Keywords: incubation, startups

Feevale Techpark Investor's Group is a partnership between VENTIUR Accelerator and Feevale Techpark which jointly set up a startup acceleration program that, in addition to meeting the Park's growth objectives and benefiting startups with an acceleration program and investment, aims to influence the region's mindset, creating a more open environment for innovation

The main purpose of our solution is to create a culture of startup investment within our community. Vale dos Sinos is a region in Brazil where economy is very traditional, built mainly around the shoe industry and metal-mechanic industry. The goal is to build awareness about new technology business, shortening the gap between the traditional investor with the tech startups world, and giving them the opportunity to venture in new business models. The investors that have never invested in startups have the opportunity to try this new investment model while within a group, having an Accelerator managing the portfolio. Investors and entrepreneurs can learn with each other throughout the process, fostering new business and promoting the development of the entire community. The investors that participate in the group have the opportunity to mentor the startups of the portfolio. This proximity alows the startup to learn from experience, and the traditional investor learn the flexible business model and agile methods.

The majority of the traditional incubators in Brazil can help the startups with mainly 2 essential things: infrastructure and knowledge. And that was the reality in Feevales Incubator as the it has a great infrastructure of collaborative spaces, rooms and labs, and an excellent team of mentors to help the startups with their business models. The one thing that Feevales Incubator did not have was resources to invest in their startups, a reality in many other incubators in Brazil. When startups need funding for their business, they usually need to approach angel investors, government funding or business accelerators. Feevales Techpark solution to offer funding besides infrastructure and knowledge to the startups was partner with an accelerator to build an investors group with local investors, with the main objective to foster the investment culture in the community, and start a virtuous cycle for future business in the region. Feevale Techpark Investors Group was the first initiative of its kind in Brazil, and it can be easily duplicated and escalated and can be adopted specially by the tech parks located where investment opportunities are not abundant. The entire process of prospecting investors in the region, and running the acceleration program inside the techpark was extremely important to approximate investors and business people with the techpark and the university and gave a lot of visibility to the techpark companies.

The call for startups interested in investment was open nation wide. There were 200 subscription. From those 200, 25 were selected for the first phase that""s a two weekend training by the accelerator with the investors participation. After this first phase 12 startups were selected to make the final pitch. From this 12, the investors selected 5 startups. Each startup was invested from US$ 50 to 75k in exchange for 5 to 10% of equity. Together with the investment, the companies went through a 6 months acceleration program. After these 6 months all startups pivot from their initial business plan, there we 23 new people hired to work in these startups, 6 new brands were created among the startups, and +250 contracts were closed with new clients and 2 startups initiated the internationalization process. Apart from the numbers, the feedbacks from the startups were extremely positive. And the investors are very motivated and spreading the news among their peers. It was a great opportunity for the investors to get to now each other as well and they even close business among themselves.

The main users of the solution are the investor that are part of the Feevale Techpark Investors Group and the invested startups directly.

The initiative is run by Ventiur, the accelerator that does the administration of the investors group funding and that runs the mentoring and acceleration program, and by Feevale Techpark, articulating the relationship with investor, the startups and the community and offering the infrastructure to run the program.