To help founders at the seed stage scale quick, Accel launched the SeedtoScale program in August this year for SaaS founders. Furthermore, presently, it has called for applications for consumer tech organizations in the idea stage to apply to the SeedtoScale – Consumer Tech Cohort. Accel said the applications for this program will close on October 20, and only ten new startups will be chosen to be a part of this program.
SeedtoScale is a curated stage and includes a founder-for-founder approach, where the startup network can work with specialists and get experiences to fabricate a successful business. Consumer-tech organizations incorporate any business that has an immediate touchpoint with the end customer. It incorporates D2C brands, retail tech, insurance tech, and edtech. In the previous SaaS accomplice, six organizations were funded from different VCs as a component of the program. Accel accepts that the program can help consumer tech founders learn from the best.
This program is not an accelerator program. It helps founders to take the idea forward by finding a product-market-fit. This graduates the founder to an accelerator program if they want to get into one,” said Anand Daniel, Partner at Accel. Remember, coming to this program gives them access to knowledge and founders who have scaled companies. It is not a program where we will take any equity in the company,” he added. Accel, which has been investing in SaaS, health tech, and fintech divisions, believes that consumer tech is going to be enormous since the fund was one of the early financial investors in Flipkart. Over the last 15 years, it has developed to become one of the most successful VCs in India.
The 12-week program will have sessions for authors, where they will learn what to expect from the market in the initial 500 days, and they will also learn what it takes to get to 100,000 users. The program offers two sessions: one on Tuesday where founders of scaled companies talk to the founders of new companies, and on Thursday there will be lessons on growth. There will be sessions on how a founder can plan paid and organic promotion. The mentors will discuss growth channels, market sizing, and which markets to chase. They will provide insights on what is working and what can be fixed.
Every founder wants to know what the product-market fit is, they want to know how to scale organically and what the finance funnel is. The current program is a digital program because of the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Siddharth.
