75 Startups To Participate In The 2nd Cohort Of The National Acceleration Program

Dec. 20, 2021, 4:26 p.m.

Ghana Tech Lab (GTL) and nine partner hubs across the country have commenced the second cohort of the National Acceleration Program. The launch began with application acceptance and review from September to October, of which 75 startups finally made the cut.

The national acceleration program is a high-quality program targeted at tech-driven and tech-enabled startups. It addresses the demand for quality business support, prioritising female-led businesses towards providing high-quality Business Development Services (BDS) to existing businesses.

The acceleration scheme seeks to identify industries most relevant within the specific communities and set for hubs to nurture selected businesses through a series of tailored, localised training, mentorship, professional advisory services and executable growth tasks.

The program

The program is in 3 phases:

Pre-Acceleration Phase: This phase includes a series of activities that will set the stage for the main phase of the acceleration program. These activities will enable the organisers to understand the startups better, align the program’s objectives with their business objectives, and get the businesses ready for the journey ahead. The primary activities at this phase include essential business support, business diagnosis (needs assessment of startups) and acceleration roadmap design (the needs assessment report of each startup will aid in the creation of a tailored roadmap for their acceleration journey)
Core acceleration phase: This is the main phase of the program. Here, the startups will receive a combination of hands-on business development and technical support in scaling their innovations. Support provided here includes Business Model Validation, Market Opportunity Analysis, Go-to-market, Internal systems and investment strategy design.
Post-acceleration phase: The cohort will be crowned with a demo day where the most promising startups from the program will pitch their ventures for potential funding and partnership opportunities. Startups will receive post-acceleration support to enable them close investment deals and meet their business KPIs.

The program’s cohort will be crowned with a Startup Pitch and Investment Forum dubbed the Ghana Startup Summit (GSS), where the accelerated businesses get to pitch to a panel of Investors, angel and VC investors to help secure growth funding.

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Eligibility criteria:

Number of years in operation
- The startup must be operational between 6 months to 3 years
Registration status of the startup
- The startup must be registered with the Registrar General’s Department to be eligible for selection.
The startup must have a tech-enabled product.
- The acceleration program is designed to support startups tackling a challenge using technology. The startup's product must hence be either tech-driven or tech-enabled.
Team capacity
The startup must have at least a business lead and a tech lead. Beyond this, the following will also be assessed during the application process:
- Team size
- Strength of business lead
- Strength of technical lead
Already have a working MVP
- The startup must prove that you already have a working MVP on the market that can be further refined or improved through the acceleration program.
The startup can scale (based on business model)
- Startup’s growth or expansion plans will be assessed through the application and selection process.
The startup must have built some level of traction (active/engaged clients or made verifiable sales)
- The startup must have already made some revenue and looking forward to raising extra funding (seed or Serie A) for their business.