Techstars' objective is to support founders in building their venture and accessing opportunity and funds worldwide. As an organization, we have invested, through our accelerator programs, in about 4,500 startups all over the world.
Techstars has been supporting ecosystems through different types of programs like our accelerator programs, which are 12-week long investment programs, where the startups go through our accelerators to learn how to scale their business and be able to raise additional funds afterwards.
We also have non-equity programs which aim at supporting earlier-stage startups than what actually get accepted into our accelerators. That's exactly what we will be doing in Botswana and in the southern African region.
Share more on the program you have launched in Botswana
The Startup Community Catalyst program comprises of several different programs that we will be putting together in the span of two years. There will be, throughout those two years, actually three different Startup Weekends that will be dedicated to aspiring founders, aspiring entrepreneurs who really want to experience the entrepreneurial life.
Startup Weekend is a 54-hour long program during which they will get a chance to meet a team, ideate on a business idea work on it, pitch it to the community as well, and to a panel of judges here that will be aiming to to really decide who in this case, will be winning that pitching competition at the end of the weekend.
The idea is really to give the startups that will be formed throughout the weekend their first spotlight. Regarding the Founder Catalyst Program, there will be three of those, also throughout two years. Here, the idea is that this program is a funding readiness program for pre-seed startups, and we're looking here for startups that are less than two years old and have raised less than $500,000 and are from any industry.
They will have access to master classes, mentorship and many other perks. At the end of this, the idea is that they also get a demo day, during which we will have the whole entire community coming together, and where they will be able to pitch their company on stage and showcase the advancements that they've made throughout the program.
Then there is the Community Development Lab, which is an initiative to gather ecosystem actors, stakeholders, and thought leaders of the region and support them in the training of installing a sustainable startup community. For that, we will have about 50 community leaders that will come together for that particular initiative, and the idea here is that they will then be the driving forces to also support their community locally.
How did the program get to be based in Botswana?
So we have a partner called Merce Anders Equity Group, and the executive director Moagi is a founder that worked with me in a program in Saudi Arabia that I that I was managing. He experienced the power of such a program when he was part of it in Saudi Arabia, and he decided that he really wanted to collaborate with Techstars to Southern Africa and develop his community. And this is why we decided to go to Botswana with him.
He is also very much a driving force supporting that initiative. The program will be hosted in Botswana, but it's important to say that it's not a Botswana program but a regional program that covers Southern Africa. In this case, we consider Namibia, Zambia, Zimbabwe, South Africa, and Botswana for potential founders to apply to the program.
What are your thoughts on the Southern Africa startup ecosystem?
The region has a lot of potential! We see a lot of startups coming out of South Africa and the rest of the region is also very dynamic: we want to support that dynamism and support that community as a whole. We would love to impact over 100 of those aspiring entrepreneurs to kick start their entrepreneurial career throughout the two years. For Founder Catalyst, we are looking at between 50 and 60 startups.
Moagi himself is really a great ecosystem actor in itself. So he has allowed us to come into that community and support it. Moagi and Merce Anders are very well ingrained into the community already. Moagi with his different businesses and the network that he's created throughout the years. This is obviously important if you're working on the community level.
Anything else you would like to add about the program?
The first startup weekend will be happening from the 28th to the 30th of March this year, and registrations are open. I encourage all founders and every potential founder to apply. We have had between five and 10 unicorns that have come out of Startup Weekends so the program has a pretty solid background.
The second program, which is currently accepting applications, is our Founder Catalyst Program, which i have already explained. We are looking for startups that are less than two years old, raised less than $500,000 and have shown first steps towards scaling and want to become funding-ready for a pre seed round.
This program will be taking place from May 5 to July 20.