Cristina (00:05:59) - As we know, some of them require maybe 5 to 10 years or more to reach profitability. And so I think that accelerators can help with that. I also agree with reports earlier report that an important benefit of accelerators is the signaling effect it has to the investor community, investment community, which of which startups are worth investing into having been pre-screened and upskilled and kind of improve their governance structures through the accelerator programs. Also, you can't underestimate the role of the accelerators in boosting the confidence of the funders and just helping them tackle various administrative challenges they have and growing the business. And finally, they also have a role in developing the innovation ecosystem itself, either by linking different players, supporting different providers, providing training to mentors, or providing valuable insight and publishing research into the state of different elements of the ecosystem. So, for instance, we had the Royal Academy of Engineering have been publishing our spotlights on spin outs since 2021 and are working currently on a report on the state of deep tech in the UK. So all of that and many other activities to develop the the innovation ecosystem.

Fabio (00:07:24) - Thank you. So so so sort of having accelerators as as a way of de-risking the provision of capital for, for startups, but also building founder confidence and then generally building the technical capability of the ecosystem. I'll go to Oliver now because your programme and your, your accelerator in at accelerator Estonia has a very, very specific aim, which is that of of helping overcome regulatory hurdles by allowing people to, to enter the country's market in a facilitated way. So obviously you have a very specific remit within this. But do you agree with Christina's view on on what the role in more in general of accelerators, and where are you trying to position your accelerator program, you know, regionally but also probably globally within the ecosystem?

Oliver (00:08:11) - Yeah. Well first of all, yeah, absolutely, absolutely agree with Christine. And and if I just may add, another sort of the value that I see in accelerators is basically the connections that you make there, whether it's with investors, whether it's with potential cooperation partners, sales. ET cetera.

Oliver (00:08:30) - So yeah, goes back to the goes back to the old proverb if you if you want to go fast, go alone. But if you want to go far, go together. So so yeah, I see a lot of, a lot of value here in building, building those connections. But then, yeah, coming back to, to accelerate Estonia and what we do and how we can help is, is, is basically we can more or less offer a whole country as an accelerator or a testbed, so to say. So yes, how we can we can help companies is, is to overcome different legal obstacles. But what that means in, in essence is, is basically we we invite companies to, to come and test their products and services in Estonia and then overcome those, those legal barriers here in Estonia. And so basically use a whole country as a testbed and the launchpad. And once the, the, the business case or the idea or the product or the services is validated here on a country level, it's much easier to scale into into other geographies after that.

Fabio (00:09:43) - Excellent. Thank you Oliver, and moving to you. But obviously you you you see this on the other side to some extent. You see this as someone providing that capital and making that investment. Tell us a little bit about the landscape for accelerator programs in Poland, or in sort of central Eastern Europe, and how you as an investor feel accelerate programs work to de-risk the type of investments you want to make.

Bartosz (00:10:06) - Yeah. I mean, thanks, Fabio. This is, first of all, guys, I love the fact that, you know, I have a Google keep notepad open and, you know, bullet points. And we we mentioned well, Christina mentioned de-risking. Oliver is mentioning the test platform. Very good. You know. So we're definitely in sync. But the way we the way I approach accelerators is twofold. They're extremely vital. They're super heterogeneous. And they're at a later stage for a startup. This is not a venture builder. This is not a venture studio. This is not an incubator, okay? This is a platform where the team, the venture actually chooses that it can be catalytic for their growth or for their expansion or for their dominance of a certain market.

Bartosz (00:10:57) - And and we have very few of those, actually, that do this in Poland when it comes to acceleration. So, so yeah, I mean, just looking looking at the pipeline, you know, 97 companies, I think three of them were there was an intent to invest during a demo day or pitch day at the end of an accelerator or one of the accelerators. But that doesn't mean that, you know, accelerators are this, you know, platform or this plate to, to provide very good opportunities to invest. They definitely are, but not directly, I think. And this is this is the case we we definitely want to look at alignment within the team in an accelerator is how mission critical are the the products the applications that are that are given venture is doing. And was there creative destruction performed during the acceleration process? In other words, was the team brave enough to pivot to enter a new regulatory hurdle, as Oliver says, and you know and deal with it and at the same time have the other markets.

Bartosz (00:12:00) - So it's more of a test platform for the integrity of the team. And, you know, by means you see the ability effect of how these teams deal with what that effect. In essence, the the issue of accelerators is the problem with accelerators in my case is way broader, because if you ask me about central Eastern Europe, they're mostly hybrid or government funded, which is which is not really beneficial for the ecosystem. I believe the pay to play clause, where accelerators take a chunk of the venture is the only way forward. Nothing is free in life. And and and there should be. No, we're not talking about incubation. We're not talking about venture building. We're talking about a stage where there's there's there's a product, there's potential revenue. There's you know, there are serious decisions to be made of the directions of a venture going and, and, you know, and I believe that, you know, it should carry a certain certain cost to that. Again, you know, CEOs of excellence.

Bartosz (00:13:01) - Right. The last thing that I want to mention, I mean, it's super beneficial if you are a VC fund that can invest, precede and then suddenly your venture goes into Y Combinator wins Y Combinator and within a matter of five days, exactly raises one of the largest seed rounds known in Poland, right through US based capital. Fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. But these are other issues, right? Seeds of excellence should be there. I think there should. There is a there is a limited number of accelerators that will be benchmarked always, but they're not universal. And I think what Europe is really dominant and very good at in general, not talking about Poland here is specificity of accelerators that accelerators cannot address. The global, you know, the global venture market, they should be specialized in my my perception and the VCs that a company that are specialized in those markets as well. So we're getting to a point where we're becoming, you know, I don't like proverbs. I like chemistry, hardcore chemistry, catalysis, you know, enzymes and all that.

Bartosz (00:14:02) - There is no universal enzyme for reactions, right? Specific reactions require specific catalysts or if they're biological specific enzymes. But you know that that intertwined mix between enzyme catalyst and reaction drives drives our whole biology forward. And and yeah, I'm going to you know finish with that.

Cristina (00:14:24) - If I can add. But I, I agree with you in terms of specialization of accelerators and probably worth mentioning that scale up accelerator that I run focuses on the founders of deep tech and engineering company specifically. So it's quite sector specific and. Yeah. Our definition of engineering includes a variety of hardware, medtech, agritech, and all the way to quantum. But I still see us as a very specialized accelerator program, and that's what I see in the UK market. And just to add to that fabulous start in the beginning, some reports showed there are over 300 accelerate programmes in the UK. So yeah, within that ecosystem it does require specialisation. At the same time I should say that we are co-funded. We are funded by the British government, by the Department for science, Innovation and Technology and also by private donors.

Cristina (00:15:20) - So I do see a role of government funding in specific accelerate programmes, because obviously government wants to invest in strategic industries and innovations and see growth in those areas.

Bartosz (00:15:34) - Now again, we're entering I think I love this about our discussion and our chat today is we're entering this sphere that, you know, this is a very heterogeneous group. And I truly believe there's there's place for a mix of hybrid government funding, which is extremely beneficial. I believe in the by founders for founders model where successful founders go back. I'm looking at you all over here, go back to the ecosystem and set up phenomenal Mafia style accelerators where you have, you know, startup wiseguys is brilliant, brilliant because of the fact that these people underwent that massive, you know, track to epic success. And now they're sharing their Rolodex, their business model, their approaches to, to, to other teams. The question is, you know, how outdated they are or how indie they are. That's that's, you know, for for ventures to decide.

Bartosz (00:16:29) - But you have a place for that and you have a place for strategic government backed programs which which have a kind of a different mission. It's very critical for the startups, for the scale ups, whatever you call them now in the, in the EU and Britain is for them to choose wisely, right? And for them to benefit from that program. At which stage, I mean, you have you have early accelerators, you have endeavor, you have, I don't know, Silicon Catalyst. You have huge accelerators that are very later stage in the development of the company that focus predominantly on, you know, global expansions. And we're all about to talk about all those. So with with Dall-E, I love the well I love the report. It's well put methodology. Not so much. But the problem is when it comes to the probe, the end and the amount of ventures, if you look if you look at the accelerators, there's none from Y, none from Plug and Play, none from Techstars, none from A16z starter.

Bartosz (00:17:27) - So none, you know, all these again, CEOs of excellence because we have to mention that that these these institutions really are, you know, a catapult or a driving force to, to the value of these companies. Right. But apart from that, yeah, it's good to talk about a MacArthur genius group because we're all right at the end of the day. Right.

Oliver (00:17:48) - And I'm glad I'm glad part that you that you brought up Estonia again because, well, like Christina mentioned that you have over 300 accelerators in the UK or UK. I guess you can call Estonia like a one big accelerator, because we were such a small country, only 1.3 million people, which means that basically everybody knows everybody. So whether you go into an accelerator or you approach a VC fund, the whole startup community in Estonia is so tightly knit. Everybody knows everybody. Everybody supports and helps everybody else. So that's that's kind of one of the cool, cool things about Estonia. Basically, the whole country is more or less run like a startup being very agile, very digital.

Oliver (00:18:38) - So yeah, I guess in that sense you can consider Estonia like a, like a big accelerator.

Fabio (00:18:43) - Excellent. Very interesting. I just wanted to pick on, on on what Oliver actually meant and earlier around sort of the idea of going fast but alone versus going far, but as a group or together at least. Which kind of brings me on to a question which is around the format of how we we accelerate companies and how we give value through accelerator programs. I would say that, you know, traditionally, probably at the start or even some of the bigger names that that Bartosz mentioned, I was wondering who would mention Y Combinator first and my my best work on that, sort of a more traditional model is, is, is taking a cohort of startups and accelerating them and using that cohort effect to build that network. However, I would say that in our experience at least, we are seeing possibly a bit of a shift and more emphasis being put on that tailored support and that sort of 1 to 1 support, which is very much tailored to the individual needs of the startup.

Fabio (00:19:39) - You know, Oliver, to accelerate Estonia, you work very. Very closely on individual needs of of of of startups. Christina, in your program you probably have a mix of the two. You have some elements which are delivered as a cohort, but also sort of mentoring and coaching, which is done individually. So let's talk a little bit about what what you think makes a good format. Obviously the aims and objectives of of an accelerator may be different depending on where you come from, which angle you come. You come at it. But but but do we think that this whole cohort element outside of the network element is beneficial, or is it more beneficial? When we take ventures and we really look at their individual needs and try delivering this as a, as a very tailored type of intervention? Christina, do you want to. Yeah, please.

Cristina (00:20:27) - I we've been constantly evolving our acceleration program. We've been running since 2017, making changes every year. And our approach was to try and find a balance between cohort based activities and individual support to enable that kind of cohort creation, trust and peer learning.

Cristina (00:20:44) - And so examples of cohort based activities that we run on kind of informal dinners, workshops, a buddy system, small group sessions and channels for informal communication. And what we found is that this approach has been hugely valuable to our participants, and we've been receiving great feedback, and there are a few factors behind kind of our approach and a few things I consider when when iterating program design and activities. And one of them is that our founders and participants have attended accelerators and incubators before. At earliest stages, they already know quite a bit about venture building and commercialization. Second is their ages range from early 30s to 50s, so they bring a wealth of life experience and commercial experience with them into the program. So you can't underestimate how impactful it is to learn from your peers, who you identify with and who've been through the good and bad and the ugly and can can share some of those lessons. It's it's hugely valuable. And that's what we hear from our participants. At the end of the day, they say they initially applied for our grant for leadership training, but what they took from the program the most was from planning and cohort interaction.

Cristina (00:22:04) - So we're trying to find a balance and keep both elements in the program.

Oliver (00:22:09) - And then, if I may add, Christina, you already brought up the, let's say the age and and stage element. So would I would have to agree that that basically I think the if you're very early stage, I think it's very beneficial if you if you're doing it with a cohort, it's basically the stage where you're just learning to walk. But as you grow, as you mature, then I see the, the benefits of of a more a personal or a tailor made approach out weighing the the cohort benefits. So again the stage where you're where you're already beginning to run and and hopefully run fast then then yeah I guess a personal trainer should be a very good option here.

Bartosz (00:22:58) - Absolutely. I mean, there's a there's a place in time, time for, um, a more general approach, you know, showing trends, for example, that, you know, you know, if you're right, let's say this is an e-commerce accelerator that that somebody is running, you know, what are the stages that I should be introduced and where and why and how soon.

Bartosz (00:23:22) - ET cetera. But at the same time, this, this mentor approach or this personal trainer approach that Oliver mentioned, I mean, this is super key speaking with people that that actually achieved success. They have their war stories, their failures and their successes. And, and you know, the that relationship that is between a team and such a mentor, such a person, you know, influences them dramatically. But at the same time, you know, as a manager of an accelerator, you see, how coachable is this team, how open are, how flexible are they to to criticism, to addressing certain points which are obviously faulty within, within within a given venture. Right. So so it's we're you know, we're it's a fine balance definitely. But I you know, again, it's an open question of, you know, for a startup of how many accelerators should it undergo. Should this be, you know, because there was a time in Poland where, you know, roughly 15 incubators and 30 plus accelerators were in operation.

Bartosz (00:24:26) - And I think this time will return with with the next wave of, of, of EU funding, where it was a lifestyle where you could easily surf with your venture and you had enough to maintain the status quo. And. I don't know, focus on the local market, for example. So, I mean, side note, 90% of these ventures don't exist anymore. But but but.

Bartosz (00:24:51) - But but.

Bartosz (00:24:52) - Again this is this is this is one of the things that you should see that, you know, accelerators have this, this massive positive effect. But there should be extremely sensitive when it comes to picking. I have something written down. What are the whether the missions of an accelerator and the ones that VCs look is, is actually due diligence. They look at team recycling. They look at how founders come back to an accelerator with a different team. What's the scope, you know, things that with time you see what what operators are there that are riding the wave of I'm going to say this government funding and or structural funding and what operators are there that really, you know, were there and then they, you know, disappeared to to scale more globally.

Bartosz (00:25:43) - And and the last thing, you know, when it comes to this in the report, something really resonated with me was whether is venture capital for everyone. And this was, you know, there was one of the thoughts in the of, you know, of a participant in an accelerator program saying that their, their model and their their revenue model and their business model bases on on these facts. They don't need massive equity amounts. They can easily break even within a steady time frame, and that's good enough for them. This is very important for you to fully comprehend and realize this, that you know, because some really want to go, you know, I won't say go alone, but go fast and break things. I mean, Spotify did that, right? They broke the system. I don't think they were fully alone, but they really went fast. And it's a question, you know, where is the choice, right? Where are you strategically placing? What is your what is your market? How do you see yourself in the next ten, 15 years.

Bartosz (00:26:41) - And and I think accelerators do provide a platform to ask these questions and look for answers, whether it's within cohorts or if it's an interaction with, you know, a very respectable mentor or, you know, a person that really can share, share the wealth of.

Cristina (00:26:59) - Knowledge just to answer that in kind of in support of the 1 to 1 approaches, we know from the scale up in the 2023 review, it focuses on the UK market, but we know that 70% of scale ups would like to have a single point of contact, so act as a relationship manager for them. And so that just shows that people want to have that kind of personalised support and help. That personal trainer that Oliver referred to earlier.

Fabio (00:27:28) - Yeah, like I like the analogy of, of, you know, group workouts at the early stage and then personal trainer when, when you want to sort of push the the performance to the to to the very edge.

Narrator (00:27:40) - Thank you for listening to part one of our conversation on accelerators. Check back in soon for part two.

Narrator (00:27:45) - As ever, if you'd like to submit any questions for us, or if you have any feedback on the podcast, then please do contact us at Ideas Pod at Accenture. Com that's ideas Pod or one word@accenture.com. We look forward to seeing you again next time.

Narrator (00:27:59) - Bye for now.