When the co-founders of Colorintech first started the organization, the idea was to help more underrepresented folks get into tech. But then they asked the question: “If we’re helping the community work for the leading entrepreneurs of the world, why not help them become those leading entrepreneurs too?”
That started a process over years of accelerator programs, and this year we’ve achieved the HUGE milestone of 5 years of programming!
The #Build Pathway at Colorintech has 2 main goals:
- Get more folks from underrepresented backgrounds into tech entrepreneurship.
- Help underrepresented start-up founders increase their chances of success.
And its main programme is our annual Colorintech Accelerator Programme, which takes place over 10 weeks to energise startups with underrepresented founders - focused on our core pillars of leadership, business and revenue, and investment.
Namely, what we do for our participants is:
- Get you in front of investors, and pitch you to them ourselves.
- Train you through in-depth, practical workshops, and providing you with activities to complete to accelerate your growth.
- Connecting you to relevant individuals and helping you grow your network.
- Providing you with 1:1 office hours with expert organisations.
- Improving your startup’s visibility by marketing you and your startup through out channels.
- Supporting with stipends, credits, and more resources where possible and applicable.
But why did we choose the cohorts we did?
When putting out applications, we’re looking primarily for incredible leaders, who can build impactful and scalable tech businesses. So how do you identify a leader, and how do you identify a business/product with great potential? That’s what our team has spent a lot of time working on! We interview to understand things like coachability, leadership perspectives, commitment to what they’re building, and more! But most importantly, we judge our own ability to help the founder. If someone is a bit too early or too late in the timeline of their business' development, we look for other more impactful ways to help that person.
We take a founder-first approach - so if a founder changes business or makes a major pivot, we’re still here to help where we can. Here are some key impact stats about our community:
- The amount raised between all alumni in USD is ~$30,500,000 as of December 2023.
- Total number of programme alumni: 72
- Total founder programmes run over 5 years (as of 2023): 9
- The average first raise is approximately £500k, however this ranges somewhat. Over multiple rounds, founders have gone on to raise 7 figures.
- The % of founders who go on to raise a round after our accelerators currently stands around 25% (compared to the industry average of 0.5-1%).
A great example of one of our alumni is Robin AI who recently announced a 24 MILLION Series B; our largest raise by a participant so far.
We’re supported by organisations like HSBC Innovation Banking, Atomico, and Microsoft, with more along the way in 2024 - which ensures that #Build is also completely free for our community. It’s important to us to reduce barriers to entry for our community to ensure we’re reaching those goals!
This last year, we trialled something new and listening to feedback, are radically overhauling Year 6 onwards! It was recently announced and applications close January 21st 2024. And if you’d like you can read what one of our founders said about last year.
And to stay up-to-date with it all, follow our entrepreneur newsletter here.
Investors who signed up to watch and support previously included the likes of Stride VC, Ada Ventures, Forward Partners, Jenson Funding Partners, BGV, and so many more! Our community is only growing, and we’ll have more things being released and announced in 2024 than ever before. So to stay up-to-date with it all, follow our entrepreneur newsletter here.
