You may have met some of the team behind the new Amsterdam-based Rockstart Accelerator if you were present at Slush in Helsinki, or the Startup Weekend Copenhagen. Over the last 18 months, the team behind Rockstart Accelerator organized Startup Weekend events all across Europe, in London, Copenhagen, Athens, Bucharest, Warsaw, Bratislava, Brussels, Prague, and Amsterdam where they saw about 200 startup teams and 3000 entrepreneurs participate. It’s not a bad way to get to get name out to the freshest young teams across Europe.
Rockstart Accelerator is open to all types of startups, whether they are in technology, sustainability, retail, or other sectors. The Program starts on March 1, 2012, and the application period ends January 6.
In the 100-day Spring Program, startups are challenged to work out and elaborate on their company, while also being coached by their deep bench of mentors. On the 100th day, the startups will pitch in front of European investors and the media. On top of that, they have an additional three-month Summer Program which ends with a 25-day road trip to Silicon Valley.
It sounds like Rockstart does pretty standard things for an accelerator, but they’ve got a good amount of mentors behind them; they advertise 99 seasoned entrepreneurs, CEO’s, and experts as mentors to help develop your business, which is about 10 mentors per startup they’re selecting. The program provides startups with free office space in downtown Amsterdam, and includes 5,000 EUR per founder with a maximum of 15,000 EUR per team.
Right now, they’re looking to find 10 promising startups from the Nordics and other EU countries. Amsterdam isn’t too far away, so maybe take a look into it if you need help delivering your startup from a concept to a business.
Below you can find their manifesto:
