{"id":54101,"date":"2023-10-20T16:26:24","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T16:26:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/angelcube-takes-six-startups-under-its-wing-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T16:26:24","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T16:26:24","slug":"angelcube-takes-six-startups-under-its-wing-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/angelcube-takes-six-startups-under-its-wing-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"AngelCube takes six startups under its wing – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Melbourne-based accelerator AngelCube<\/a> has announced the six startups that are currently taking part in its program.<\/p>\n

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The program, which the six startups began in June, involves a $40,000 investment in exchange for 8% equity, as well as mentoring, six months free co-working space at Inspire9 and multiple chances to pitch in front of prominent investors.<\/p>\n

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AngelCube program manager Amir Nissen says they\u2019re already seeing growth in the participating startups.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s been pretty intense,\u201d Nissen says.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe pleasing thing is that the teams have come a long way since they walked in the door.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The startups currently involved with the accelerator include project management product Coincraft,<\/a> PR automation CurveUp,<\/a> smart standing desk Jack.io<\/a>, second-hand clothing platform Refound,<\/a> website calling service SweetHawk<\/a> and professional development startup Peer Academy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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AngelCube was focused on selecting founders with an all-round knowledge of the operations of their startup, Nissen says.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe\u2019re mostly looking for them having a very, very in-depth knowledge about their business,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThey needed to know what the obstacles were and be able to fire back answers quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Peer Academy co-founder Onur Ekinci says the startup\u2019s traction played an important role in being selected.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt wasn\u2019t just an idea, we had already turned out an MVP, had revenue coming through and repeat users,\u201d Ekinci says.<\/p>\n

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The program allows them to do in three months what they would\u2019ve done in one or two years without assistance, Ekinci says.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s been a real whirlwind journey,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt started off with really stripping it back to the core underlying assumptions and beliefs about what we\u2019re doing, then going to the market and testing them.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Peer Academy offers a novel take on professional development, providing peer-driven learning classes to small groups of corporate clients. Ekinci and fellow co-founder Kylie Long ran a pilot program in October last year, and now have over 600 users.<\/p>\n

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The accelerator program will conclude in September with a series of demo days in Melbourne and Sydney, where the startups will pitch to a range of potential investors.<\/p>\n

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Although the program previously involved demo days in the US, Nissen says these will no longer be taking place due to competition from other international accelerators.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s harder and harder to cut through and get investors to turn up,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe ultimate goal of the demo day is to get people interested, for them to do a follow-up that hopefully turns into an investment.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cNow we\u2019ll be doing a lot more dinners and drinks with handfuls of investors. We\u2019re pulling in the same network but on a far more personal level.\u201d<\/p>\n

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AngelCube was founded in 2011, and has invested in 23 startups through the program.<\/p>\n

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The accelerator\u2019s alumni includes LIFX,<\/a> a company offering Wi-Fi enabled light bulbs that recently raised $13 million in seed funding, and Brosa Designs<\/a>, which closed a $2 million funding round<\/a> last month.<\/p>\n

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Raising your <\/i>first round of capital<\/i><\/a>? Starting a <\/i>crowdfunding campaign<\/i><\/a>? Want to grow your business <\/i>with Instagram?<\/i><\/a> StartupSmart School can help.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Melbourne-based accelerator AngelCube has announced the six startups that are currently taking part in its program. \u00a0 The program, which<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":58216,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,8,9,11,1,15],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54101"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54101"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54101\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}