Accelerators Bragging about Fundraising

This week I attended an information session by the founder institute. They have an accelerator program in Berlin for people in idea stage where they fund the company with 15000 Euros and get 3.5% in warrants.

The whole event the speakers were talking about the amounts of funds raised post graduation from the program, and the mentorship you get during the program.

The questions part was all about post program fudning. There were two graduates from the program and the audience questions were mostly on how much they raised and how long it took them to do so.

I don’t think accelerators key value proposition should be the amounts of funds raised post program, while this is the most post important, fastest to measure metric for the accelerator’s health given other metrics such as exits need a long time to measure, it shouldn’t be the key selling point to entrepreneurs.

I would trust an accelerator if they help founders focus to reach product market fit. Money is important for the company to live but building something people want that’s growing at a high rate is the most important thing for a startup to survive.

I think this is the best thing about YC. They talk about the financial value of their companies but they talk more about how they help entrepreneurs build something people want, and push them to go talk to users, iterate, and grow.