Today Accelerator Frankfurt launches first live streamed accelerator program
Maria Pennanen and Ram Shoham, Co-Founders of the Accelerator Frankfurt

While other accelerator programs shut down, Accelerator Frankfurt launches the first ever streamed accelerator program, welcoming five international startups to Wave 7. We had the pleasure to interview the co-founders Maria Pennanen and Ram Shoham, just before the big kick off today Monday April 27th.

“We decided to go online and bring the experience of our acceleration program to a wider audience.”

Wave 7 is going online & live on Youtube and Facebook and The couple won the platform “Twitch” to partner with them. Twitch is originally a gaming platform, well known amongst millennials and their influencers. “This has never been done before ” explains Pennanen. Their innovative move might well set the new trend for Twitch to expand to entrepreneurship soon.

Visit the livestream.

“It’s all hit or miss”

With the first signs of lockdown, Pennanen and Shoham decided quickly  Covid19 would not stop the approaching, and adapted fast. Disruption is inevitable and offers new opportunities. Thankfully all the startups agreed on the new terms. Most importantly the mentors and investors were open to adapt as well.

The Livestream opens completely new doors, as it allows for viewers to follow along with the teams. This will give investors the chance to get to know the startup founders in a more intimate way in the absence of physical meetings.

 “Usually Maria and myself are the ones who get to know the teams well, and how they operate” says Shoham. This aspect is now made possible for everyone. The qualitative team insights gained are hugely important in the decision making process of an investor for example. Equally, aspiring entrepreneurs will have a great learning curve and we will certainly go more in depth than the typical 10 min tv-show pitches.

The Accelerator Frankfurt  mentors have all received summaries and have booked their sessions up front. 

The program

Accelerator Frankfurt offers startups hands on guidance and network. The Go-To-Market Program facilitates innovation and digitisation (how to become lean like a startup, how to create engagement in your team and how to develop user-centred ideas). 

Operating entirely digitally saves a lot of travel time. The program that usually takes 3 months is condensed to 1 month. It focuses on the 3 best aspects of the usual curriculum, which could all be shifted to the digital roam. 

1.     “Network” which consists of a special group of 50 people, investors, mentors and experts, who make the program unique.

2.     “Digital Marketing” with the strategic partner die Firma. experience design

3.     “Perception is reality”, which involves a behavioral growth test, created by Maria herself who has a master from INSEAD on organizational psychology

The online program was made possible with the help of the sponsors, Silicon Valley Bank, Metzler Bank, Helaba Digital, and FrankfurtRheinMain GmbH.

The program for the week

The 5 startups

The startups are all international: 

  • Amon, from Estonia, is an Intelligent mobile wallet for traditional and digital currencies
  • Coinrule, from UK, empowers crypto-traders to create their trading algorithms without having to code.
  • NGRAVE, from Belgium, developed the highest ranked security device for blockchain based digital assets.
  • Unilogin, from USA, enhances the adoption of blockchain based apps by facilitating the user login for non-technical users. without needing any prior technical knowledge.
  • Valega, from Finland, provides AML and CFT tools for financial institutions and corporates alike who are looking to safely operate in the digital asset space. 

About Accelerator Frankfurt

Just as internet-based companies flourished after the dot-com bubble, we envision a similar long-term trajectory for the blockchain ecosystem. Leveraging our go-to-market accelerator, we will bring in the best and most integrable blockchain companies and match them with corporations and banks. We are an independent go-to-market program focused on Blockchain, Fintech, Cybersecurity and Digital B2B startups. 

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