What We Look For

Pre-Selection Criteria

A team gaining admission to the Seed Accelerator™ Idea Seed Program or Business Seed Program should meet most of the following criteria, which are also part of our online application process:

Invention / Idea

  • Your idea produces new ICT products or services (software, content, etc) or products and services for which ICT is a key driver of competitive advantage and preferably does not exist yet;
  • The startup idea/business model is innovative and can be qualified as a ‘Blue Ocean’ (the opposite of a ‘me-too’ and competitive red ocean);
  • Is a startup idea or newly incorporated company and has fewer than 5 to 8 employees / team members;
  • Is the idea scalable globally? Can the idea be easily transportable to new markets at relative low cost? For example: can it be sold in Japan, China, US and France?
  • We are looking for compelling technologies that can maintain a competitive and sustainable advantage for the company we are starting together. Whether it comes from intellectual property protection, from deep domain expertise or merely from the fact that they are “first to market” – there must be something!
  • We also love investing in disruptive technologies and business models that are able to shrink and greatly change existing markets. If your company can take $5 of revenue from a competitor for every $1 you earn: let's talk!
  • We value simplicity (KISS) and clarity: if it takes you more than 5 minutes to get us excited about your new invention or business idea, you might be trying to do too many things…

Market

  • The idea provides a unique solution to an existing urgent need in the market;
  • The idea or concept represents a clear opportunity to differentiate against the existing marketplace: focused on a niche market or uncontested market space;
  • The people behind the idea have a solid understanding of its market opportunity: Your invention should address a clear need in a market with no good solution;
  • Large market: the problem that you are trying to solve should have a sizable and global market potential;

Team

  • Entrepreneurs and their team must know what they are talking about and have a clear and deep understanding of their marketplace, their competitors and the financial dynamics of the industry they focus on.
  • The team: we look to build a long-term partnership with passionate people who are fun to work with and the best in their class, who have deep domain expertise and dare to dream big, who are keen on building strong teams with background diversity;
  • There is a management team in place which can bring the idea to market. If not, is the founding entrepreneur open to inserting strong leaders with proven track records?
  • The team is able to leverage advances in distribution, technology or marketing to change industry economics or invent a new business model;
  • Is the team willing and able to move to Sydney or Singapore for at least 4 months?
  • The team members share a strong passion and ambition and have the vision, brains and balls to conquer the world;
  • The team has the support of all its shareholders to execute its business plan;
  • The team understands its strengths and limitations, and recognises the value of the Seed Accelerator™ contribution to overcoming weaknesses;

Win-win

  • We at Seed Accelerator™ are active investors and pro-active entrepreneurial co-founders. We believe our programs are far more valuable than our seed funding and we look for entrepreneurs who feel the same and want our help;
  • The entrepreneur is willing to provide a minority equity stake (up to 25%) in return for the Seed Accelerator™ contribution of seed funding, advice, mentoring, coaching, training, education, guidance and on-going support.

What we are NOT looking for:

  • We’re not interested in teams that are creating the xth solution to the same old problem nor companies who are trying to improve things by only <25 percent. We prefer 'blue oceans' and making the impossible possible!
  • Ideas for a very small local/regional niche market. Ideas which are not scalable. Ideas which are too complex to understand.
  • One-man bands: we prefer to invest in teams of at least two people.
  • National or regional growth ambitions: we prefer to invest in teams with the skills, ability and ambition to build a global business.

Selection Criteria

If most or all of the pre-selection criteria are being met and we receive an application, the Seed Accelerator™ leadership team and our Selection Board will be assisted by various vertical industry experts to help us review and select the best applications.
The main selection criteria will be:

  1. Management
  2. Business Model
  3. Market Size & Related Factors
  4. Implementation Risks
  5. Transaction Parameters
  6. Key Achievements
  7. Flexibility
  8. Joined Passion & Relationship.

Specific type of technology companies, ideas or business models Seed Accelerator™ will invest in:

In principle your business model should be disruptive, scalable, preferably a 'blue ocean' and should fit in one of the following categories.

  • SaaS – These companies sell their product to customers via the web, and don’t bother with a “try before you buy” product.
  • Freemium – These companies give away a free product, and then try to upsell more sophisticated features or solutions on top of that.
  • Mobile – These companies provide a unique product and/or service for which mobile is the leading distribution channel.
  • Sell Installed App – Broken out from SaaS, because these companies are actually selling software that is licensed and physically installed. Subtle difference these days.
  • Gather/sell eyeballs – You might call this the “advertising” model, or the “underpants” model. Some call it “audience aggregation”. Some of the companies which achieved early exits were in this category (Socialthing, Intense Debate), but it’s quite risky too. Often, companies doing this initially have other models in mind once they reach a critical mass but can’t use that approach early on because they don’t have enough scale.
  • Marketplace – These companies try to aggregate buyers and sellers, and generally take commissions or service fees for providing the marketplace.
  • Lead Gen – These companies often provide a valuable free service, and then provide qualified leads to buyers. This is very similar to the Freemium model, except that the upsell is not more software, its other services or software provided by someone else.
  • Online-to-Offline commerce, or On2Off (O2O) - Finding consumers online and bringing them into real-world stores. It is a combination of payment model and foot traffic generator for merchants (as well as a “discovery” mechanism for consumers) that creates offline purchases. Examples: Groupon, OpenTable and Restaurant.com.
  • Virtual Goods – This model typically involves providing a game or other interesting virtual environment and then selling virtual goods in that environment.
  • Crowdsourcing (SaaS) – These companies use the power of a large distributed workforce, often to do things that computers can’t do automatically or efficiently. Typically they ultimately deliver a service to the customer.
  • Functionality as a Service (Faas) - These companies combine hardware, software, services an various kind of assets and business models to offer a SLA based function to the customer.
  • Desktop as a Service (Daas) - Desktop in the cloud solution. These companies provide an online desktop solution, enabling customers with a flexible and powerful desktop platform that they can customize to suit their specific needs.
  • Content Production – Although it’s a perennially unpopular approach with investors, these companies create content and then attract an audience for that content, typically selling advertising inventory targeted at the audience or subscriptions.
  • Enterprise – Companies that are taking web 2.0 consumer technologies and applying them to enterprise settings.
  • Technology - New innovative hardware and/or software with a massive disruptive impact.
  • XXXXX – A new uncontested business model, product or service for a new uncontested market space.

 

Before You Apply

If you think you, your idea and your team will meet most of our selection criteria, please ask yourself if you like us to sign our mutual non-disclosure agreement (NDA) before you contact us. For more info, please click here.

For more detailed information and answers to most of your Seed Accelerator™ related questions, please see our FAQ page, or click here.