What exactly is an accelerator and how does it contribute to shaping venture builders and incubators?

Navin: Accelerators at their core rely on nurturing and facilitating startups to eventually pitch to investors. They are a crucial aspect of a growing ecosystem.

Kentaro: The Incubators facilitate innovation into NVP (Net Present Value)  startups which eventually go through the accelerator program.

Ginger: In our company, everyone is very hands-on with implementing crowdfunding and venture builders which all contribute to the growth of the ecosystem that helps each other to create a network of resources that startups can use.

Incubators have to be aware that each country has a different culture and countries have a different way of doing things when dealing with problems. Being adaptable will ensure their success. 

Poompong:  Accelerators have to adapt to stay alive and gain funding. Good Accelerators have a lot of factors affecting them. They need to attract customers, startups and entrepreneurs to make them invisible in the market. Whats becoming more common is that accelerators are funneling themselves as partners for corporates in the ecosystems to be able to raise and secure funding in the future.

Kentaro: We can't have a generic accelerator that works across all countries. The evolution of vertical accelerators needs to be evolved to cater for this diversity.  In south-east Asia there are multiple sectors and when pitching you need to look for investors, the problem is that they are still very traditional and need to adapt to meet the demands of how startups operate in the growing ecosystems.

How do you operate with B2B businesses?

Kentaro: We specialize in B2B investment and we only look at certain accelerator that has expertise in that particular industry. Also, another key factor that helps with B2B is the network within the industry. B2C is very different and is slightly more challenging whereas accelerators in B2B are much easier in this particular vertical.

Ginger: My advice is to focus on the customers, startup markets and bootstrap means of funding before gaining real investment. make sure you develop a solid concept. There is no clear-cut process. We want to provide startups for founders to expand quickly. I'm very interested in working with accelerators that know the market and have thorough research.

Kentaro: Mentors are key in accelerators and another way is with early-stage investors is to be very negotiable. We have a large portfolio already so we have learned via mistakes.

Han Na: For the Philippines, there are a lot of Fintech companies and have a lot of regularity tech companies. We want to work with accelerators that have help from the governments, give opportunities to people and add value to founders that we know will run good companies. Southeast Asia has a big region but the gap in the market for entrepreneurs with real technological skills is lacking. This is the area that we should all want to improve.

Moderator: Navin Danapal SEA Director MOX, SOSV

Panellists: Kentaro Hashimoto

CEO & Founder, GNB Accelerator

Han Na: Y&Archer Manager, Y&ARCHER

 

Ginger Arboleda: Taxumo COO, TAXUMO, INC.

Poompong Tancharoenphol Investment Manager, ADDVENTURES BY SCG