Startup Accelerator Spotlight: HAX

Hax is the world’s first and largest hardware accelerator helping businesses go from prototype to market.

Managing Director, Duncan Turner

Name of Accelerator: HAX

Managing Director: Duncan Turner

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 invest in hardware startups (consumer, health, enterprise and industry) and help them go from prototype to market.

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

Startups get $100k in cash and 111 days of hands-on support in Shenzhen.

Our assets are:

Content
We built a bespoke curriculum for hardware startups and improve it with one out of every 10 programs we run. We now have 30 full-time staff members to support 15 startups per program.
China
The Shenzhen supply chain is unique in the world in terms of speed and breadth.
Community
With 200 investments, we have over 600 hardware founders in our network. There are generally 20-30 alumni in our office at any time, with fresh answers to any questions.
Curation
We pick the top 5% of candidates, which means that every startup is surrounded by other great people.
Connections
To suppliers, retailers, investors, media etc. – worldwide.

What is the most difficult part of working with startups?

The time constraint. We support them for 111 days, and there is a lot of work to do.

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

We select meaningful products, and founders are highly motivated. It’s a demanding crowd but what’s not to love?

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

It depends how you measure success.

Our most mature startup is Makeblock, which makes robotic kits for education. They just raised $30M at a $200M valuation.
On the consumer side, we had 11 startups raise over $1M on Kickstarter. It’s about 10% of the world’s tech hits. You can check our list of projects here.
Now, some really interesting projects are also in robotics and health tech. Simbe Robotics, for instance, automates inventory in supermarkets with advanced computer vision.

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

I think that results, focus and location matter most.

What else would you like to share?

Startups should keep in mind that what matters is not raising funding or having a fancy brand, but how much progress they made on their product and business. Being a viable company starts with shipping a product, but doesn’t end there. It’s a long journey full of dangers, and it’s easier when surrounded by people who can help solve real problems.

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Are you familiar with other accelerators you believe should be highlighted? If so, we would like to hear from you. Tell us about them in the comments below!

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Pam Goforth

Pam Goforth is Research Manager for FundingSage, which provides valuable information, tools and resources to entrepreneurs seeking to start, grow and fund a business.

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

Valuation

The process of establishing the value or worth of an asset or a company. Factors impacting company valuation include it's market, management, technology, assets, capital structure and prospective future cash flows. 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

Funding

This term is used synonymously with the words “financing” and “capital.” It refers to the amount of money that is needed for a business endeavor. For example, a new business owner may seek a certain amount of funding for their startup company. This “raised” capital can be used to launch their endeavor as well as to sustain their company until monetary profit can be generated.⁴

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

Director

Person elected by shareholders to serve on the board of directors. The directors appoint the president, vice president and all other operating officers, and decide when dividends should be paid (among other matters).³

Market

Based on supply and demand, this term refers to the societal arrangement whereby consumers purchase goods and services from businesses and individual sellers in exchange for currency. In economic relevance, the “market” can be divided into different industries, such as biotechnology, food, etc. The exchange between the consumer and seller contribute to a society’s market economy which greatly depends on these transactions for economic viability.⁴

Assets

This word refers to all financial resources that a corporation owns. Current assets can be any form of currency, including traded inventory, investments, and checks. Fixed assets (capital assets) consist of material goods and equipment of a company, such as the land by which the company sits on, the company building, and technological machinery. Intangible assets mainly comprise of intellectual property protection, copyrights, patents, etc.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

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