There are accelerators everywhere. Some are global giants. Others are local incubators or university programs. They all promise speed, mentorship and investment.
So why do thousands of founders apply to Startmate every year?
We might be a little biased but the Startmate Accelerator isn’t a cookie-cutter 8 week program.
This is a customer obsessed, fast paced, mentor guided, one of a kind community ready to get you from 0-1 in 14 weeks.
Let's dive into why the Startmate Accelerator gives you an unfair advantage.
#1 Mentors with skin in the game
In most accelerators, mentors are volunteers. You might get a coffee chat, a few introductions, and then radio silence.
At Startmate, mentors are investors. Every company is matched with 3 Partner Mentors chosen specifically for their stage, sector, and business model. It might be a GTM operator, a deeptech founder, and a venture investor. Together they’re your support crew - not just for advice, but for accountability.
Because they invest in the cohort fund, your wins are literally their wins.
Beyond your core mentors, you can tap into 120+ advisors from Atlassian, Notion, Leonardo.AI, Xero, Amazon and more. They’ve built iconic companies, and they’re ready to unblock your hardest problems.
#2 Fourteen weeks of ruthless focus
We don’t believe in overwhelming founders with content. Startmate has only ~4 hours a week of structured programming. The rest is on you: talking to customers, building, validating, scaling.
What makes it powerful is how tailored it is. Everything (masterclasses, introductions, check-ins) is built around what the cohort needs in real time. If the collective challenge is customer acquisition, we’ll bring in world-class growth leaders. If it’s fundraising strategy, we’ll do deep dives on investor psychology.
The program adapts to you, not the other way around.
#3 Your fundraising co-pilot
Raising capital is one of the toughest parts of the founder journey. Most accelerators will teach you how to build a deck. Startmate goes further: we become your fundraising co-pilot.
That means:
- One-on-one feedback on your pitch deck and narrative.
- Strategy for how to run a round without burning out.
- Warm introductions to 50+ VC firms across ANZ + US and 100+ angels.
- Continued support until your round closes — even post-program.
(hey it’s no wonder 52% of Startmate founders raise $1M–$4M directly after the Accelerator 😉)
#4 A community that compounds
Most accelerators end at their pitch night. Startmate isn’t any ordinary accelerator.
When you join, you don’t just get a program you get a 5,000-person network of founders, operators, and investors. People who’ve been exactly where you are and who are still one Slack message away.
That means warm intros to customers. Future hires. Co-founders. Investors. A community that compounds belief in you.
And it lasts well beyond 14 weeks. Startmate alumni still lean on each other years later for deals, advice, and solidarity when the founder road gets tough.
In September we had our first Alumni Demo Day. An opportunity for the breakout founders from the last 15 years to come together and share their radical progress.
The real proof of difference isn’t what we say. It’s what our founders do.
- Everbility grew ARR 4x in 14 weeks.
- Duohub pivoted mid-program and scaled to $355k ARR.
- Tendl signed a US customer and raised $2M.
- Borne launched a brand-new product line and booked $80k revenue.
“So ah, why does this matter for me?”
Being a founder in ANZ can feel lonely. The ecosystem is smaller (in fact there are less people in the startup ecosystem in ANZ then there are ppl working at Bunnings 🤯) The capital is thinner. The journey is still hard.
That’s why the Startmate Accelerator exists: to give you an unfair advantage right here at home. To surround you with mentors, peers, and investors who see your ambition and help you turn it into traction.
Tldr: you don’t need to fly to SF, you don’t need to wait until you’re “ready”, you need a crew that pulls the future closer, faster.
Got what it takes?
Apply to the Startmate Accelerator
