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Activate Ventures Foundation Programme
Applications for our next cohort in Autumn 2023 are now open! 

A 6 week Live Programme to activate your business potential and get ready to pitch to investors to raise money.

We will help you: 

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Build a product that customers will want, pay for and enjoy.

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Launch and grow your business supported by a dedicated team of mentors.

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Put together a compelling, inspiring pitch deck.

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Line up investors with confidence and raise money.

Grow your business and raise money in 2023!

The result of decades of work in the early stage ecosystem, Activate has helped dozens of startups launch and grow their businesses. Only in the last 2 years we helped over 70 startups get investor ready. In fact, 44% of the founders who took the Activate programme successfully raised funds, totalling £56 million. These founders are now making an impact in the world. Put your business in the best possible place to join them.

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Our unique approach guides you in shaping your business from start to finish. Our strong experience and the exclusive, tailored tools that we provide to startup founders exponentially increase the rate of success of the venture. That experience and those tools are organised and structured to serve startups founders in the best way possible with a programme adapted each year to the changing face of the modern world.

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Applications for our next cohort are now open. Create your profile on our deal flow platform Station and apply to get investor ready!  

Invest your way to success

Inside our Activate Ventures Foundation Programme, 
you will learn to:

Tell your story and build the foundations of your business with a strong purpose, vision and values.


Assess the market opportunity, define your initial target ‘beachhead’ market and find out how to talk to customers.


Create an intimate profile of your brand hero and and their needs - build a strong value proposition based on real solutions to customers problems and pain points.

Outline your business model and define your ‘secret sauce’ - what makes you and your business unique.


Test your product hypothesis - gain traction and new customers for your new venture.



Put together a compelling pitch deck, learn how to engage with investors by speaking their language and how to raise money.

"Since the pilot programme with Activate, we have managed to sign some big names as pilot clients and raise our first institutional round. Activate definitely prepared us for these achievements, as we learned a great deal from them about investor readiness and how to position ourselves in our respective market."

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Patrick Reich, Founder, Bonnet

What you get...in details: 

  • Guaranteed opportunity to pitch to the Activate Teams 

  • Opportunity to apply for one of our pitch events with investors in our network 

  •  Contacts and introductions within our network, where possible 

  • 12 months of access to all the content and curriculum on our online education platform 

  • 1 live (virtual) introductory session + social 

  • 4 live (virtual) workshops (3 hours each) 

  • 1 on 1 onboarding and weekly sessions with your dedicated mentor 

  •  Office hours with access to a team of experts several times per week 

  • Free access to business modelling tools (Strategyzer) 

  • Opportunity for Q&A with our partners and sponsors 

  • Investor readiness assessment and pitch practice

  • Lifetime access to our community of graduates and students 

  • Ongoing support through office hours (ask us any questions even after the end of the programme!)

Don’t delay, Activate your business today and start enjoying the rewards of your success.

Why a Foundation Programme can make a difference

90% of startups fail. This is sad but true and we see this everyday. Some of the reasons startups fail are:

  • Lack of focus

  • Lack of good mentorship

  • Lack of general and domain-specific business knowledge: finance, operations and marketing

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But also, most startups don’t grab investor attention because they can’t articulate why they’re in business, what their story is, and what they stand for in the world.

 

Why should someone invest in your business when they might make more money in a low cost index fund? The Activate Ventures Programme exists to create the compelling opportunity that investors can’t deny.

 

Inside the Programme, we will help you with practical tools to attract your ideal customers and investors in 2023 and beyond. 

This programme is intended for:

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  • Founders who want to make an impact in the world through their business venture;

  • Founders whose company has been incorporated in the UK (requirement!)

  • Founders who feel swamped and not sure of the right approach;

  • Founders who can commit to at least 10-12 hours of work per week to shape their company and be ready to pitch their business to top investors in 6 weeks;

  • Founders who can make all workshops and meetups (see key dates below);

  • Founders who are determined to succeed and raise money in 2023

And it’s not at all for:

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  • Founders who don’t care about their business making an impact and only care about making money;

  • Founders who are not willing to put in the work both during and after the programme

  • Companies not based in the UK 

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What will we be covering?

The Activate Ventures Foundation Programme is organised around 6 proven modules designed to improve your business foundations. 

 

Here’s a quick rundown of what's included in each module: 

  Module 1: Why we exist

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  • What is storytelling and why it’s important for your new venture

  • Define your purpose, vision and values

  Module 3: Creating customer value

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  • Profiling personas and priorities

  • The customer journey outline

  • Define and quantify the value proposition

  Module 5: Rapid market testing and roll out

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  • Test your product hypothesis 

  • Get traction and new customers rapidly for your business 

  • Create a digital marketing plan 

  • Use paid and organic traffic to grow your business digitally

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  Module 2: The Market Opportunity

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  • Market definition and segmentation

  • From beachhead market to Total Addressable Market (TAM)

  • Primary and secondary market research

  • Market mapping

  • Competitive analysis

Module 4: Outlining our business model and ‘secret sauce’

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  • Outline an initial business model

  • What is your secret sauce

  • Cores, moats and capabilities

Module 6: Improving our pitch and next steps

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  • Improve and finalise your pitch deck

  • Communicate with potential investors

  • Identify next steps on the path to success

We also offer an exclusive Bonus Module to help you understand your company finances as you scale.

Bonus Module: Financial Modelling Workshop

In this module, you will learn:

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  • Basic financial forecasts (including a forecasting spreadsheet template)

  • How to use financial statements 

  • How to develop a valuation of your business (including a valuation spreadsheet template)

The Team

Activate pride themselves on the expertise that their mentors deliver. Between them, they have worked for the likes of Goldman Sachs, Yahoo and the BBC, have been involved in successful IPOs and acquisitions. Here is the full lineup:

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Tracey Keys

Strategy

Previously Head of Corporate Planning at the BBC, Tracey has over 30 years of experience as a consultant, educator and manager, and has seen her work published by the likes of The McKinsey Quarterly, The Economist, and Harvard Business School Publishing.

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Pierpaolo Zollo

Marketing & Traction

Pierpaolo helps businesses achieve exponential growth. A former Marketing and Commercial Director for global companies like Yahoo and Kelkoo, he helped clients like Amazon & ASOS significantly increase their revenue. Pierpaolo spent the last few years advising businesses in retail, FMCG, hospitality and cleantech on strategy, growth, marketing and sales.

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Nancy Yee

Finance & Operations

An expert in private equity and venture capital, Nancy has worked as a COO, CTO and CFO throughout her career. With experience working for the likes of Goldman Sachs, Nancy is based in New York City and committed to creating solutions to exploit business opportunities.

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Greg Rice

Investment

An expert in startups, Greg has spent much of his career in Silicon Valley and leading companies to successful IPOs. He is an established and highly regarded Director, Advisor and Non-Executive Board Member.

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Adrian Austin

Product & Design

An expert in UX and product design, Adrian is a founding member of the Activate team and covers the role of Head of Design. Bringing fresh eyes and perspective to complex problems, Adrian helped to create the Activate Foundation Programme and works with the Activate Ventures team to deliver the content.

How much does the Programme cost?

We want to work with you towards your success as one team, with our interests completely aligned: you get invaluable content and an experienced team of investors and startup mentors to grow and make the most of your business, and we are rewarded in helping you to be successful. 

With this in mind, Activate Ventures doesn’t charge any upfront fee for the programme and we take instead 1% of equity and 1.5% cash on your first raise (so you have a little bit of skin in the game too). 

We are rewarded only if you succeed, that’s how confident we are that our foundation programme works! Let’s do this together as a team!

For any questions, message us here or send us an email

Don’t delay, Activate your business today and start enjoying the rewards of your success.

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“I thought I was ready to launch but going through the accelerator programme and having high quality mentors made me reevaluate the direction of my business and focus in more detail. It has been the most valuable course I have done in the two years since setting up!”

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Sarah Cudmore - Founder - Homegrown Learning

Key dates (2023) - to be confirmed

16th of October: Intro session + social 

23rd of October: Workshop + Q&A with partner 

6th of November: Workshop + Q&A with partner 

13th of November: Financial modelling workshop + Q&A with partner 

20th of November: Workshop + Q&A with partner 

27th of November: Pitch to Activate Teams and Partners â€‹

Too busy and no time to attend live workshops? We have a flexible programme that you can take in your own time and at your own pace. 

Check it out here 

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