As a community of innovative and driven entrepreneurs, we forster longlasting connections. We value staying in touch and continuing to support before, during and after the program. This resulted in highly successful startups.
"STARTPLATZ has strongly supported us as a medical company in the installation and planning as well as the network. We have received extensive knowledge in the area of PR as well as organizational structure. The community at STARTPLATZ is supportive, familial and network-oriented. A perfect start for every start-up."
"The STARTPLATZ Accelerator was extremely helpful for us in the initial phase. The program was well-structured, and competent speakers always provided relevant input. Especially the strong network and the corresponding contacts to corporates, investors, but also to fellow founders were of great value."
"payactive was accepted into STARTPLATZ in 2020. This was an important and helpful step for the founding team, as linking up with companies and the local start-up scene helped payactive to acquire its first customers. The trainings and coachings were also very good and helped to lay the foundation for the establishment of the company."
Any Questions?
We have answered the most frequent ones for you!
You still have questions?
Shoot: accelerator@startplatz.de
The STARTPLATZ Accelerator is a program for scaling and developing early-stage startups. Powered by STARTPLATZ.
You do not have to give up any shares. There are no costs for the accelerator program itself, you only need to be a STARTPLATZ member (minimum Community Team Membership , find all our tarifs here ).
STARTPLATZ Accelerator is cross-financed through the other business areas of STARTPLATZ (memberships, coworking, renting out offices & conference rooms, and events).
The STARTPLATZ ecosystem and the structure of the Accelerator promote & attract the attention of potential investors. We also actively support matchmaking through our large network, events such as the Cologne Funding Days, office hours with VC's and Business Angels, and high-profile events such as the Demo Day.
In addition, eligible founders or founding teams can apply directly at STARTPLATZ for the Gründerstipendium NRW (founders' grant) of 1000 € per month. Here is some more information on that.
Your startup should be in the early stage, i.e. you have a testable MVP at the beginning of the program.
If you have the following things at hand, it will take you no longer than 5 minutes to fill out the form:
Your contact information, a short description of your concept (max. 100 words), your pitch deck.
After you click on APPLY, you will be forwarded to an application form.
Fill this out, upload your Pitch Deck at the end of the form and click on "Submit Application".
Afterwards you will receive a mail with a confirmation of receipt.
At the end of the application period, we look at all applications and select the most convincing ones. We invite these teams to pitch their business idea again personally in front of our jury and have a little interview.
After the pitches, we consult and inform the teams of our decision in the following days.
Our program is 99% remote. If possible, we'd love to meet up in real life for the kick off though, as we want to promote a good batch dynamic from the beginning on.
The size of the team is not important for the application.
Yes, you can also apply as a solo entrepreneur.
The focus of the STARTPLATZ Accelerator is on startups in the early stage, the idea phase should already be finished.
Yes, teams can reapply for the following batch after a cancellation. A new application is required for this.
STARTPLATZ offers a comprehensive service offer for founders & Startups as well as Corporates, which would like to dive into the agile startup world and create synergies.
At STARTPLATZ you have the opportunity to work together with other entrepreneurs in our coworking areas and to profit from the effects of the crowd.
In addition to the standard memberships, we offer startups the opportunity to apply for the discounted bootstrapping program.
You already have an office and have no need for coworking space?
Then have a look at our Community Membership. Become a part of the community, get discounts on workshops & events as well as room bookings.
By the way, an overview of all workshops & events can be found here.
You are looking for a stage for your startup?
With the Rheinland-Pitch STARTPLATZ organizes the largest pitch competition in Germany.
No, we expect our teams to dedicate most of their time to the growth of their startup and a little to our program. Any other programs at the same time would dilute the focus on execution.
On average the workload is about 5 hours per week.
We expect you to participate in all expert sessions with at least one team member. We are convinced that every team can benefit from all of our sessions. However, we don’t want to steal your time! If you feel like a specific expert session won’t be of any value to you or you really just can't make it, please let us know as early in advance as possible. We want to avoid us and our voluntary speakers being surprised by a high no-show rate. Also, participation is one of our criteria to choose the teams for the second phase of the program."
We are open to international teams and have quite a few non-German speaking mentors. As soon as we have one person with us who does not feel comfortable with German, we'll happily do everything in English.
No. The Midterm Pitch marks the end of phase 1. After the pitches, the STARTPLATZ Accelerator team consults and decides which teams will make it into the second phase of the program. This is to make sure that all teams in phase 2 can profit ideally from the contents. The evaluation criteria are:
