Day 11, the last official day of the program! And an exciting one! We are going back to Mountain View, to the 500 Startups office there. We have a meeting with Dave McClure, a celebrity in the startup world!

Dave welcomed us and told us the office is quite empty today, but on Monday 30 teams are starting their accelerator program at the office. Ten of these teams are international. 500 Startups already invested $70 million dollars in about 700 startups, 50% through the accelerator program and 50% through seed investment. They only did a few investments in later stage rounds.

Off all the 500 Startups portfolio companies, about 1/3 raised more than one million, 1/3 raised less than one million and 1/3 didn’t raise any money. Ten to twenty percent of the startups that go through the accelerator program survive and 30% of the companies that get seed investment become successful. Investing in Startups is definitely challenging!

Investing internationally is more challenging because there is less capital available for later rounds and there is less of an exit atmosphere. But anyway, 500 Startups invested in about 200 international companies already.

Then we had a little tour of the office. The views are amazing!

 

Dave took some time to answer some questions from our teams about hot markets, investing internationally, how to enter to the accelerator program, how important traction is, how to pitch etc.

It was an interesting meeting full with tips from one of the best!

After the meeting with Dave, we went to San Mateo to meet with Alexandra Johnson from DFJ Aurora. She gave us a tour of her office and then we sat in a meeting room to talk about startup and investments.

She had a few very interesting questions for the startups:

What were your expectations before you came here and did what you expected happen?

What is different in how investors work and how they woke back home?

She also introduced DFJ. The fund started 30 years ago and it was one of the first of also invest outside the Valley. In 2006, Sasha joined to see if they could set up a Russian fund.

 

Sasha now works for DFJ Aurora. The DFJ fund still exists but Tim Draper is now concentrating on Draper's University.

Then she gave some advice about pitching! You need to be able to explain yourself in a few sentences. The teams did elevator pitches and Sasha gave advice. She also gave a short elevator pitch about what she does: she helps people who know what they are doing and can do what they planned to do!

A great last meeting of this trip! 

The teams all come back with a lot of new experience, new contacts and a lot of new ideas about what to do next with their projects.

Stay tuned!

Thank you for your attention all these days!

Sincelery yours,

Saar Leroy

Startup Relations Manager @ Happy Farm