Startup Accelerator Spotlight: Spark* Accelerator

We find and support local, early stage impact entrepreneurs who have launched ventures that exist to bring people out of poverty.

Name of Accelerator: Spark* Accelerator (and SHE by Spark*)

Location: Kenya, South Africa, Bangladesh, Australia

Kaitlin Tait, Global GM of Impact

Website: www.sparkinternational.org

Interviewed: Kaitlin Tait, Global General Manager of Impact

This article is part of our Startup Accelerator Spotlight Series featuring accelerators from around the world. We hope these spotlights will assist the entrepreneur should they consider attending an accelerator program.

In two sentences or less, tell us about your accelerator and its objectives.

We find and support local, early stage impact entrepreneurs who have launched ventures that exist to bring people out of poverty.

Why is your accelerator program unique? Please describe the benefits of participation in your program.

We believe that the best solutions to poverty almost always, come from people who are local to the communities facing these challenges and truly understand them. In all of our country programs, local impact entrepreneurs receive world class entrepreneurship training, as well as ongoing support for twelve months (web and graphic design, small injections of seed capital to test ideas, strategy mentoring, legal and accounting support) before we select which ventures are eligible for larger grant or investment support.

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What is the most difficult part of working with startups?

Picking which of the ventures are most likely to succeed and achieve impacts at scale. We support all of the ventures equally in the first twelve months and “picking the winners” beyond this is difficult. In the last year we have brought in peer review with the support of Village Capital, which has made this easier.

What do you enjoy the most; what do you find most appealing about working with entrepreneurial startups?

All of our team are entrepreneurs, and we all enjoy the thrills and emotions of startup. Being able to live this over and over again with the ventures we support keeps our lives interesting and purposeful.

Since 2011 we have backed 225 entrepreneurs in 5 countries. We have changed the lives of 155,279 people living in poverty and doubled the impact and revenue of 90 of our entrepreneurs.

Tell us about your success stories; which are the most interesting companies to have participated in your program?

Three companies that we are loving at the moment and have recently either invested in or written grants for include:

Totohealth is doing brilliant things for mothers and babies in Kenya through an SMS platform.
Mamlaka Health is opening high quality affordable health clinics in the same country.
African School for Excellence in South Africa is providing a world class education for kids at a very low cost.

What are the three most important factors startup entrepreneurs should consider when contemplating attending an accelerator?

Whether the people running the accelerator are entrepreneurs themselves who have worked in similar settings or industries.
Whether there is a cost or equity stake involved, and if so, whether the accelerator provides enough real value to justify this.
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Whether they have done one before. If you have already done an accelerator, stop wasting your time applying for others. Instead get to work on growing your venture!

What else would you like to share?

Since 2011 we have backed 225 entrepreneurs in 5 countries. We have changed the lives of 155,279 people living in poverty and doubled the impact and revenue of 90 of our entrepreneurs.

We are different because:

We don’t charge you:
Many entrepreneurship programs charge you to take part. We run our own companies in Australia that bring in revenue to allow us to do what we do. So if you are successful in becoming a Spark* entrepreneur, you get all of the support we provide for free.
We don’t take a chunk of your company:
We don’t take any equity in your company. It is our goal that because of our support you are able to change more lives.
We are all entrepreneurs;
All of our staff and facilitators are proven entrepreneurs who have led ventures that change lives. So when we are spending time with you and supporting you, you can be assured that we know how it feels to be an entrepreneur hustling to build a company.

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We provide the best practice support;
We are members of ANDE (a global network of best entrepreneurial support organizations), members of the VilCap Communities, and have won a stack of awards for our work.

Can’t find the tools to guide you through the startup process? TurboFunder can help map your path!

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Definitioner

Bounce Rate

Website

An organized property made up of a group of connected pages on the World Wide Web, (Internet) that are considered a single entity.⁶

Entrepreneur

A person who organizes and operates a business or businesses, taking on greater than normal financial risks to do so. Entrepreneurs are the founders of startups and are the people angel investors support.⁷

Grant

Money provided by a government agency or other organization that does not need to be repaid and does not purchase equity.⁷

Venture

Venture is often used for referring to a risky start-up or enterprise company.⁵

Startup

A startup is a new business venture / enterprise in its initial or early stages of development. These stages include the concept, seed, early, growth and mezzanine stages.⁶

Seed Capital (Seed Money)

The initial round of capital for start-up companies, typically provided by angel investors through preferred stock or convertible bond type instruments.⁶

Seed Capital

Seed Capital is the money used to purchase equity-based interest in a new or existing company. This seed capital is usually quite small because the venture is still in the idea or conceptual stage.⁵

Equity

Ownership in the capital of a Company. In corporations, it is called “stock”; in limited partnerships or LLCs, it is called “interests” or “units.”³
This designation is given to a stockholder’s ownership in a company. The amount of ownership is obtained when an individual or corporation purchases one or more shares of stock (equity shares). The more equity purchased, the greater the ownership.⁴

Early Stage

The key characteristic is market development. The business is focused on sales and marketing and proving business viability.²
A state of a company that typically has completed its seed stage and has a founding or core senior management team, has proven its concept or completed its beta test, has minimal revenues, and no positive earnings or cash flows.³
This term generally refers to a young enterprise that is three years old or younger. During this phase, a company is still in its novel stages of development. They could be in the process of experimenting with new products or services that they intend to market in the near future and/or may have viable products that are already available to the public.⁴

Capital

Financial capital is a term that can refer to the money exchanged between entrepreneurs and investors during a business deal. Entrepreneurs need to raise capital for their startups while investors can provide them with the needed capital (or funding). Financial capital usually comes with interest, and new business owners can use their financial capital in purchasing real capital (or machinery or equipment) for their new business.⁴

Accelerator

In an Accelerator, a Seed investment is made in return for equity and usually between $15K - $50K. Startups are admitted in classes and work in groups. They are generally given a deadline to complete intensive training and iteration (typically 1 week to 6 months). Startups end an accelerator program with a Demo Day in which they pitch to investors.²

INFOGRAPHICS