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Where world-class teams make their leap
Brief Announcement
The next Cohort (5th) of DayOne will run in Patra, Greece on April 1st 2024.
What is DayOne?
DayOne is a 6-week acceleration program run by Genesis Ventures for startups that want to get their first institutional investment and scale globally.
What is the structure of the program?
The program has two phases:
Foundation (one week): This is an intense week (incl. the weekend), full-time and in-person, where you will be involved in a number of hands-on activities, workshops, and community building, get acquainted with the program and its stakeholders, and get inspired by successful founders.
Building (5 weeks): This part of the program runs for five weeks and is part-time, runs on a hybrid mode, both offline and online, and will be focused on building a thriving and global business, yours.
What type of teams are you looking for?
We are looking for concept and pre-seed startups with founding teams who have either quit or plan to quit their job and go full-time into their startup. More specifically, we are looking for the following traits:
- A strong team with highly capable and ambitious founders with complementary skills (e.g., business and tech), great chemistry, and a get-shit-done-fast mindset. The team shall ideally be 2-4 people and be committed to working full-time on their startup, if not immediately, at least upon completion of the program.
- A business/product with the potential for huge and quick growth, aka a startup. For a definition of what a “startup” is, see this link. We are agnostic regarding the sector, business model, or technology used.
You can enter the accelerator with or without a product or revenue.
To sum up, we are looking for potential coupled with ambition. It’s great if you want to build a good tech business that makes a couple of million per year and employs 20 people. In fact, it’s much more than great. But this is not a fit for DayOne.
- Admissions work on a first-come-first-served basis
If you are an aspiring founder in search of a team, click here.
That’s all great, but will I get an investment?
Yes, this program is designed to help teams get their first institutional investment. The first ticket is €150,000 for 12.5% equity in your company (at an implied post-money valuation of €1,200,000).
What else will my team get out of this?
Besides the investment, you may get the following out of DayOne:
- You will build a stronger company; faster. You will get help in building/completing your founding team; coaching and office hours by ex-founders, company builders, domain experts, and experienced investors; masterclasses and other content; and feedback from your peers. All this will challenge your business/product to its core.
- You will get on the VC path. We do this by helping you fundraise post-Genesis, connecting you with later-stage VCs, and making introductions to potential hires, potential customers, etc.
What are the teams that have already got an investment?
Here are 3 teams from the cohorts to date that have received an investment.
- MyTeam (announcement here), a company building a CRM that helps sports clubs/academies and their communities optimize their day-to-day processes. MyTeam has also completed an up-round with the participation of Eleven Ventures (announcement).
- ProgressiveRobotics (announcement here), a company building smarter robots for the production industry.
- UniStudents (announcement here), a company building a connection between university students and the job market.
What are the key dates?
DayOne 5th cohort has the following important milestones:
- Applications Open - Monday January 8th 2024
- Applications Close - Friday March 8th 2024
- 5th Cohort Begins - Monday April 1st 2024
- 5th Cohort Ends - Friday May 17th 2024
Where is this taking place?
The first week of the program is going to run in Patra (Location TBA). After that, DayOne will operate primarily online (Eastern European Time) with occasional in-person meetings.
For more info, see the detailed FAQ or one of the following pages: