Share This
This week’s meeting was more of “A Coffee With” rather than “A Beer With” as we met Rose from Collider13 at the Cornerhouse in Manchester. This busy cultural centre provided the perfect scene to have a lunchtime chat with one of the UK’s most unique startup schemes.
Rose Lewis is the founder of the startup programme called Collider13. The programme invests in startups in the UK that solve the problems that brands face, providing them with money, mentorship and market access. Rose is the extremely skilled brains behind the operation, having 15 years of experience in early stage fund raising.
Collider is now in its second year with applications for 2013 closing shortly. In Collider12 they invested in 9 companies based around the UK, two of which were from Manchester. Unlike most accelerator programmes they give the startups more money, £70k net which is a combination of loan capital and equity capital. Another feature that makes Collider so unique is that they also provide the startups with brand connections that startups can cooperate with in order to effectively solve the problem of that brand customer. This market access allows three years worth of progress to be packed into three months.
Why do Collider give more funding than other accelerators? Rose says that after working with startups for a long time she has recognised what startups need, and £15k isn’t it. It is important that a new business is able to pay the staff and founders at a little bit of money for at least 3 months until it is possible to get a little bit of traction which then attracts further investment. Rose identifies this as a growing trend as more accelerators around the world are realising this and giving more money. Giving a startup more fuel means that they can move faster. The proof Rose gives is that of the four companies that have gone on to raise more money, all of them have at least doubled their valuation since Collider.
Giving more money means that Collider also take more equity. They receive 15% whereas most accelerators only take 8%. This is because they recognise the importance of the first round and want to be able to offer investors more. They split the equity between 8 investors, each getting 1%. This gives them far more incentive to support the startup where the traditional 8% doesn’t leave much of this incentive. The investors are taken on as mentors rather than having a huge bank of mentors that are “doing it for the love”. Having investors and mentors has proven a successful way to ensure they go the extra mile.
All of last year’s cohort are still alive and booming. Six of them have closed or are closing commercial deals with brands and four are raising follow on money with one about to. It looks like Collider is proving a success so far.
Collider look for applicants with a prototype and some basic validation. Rose pointed out that they love entrepreneurs who come from the area that they are operating in because this show they know the problem they are trying to solve. One examples she gives is of Seeker which finds broken links on ecommerce sites. The founder was from lastminute.com which helped to prove that the frustration was truly understood.
With applications closing very soon I would recommend any startups take the opportunity to join this unique startup programme. You can do so here.
