500 startups, a venture capital firm that provides funds to companies in their early stages, is now receiving applications for its 22nd batch. This seed program is set to take place in San Francisco, from the 24th of July 2017.
As of August 1, 2015, 500 Startups had invested in over 1,200 companies including Canva, Cleanify and Udemy. Of current investments, more than 20% have participated in other incubators, 20-30% are international, and over 60 have been acquired. To date, their biggest exits include $403M acquisition of Makerbot by Stratasys, $350M acquisition of Wildfire by Google, $200M acquisition of Viki by Rakuten, and $117M acquisition of Simple by BBVA. Even Nigerian Printivo was in the 20th batch of this program.
The program which runs for four months is filled with:
- access to a network of 1000+ founders, 200+ mentors, and the 500 startups staff, who will give guidance when needed
- a rich curriculum focused on marketing, culture, startup accounting, product design, mobile, user testing, sales, and more.
- opportunities to build relationships and partnerships
- a demo day reserved to pitch to investors
- $150,000 investment in return for 6% of your company
They invest in all kinds of companies and their areas of interest include: Consumer Commerce, Family, Tech and Education, Design, Cloud services, International / emerging markets, Food Tech, Digital Healthcare, Mobile + Tablet (IOS and Android), Payments and Financial services, IoT/Drones/Hardware, Fashion, Beauty and so on.
Startups all over the world are encouraged to apply here.
