Understanding Decelera’s Selection Process

In a few days we will be enjoying our 9th Decelera program, a new group of startups will go through this life changing experience that dozens of founders had the opportunity to live. Every year hundreds of entrepreneurs apply to come to our program, but only 25 startups make the cut, do you want to know how we select them? In this blog we will tell you everything you need to know!

First of all we want to explain that this is a process that takes months, the result of the hard work of many people both inside and outside of our organization. We’ve been perfecting these 4 phases year after year and today we can say, it works. Let’s start by explaining each phase briefly:

Phase 1: We publish an open call and invite startups to apply to the program. We do an initial screening based on some basic criteria.

Phase 2: The top 400 startups pass to phase 2, where they fill up an in-depth questionnaire and our panel of expert judges evaluates them.

Phase 3: We organize meetings and workshops with the top 50 startups to meet the founders and the team’s behind the amazing startups.

Phase 4: Once the top 25 have been selected, we do the legal due diligence and we proceed to sign the contract and convertible note.

Now that you know our step by step, let’s get more into each part of the selection process for you to understand it in depth.

Phase 1: Open Call

6–8 months before the program we publish an open call and we begin inviting startups to apply to our program. The Open call runs for 8 weeks and we welcome all type of startups but there are some essential criteria that we look for:

- Location. We mainly focus on European startups.

- Impact driven. They want to create a positive impact on the environment and society.

- Seed and pre-seed stages.

Every year more and more startups submit their application for the Decelera Program. In the chart below you can see how our applications have grown year over year since we started in 2015. This year, we had more than 1.700 applications, from which only 25 startups will be selected, an exclusive, around 1% — 2% of all forms.

Phase 2: Evaluation process

After applying the basic criteria outlined in the previous step, and looking at other factors such as market attractiveness, traction, product, etc., we select the top 400 startups that proceed to phase 2. In this phase, they complete an in-depth questionnaire and our panel of expert judges evaluates them, which typically takes 2 weeks. Regrettably, only 50 startups can be selected to advance to the next phase.

Phase 3 — Video Calls

We organize video calls with the founders to get to know them better and to undergo through some detailed:

- Individual Due Diligence.

- Team Due Diligence.

- Business Due Diligence.

- Identification of the Startups main Challenges

This process helps us select the final 25 startups that will attend the program. We are not only focused on the company, it’s finance, it’s potential or the market, we really put attention into the human part of the startup, what type of founder the company has, how is the team working, what type or relationships are built with clients, and much more…

Phase 4 — Legal Due Diligence

Once the top 25 have been selected, Decelera’s startup team does a call with each startup to outline the terms of Decelera’s program along with a deep dive related to the investment agreement, and finally sign the contract.

From this point forward, the only requirements to have a great Decelera experience are motivation, willingness to slow down, and hard work.

We hope this blog comes in hand when trying to understand how we choose the top 25 startups between hundreds of applications. Not being accepted doesn’t always mean you will never be a fit, maybe it’s not the right time, we have had cases of people getting accepted after the second and even third time they applied.