The Startup Accelerator is dead, long live Accelerator the 2nd!
by Startacus Admin
Bold vision often results in big change. Step forward UK accelerator Ignite who last week announced major changes to their startup accelerator programme and overall model of working. We fast-forwarded over the major details…
Ignite announced on Friday that they were tearing up the accelerator programme rule book to launch Ignite 2.0. With a new model, Ignite are aiming to work with the best founders, and the best companies, wherever they are based in the UK.
In comes…Rolling Applications, with Ignite investing in 2–4 companies each month, rather than doing 3 batches a year.
In comes… a Distributed Programme, with a more objective driven process lasting 3/6/12 months which each month will bring together companies on the programme for a two day offsite set of workshops focused on sales, marketing, operations and recruitment. Crucially, these off-sites will take place in a different city each month -hooray!
In comes - Funding Flexibility, with two options available to startups joining the programme, one involving investment + the programme, and one with reduced equity loss and just the programme facilitation and no 
investment.
Flexibility seems to be the key here.
Their new model is aimed at allowing Ignite to work with the best founders, and the best companies, wherever they are based in the UK. The ambition is that over the next 12 months Ignite will invest in at least 30 companies, of which 80% will be outside London and the South East. Hooray! Removing that barrier of needing to live / move or relocate to the ‘Accelerator’ location, which can be for some, a barrier they cannot move.
There’s loads of more stuff we could write about here, but we’ll let the Ignite team explain, Head on over to this blog announcement via Ignite CEO Tristan Watson to read all the details on the whats, whys and whens.
We wish the Ignite team well with this bold move - there’s loads of good stuff to consider here, and whilst this experimental approach may need to be further refined, we think Ignite should be celebrated for wanting to improve the Accelerator model, and fundamentally, how well they can and do, support startups and their growth via their programmes.
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Published on: 16th May 2017
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