Thoughts on Newchip Acceleration
Hey everyone,
We got contacted by Newchip and, after two meetings, we got accepted to the acceleration program. I have never had any experience with acceleration programs so wanted to get your feedback on it.
The program asks for a tuition of $7,500. It guarantees that at least 10 investors will be introduced and one investment offer will come. Our company is bootstrapped and we will use the investment only for marketing at this stage. Do you think it's wise to take up this offer?
I've been doing a bit of digging on this and it seems like the tuition fees vary depending on the nature of the startup, traction, pedigree of the founders and (most bizarre) how well you negotiate during the interview process.
I get that applying a fee-based model probably filters insincere applicants but then I imagine transparency and consistency in pricing only becomes more important. Pre-application, there is nothing on the website about pricing.
i dislike the schemes that ask you to pay to get the job or pay to get investors etc. Most of them are scams and even if they are not it is difficult to tell so my approach is to avoid them.
Thanks! The whole thing seemed too easy to be normal, which made me suspicious.
I think it honestly depends on what you're building and why you need to raise funding. We went through the accelerator program a little over a year ago and found it incredibly valuable. The funding opportunity aside, we met a ton of people and forged great partnerships while part of the program. I'm a first-time founder but have been around startups my entire career. I've raised hundreds of millions of VC funding, but it's always been for someone else's company. It was a totally different experience raising money for my own company. TL:DR; my company was able to raise a Seed Round of $500K and our Advisor is world-class. Those were my two takeaways.