Silicon Valley B2B Enterprise software-as-a-service accelerator Acceleprise is expanding its business to Melbourne in early 2018 and will be chaired by serial founder and Catapult Sports executive chairman Dr Adir Shiffman.
The company has also confirmed its Melbourne business will be operated by executive director Rohit Bhargava, founder of the popular start-up Playbook Podcast and owner of growth agency Playbook Media.
Like its US partner, the Australian accelerator will focus specifically on SaaS companies targeting corporate and enterprise clients.
Applications for the Acceleprise Australia programme are now open, with the first cohort to launch in February 2018. The Australian programme includes one month co-located in the San Francisco Acceleprise working space alongside US start-ups and aims to invest in 30 to 40 start-ups over the next 3 years.
{loadposition peter}“We see a tremendous opportunity to leverage this national and regional competitive advantage by focusing on accelerating high-potential enterprise SaaS start-ups”, said Dr Shiffman, who will be an active mentor and has founded over a dozen start-ups.
Shiffman said that since its establishment in 2014, US-based Acceleprise has invested in more than 60 start-ups, creating hundreds of jobs and is delivering strong returns to its investors. It recently raised a further US$7 million fund to invest in start-ups and also opened an accelerator in New York City.
He said Acceleprise Australia was more than a year in the making, and is a partnership that will build on the success achieved by founder Michael Cardamone and Acceleprise General Partner Whitney Sales.
Acceleprise managing director Michael Cardamone said: “It’s become apparent that the SaaS ecosystem is rapidly expanding across the globe. Supporting early stage entrepreneurs in growing SaaS markets like Australia is the best thing we can do to help in building the global SaaS ecosystem and the next generation of great SaaS companies.”
“These start-ups will benefit greatly from expert guidance on how to scale effectively, particularly into international markets, and access to client introductions to build their revenue”, said Bhargava.
“To this end the accelerator has recruited an unprecedented group of successful mentors to deliver these outcomes. They will provide their time to the start-ups free and include several start-up founders who have built $50 million-plus companies, a number of C-level enterprise SaaS executives, and at least one ASX-20 chief executive and chief information officer.”