Accelerator Strategy Overview
Geography: Global
Preferred industries: Maritime and offshore energy, including port, shipping, dredging, naval and defense. Mostly sustainable solutions.
Company stage: start-ups and scale-ups, so: launch (seed), early growth, next step/roll-out
Product stage: concept, demo, MVP/beta, ready product
Product type: B2B (occasionally B2G)
Revenues: Differs per company
Program Details
Duration: 3 months
Participation fee: 4000 euros for startups
Equity Investment: none
Grant: none
No. of batches per year (+ months when you collect applications): 1 batch per year, applications collected from January til June.
No. of startups in a cohort: 8 – 15 per year
Q&A with Christel Pullens, Managing Director PortXL
What are the 5 most important things you look for in a startup applying to your acceleration program?
- Relevant technology
- Team should be open to feedback
- Must have a clear business strategy
- Market attraction – is there an interest within the market?
- A good understanding of the maritime industry
What startups should take into account before applying to your acceleration program?
Hard work pays off. A business doesn’t grow on its own. It takes effort and energy from those that are involved – from the workers on the ground to the investors in the background. To create value, you need to put the work in but that effort will be rewarded with support from programs like ours.
It’s also important to understand the industry before joining an acceleration program. Some businesses can utilize their products in a variety of industries and will apply to different acceleration programs as such, but if you are going to apply to a program in the maritime industry, then you should do your due diligence and understand how our industry works. Beyond that, you also should understand the partners that are in the room who are analyzing your presentation and be prepared to answer their tough questions.
Can you share some of the red flags that can disqualify a startup from joining your accelerator?
When we start to work with these businesses, our goal is to get them through to the partner evaluation. So if we see that something is relevant, we will try to give them advice and work with them on their presentation so that they can make clear that the product or service they are trying to sell will be utilized in our industry.
So often we find that these companies can be a bit too “salesy” – they haven’t done their homework about the industry and how to present to the partners and they just have an end goal in sight – how to raise money to grow their business. We want an understanding of the start up’s business and have a legitimate interest in it taking it to the next level. We don’t need the bells and whistles – we want the facts and information so that we can make an informed decision. Because they are in need for money, they don’t always give us the full story and so it’s our job to really dig and find out the information needed for us to make an informed decision about if they should move on to the next round or not. But it’s also about trying to help them – we do a pre-selection process before they are even in front of the partners. If they have made it through that step, we will work with them on their presentations and explain to them why they need to understand the intricacies of working with some of these larger corporations and how they should adjust their deck to incorporate that information about how their business can impact the partners.
In addition to not thinking about the big picture, but just about the financial factor, we often see that businesses will set unrealistic goals for themselves or that they are just opportunists looking for funding wherever they can find it and that can be a setback. When a business doesn’t utilize feedback effectively, it shows they are a bit narrowminded and can’t think beyond themselves. It’s important for them to understand that there are other perspectives of their business model that can be beneficial to their growth and by not receiving or implementing feedback, they are hindering that growth.
What are the most valuable skills that selected startups can develop thanks to your program?
Even if a business has origins in the maritime industry, they will improve upon that base knowledge and will learn the ins and outs of who to approach for their business needs and how to navigate within the industry to see those objectives come to fruition.
How does your accelerator support portfolio companies during and after the program?
We have a strong alumni network in which we support our portfolio of companies during and after the program through access to our partners and our ecosystem. We provide trainings in order to give them to better understand the European maritime landscape. We also keep them updated on opportunities that might help them to grow their businesses. They are invited to events after the program is complete which gives them the opportunity to continuously grow their network. Finally, we support their marketing efforts and will often help to promote the work they are doing through our own media channels.
We have implemented our Innovator in a Day masterclass in recent years that supports both our starts ups and the corporations they are working with. We can see that it is difficult for larger companies to work with start-ups and scale-ups and we want to use our expertise to help them work together. The training is focused on the corporate experience – we want them to understand the do’s and don’ts about working with a start-up or a scale-up. We recognize that innovation in a start-up or scale-up is very different than in a large corporation. For example, in a corporation, you can wait months for a product or project to launch, but in a start-up or scale up, that kind of time can be devastating for their business. We believe that every company needs to innovate and understand how to organize that within their business – our goal is to facilitate successful collaborations between corporations and starts ups or scaleups. We host our Innovator in a Day masterclass at least 4 times per year. https://portxl.org/innovator-in-a-day/
What are the best-performing companies in your portfolio?
This is a tough question! We’ve worked with so many great start-ups over the years. Each business has its own objectives that they are trying to meet so our measurements of performance are not and cannot be standardized to such a wide variety.
What key lessons have you learned from projects that didn’t work out the way you expected?
While it doesn’t necessarily apply to projects specifically, one of the things we’ve learned over the years is to do a pre-selection process of the candidates. In the past, everyone who was pre-selected would come to Rotterdam to find out who had qualified for the accelerator program. And when they would find that their business wasn’t accepted into the cohort, many were not only disappointed, but would leave feeling frustrated and with a negative feeling about the experience. Not to mention the funds that were spent and the impact on the environment to get them to Rotterdam in the first place. We’ve changed the program to prevent this from happening and so now we do a stricter online pre-selection process. We only bring the selected companies to Rotterdam at the start of the program which saves time and money as well as reduces environmental impact.
Managing expectations before and during the program is key. If you come into a project expecting X and the company is expecting Y, then you are never going to have an end result that works for everyone. This also ties into having clear and open communication – without open communication, you can’t have open innovation.
Why, in your opinion, accelerators are becoming more popular nowadays?
Accelerators act as a safe space where people have the opportunity to innovate, connect and share experiences with emerging businesses and can leave the pressure of their own organization behind. They are able to utilize the network and support of the accelerator to drive the growth of their business. Networking is the key to the world – it’s not always about what you know, but who you know. We also see the start-ups and scale-ups in our cohorts opening their networks to each other and supporting one another. And if you can get your business in front of the right people through an accelerator’s or cohort’s network, you will have more opportunities than taking traditional routes.
What are the hottest markets you currently look at as an accelerator and where do you see the biggest hype?
We are an accelerator in the maritime industry and so that is where we focus. So we can’t speak to what the hottest markets are at the moment in a general sense. But for the maritime industry, we focus on green energy, alternative fuels and decarbonization to make a positive climate impact. This means reducing emissions, building in harmony with nature, and improving processes and operations.
Do you have any predictions about the key trends that will shape the European accelerator scene in the near future?
The modern European accelerator needs to be able to move fast and to be able to provide value to the ecosystem. If you can’t do that, someone else will get in there and fill the void. Within the European accelerator model, we need businesses to cooperate more and to ensure a safe growth environment for start-ups, even if it means taking a risk. Having more investments in the form of subsidies would be beneficial or finding investors that are willing to put up the funds to help support various starting companies.
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