What is a corporate startup accelerator?
A corporate startup accelerator is a structured program in which a large organisation supports a group of startups in a domain it cares about.
The startups get education, mentoring, access to experts and the chance to work with the sponsor. The sponsor gets early exposure to new solutions and talent, a pipeline of potential partners and a visible signal to its market and its own people.
Done well, it is one of the most effective forms of open innovation available to a large organisation. Done badly, it is an expensive marketing event.
When an accelerator is the right choice
An accelerator suits an organisation that wants to learn about and shape a domain, not just buy a solution to one problem.
If you already know the problem and want a company that can solve it, startup matchmaking is usually the better fit.
- You want exposure to emerging talent and solutions in a field, as Charter Hall did in PropTech and Village Roadshow did in mixed reality.
- You want to build an ecosystem around your organisation and be seen as the partner of choice in your sector.
- You want your own people to learn by working alongside startups.
- You are open to pilots and partnerships across several business units.
How we design and run an accelerator
Every accelerator we have run was custom built. The common elements are below.
- Strategic themes. We start with your strategy and business models, then define themes and challenges. For Allens, those were contract creation and management, and risk, compliance and management.
- Marketing and recruitment. We take the program to market and recruit startups, drawing on our network and the wider ecosystem.
- Selection for alignment. We select startups that fit your strategic objectives and the different parts of your business, as we did across Charter Hall's industrial, retail and office divisions.
- Mentors and partners. We bring in mentors and ecosystem partners. Charter Hall's and Village Roadshow's programs included partners such as Amazon Web Services, Zendesk, MYOB, Hubspot and IBM.
- Workshops and coaching. Startups work through market validation, product design, marketing and sales, using the same lean methods we teach corporate teams.
- Demo day and follow-through. The program culminates in a demo day, and we help turn interest into pilots and partnerships.
Bringing internal teams into the program
An accelerator is also a chance to build capability inside your organisation.
For Charter Hall, we incubated a project team made up entirely of internal employees alongside the external startups. They worked to the same rhythm and methods.
That approach exposes your people to evidence-led decisions and startup pace in a way a classroom cannot. It pairs naturally with our lean startup training for teams.
Accelerators we have run
Charter Hall: a PropTech accelerator. Every graduating startup struck partnership agreements or pilots with Charter Hall, and the program was one of the contributing factors that lifted Charter Hall onto the AFR's Most Innovative ASX200 Companies list.
Village Roadshow: a mixed reality accelerator with Microsoft, Telstra Labs and HTC Vive as minor sponsors. Four graduating startups continued working with Village, and three more worked with organisations and investors they met through the program.
Allens: Auctus, the Allens Legal Accelerator, helping legaltech startups scale with expert advice, education and access to the Allens network.
Mills Oakley: a legal startup accelerator exploring legal services innovation, with mentors including Ash Maurya and founders of leading Australian legal startups.
METARISE Launchpad: an accelerator for web3 teams in Australia and New Zealand, with mentors from Animoca Brands, The Sandbox and BlockTower Capital, ending in a Demo Day.
Choosing accelerator themes
Themes are where strategy meets the startup market. Too broad and you get a flood of irrelevant applications. Too narrow and there may be no startups to find.
We work from your strategy and business models outward. Village Roadshow's themes reflected its cinema, film and DVD distribution, marketing and theme park businesses. Charter Hall's reflected its industrial, retail and office divisions.
Each theme should have a business owner who cares about the outcome. That owner is the person who will make a pilot happen, so they need to be involved from the start.
Recruiting and selecting startups
Recruitment is a marketing job as much as a scouting one. The program needs a clear story that founders can see themselves in, and it needs to reach them where they are.
Selection is where accelerators are won or lost. We assess startups for the strength of the product and team, alignment with your strategy, and readiness to work with a large organisation.
We make a concerted effort to pick startups that fit different parts of your business, so that more than one business unit has a reason to engage.
Mentors, partners and sponsors
A strong mentor network is one of the main reasons good startups join an accelerator.
For Village Roadshow, we recruited minor sponsors such as Microsoft, Telstra Labs and HTC Vive, plus high profile mentors from the VR and AR space. Mills Oakley's program attracted mentors including Ash Maurya, author of Running Lean, and founders of leading Australian legal startups.
Ecosystem partners such as Amazon Web Services, Zendesk, MYOB, Hubspot and IBM supported several of our programs, giving startups access to tools and expertise beyond the sponsor.
Accelerator or matchmaking?
If your goal is a solution to a defined problem, matchmaking is usually faster and more direct. It finds later stage startups with customers and revenue and aims straight at a pilot.
If your goal is to understand a domain, build an ecosystem and develop your own people, an accelerator offers more. Many organisations start with matchmaking and add an accelerator once they know which domains matter most.
Why corporate accelerators fail, and how to avoid it
We have written about why corporate startup accelerators fail. The short version: no clear strategic purpose, no business owner ready to pilot, misaligned startup stage and a procurement process that kills momentum.
We address each before launch. Themes are tied to strategy. Each theme has an internal owner. Selection checks that startups are ready for what working with a large organisation demands. The pilot path is agreed in advance.
We also tell you if an accelerator is the wrong tool. Sometimes matchmaking, or building your own team's capability first, is the better answer.
What a good accelerator delivers
The outcomes we look for are concrete. Partnership agreements and pilots, like those every graduating Charter Hall startup struck. Ongoing work across business units, like Village Roadshow's. Market recognition and media coverage, which several programs generated.
And a lasting change in how your people think about new ideas, which is the part that keeps paying off after the demo day.