Digitaraya Accelerator Changes Training Format, Ready to Produce Quality Startups

Accelerator Digitaraya announced a new format for the "Digitaraya Powered by Google Developers Launchpad" series to become a one-month training program, from the previous three months. This format will start early next year for batch second.

This step was directly initiated by Digitaraya with a commitment to produce quality startups every month. Startups and investors will connect with each other in a more efficient and effective way, so that business collaboration opportunities are greater. Plus the ambition to strengthen Indonesia's startup ecosystem.

"The initial initiation came from ourselves. If doing two batch a year, there are only 8 startups per year batch. But if we do it every month, there are five startups that participate for eight months. Of course the opportunity will be greater for the startup itself. ImpactIt can be tripled," said Nicole Yap, VP of Strategy & Business Development at Digitaraya DailySocial, Tuesday (4/12).

In this new format, he continued, it will be filled with a fairly solid program for one full month. In the first week is bootcamp which will introduce Google's methodologies for startups, such as Leader's Lab, OKR Workshop, Startup Diagnostic, General Mentoring, and Assignment of 'Anchor Mentors'.

Then proceed with mentoring one on one tailored to the needs of startups in the second week. In the third week, it will be closed with demo day monthly. Startups will have the opportunity to pitching to a selected audience of corporate partners, investors and the media.

In the fourth week, continued announcements batch next with a predefined startup segment theme. In run down, the startup theme that has been selected like healthtech, women founders, energy, agritech, fintech, and edutech.

Nicole explained that this program continued for eight months throughout 2019, except for May, June, November and December. Every month five startups will be selected that are entitled to participate in a training program for one full month.

"We strongly believe that success is absolutely in the hands of the startup itself. We want to be in the journey This is done by providing the best form of support, so that startups can finally feel connected to each other and can collaborate further."

It's not just about investing

Although the training program is made shorter, Nicole ensures that in this format it is based on the results of studies obtained by Digitaraya. One of them shows that startups often ask for what they need, so it's not just the accelerator that gives it tools what startups need.

The reason is, currently there are many investors who dare to put their money in early-stage startups, but many startups do not understand how to navigate their business and maintain relationships with investors. By chance demo day, startups will get more exposure, opportunities to continue learning, increase networks, and so on.

"We didn't say that we were going demo day can definitely invest, but startups definitely get more exposure, can practice continuously, can network, and if done consistently we believe that this can impact deeper for startups and investors."

In order to cover all these needs, it automatically spurs Digitaraya to expand its network with practitioners, investors and so on so that they can be connected with the right startup, according to the startup's own needs.

"Digitaraya is now focusing on guiding Indonesian startups that will be ready to visit series A investments."

In relation to Google Developers Launchpad, every startup will have the opportunity to get tools from Google to accelerate its business. For example Google Leader's Lab to teach startup founders how to build the right culture for their early-stage company.

Next there is Google Cloud Platform, OKR Workshop, and exclusive access to several Google services such as Android, Play and Firebase.

In batch I, which was held from August to October 2018, there were 113 registrants from 25 cities. All of these startups operate in 13 different sectors. Digitaraya did a full selection until finally 7 startups were selected, including Reblood, Riliv, Arcademy, ModalRakyat, Kinibisa, Gelora, and Expedito.

This second batch is still open the registration until December 31, 2018.