Sarona Partners Group 365x Accelerator program is opening two new courses in Israel and in the US, and continues to promote the vision of transforming Israel's ecosystem into "Scale-Up Nation."
365x is an Israeli scale-up program, which promotes the activities of mature tech startups in international markets. The program was founded in April 2018 by Sarona Partners and since then, more than 100 mature startups, which have graduated from the program, have won two exits and many business contracts, signed with giant tech corporations, such as Microsoft, Salesforce, P&G, and Walmart, as well as distribution agreements with leading program integrators such as Prodware Group, Tech-Data and UST Group, which only recently joined the program as a partner corporation.
365x specializes in the acceleration of companies that have an initial product and customers, and assists them in moving on to the next stage, which includes distribution agreements, use of innovative marketing agreements in order to create exponential growth, recruit new customers, embark on activities in new markets worldwide and raise financing rounds from major investors.
The managers of the program stress that, "First customers are only the beginning, the scale-up stage is the genuine challenge for startup companies and the main indicator of whether they will succeed in growing at a rapid pace and approach unicorn dimensions, or tread water and then close down."
The new courses of the program, which will be the seventh by 365x in Israel, and the fourth by 365x in New York, will open for the registration of mature tech startups, which are based on software or IoT, work in the B2B or B2B2x sectors, with paying customers or a minimum of one paying pilot product in the fields of: Retail and eCommerce, Fintech, Industry 4.0. Cyber Security, Enterprise Software, Digital Health, Remote Communications, HR-Tech, and Marketing and Sales Tech.
The startups that will take part in the 365x IL (Israel, Europe and Asia) and in 365x NYC (United States) programs will be chosen in cooperation with international corporations including Microsoft, Salesforce, Prodware Group, US distribution corporation Tech-Data, Japanese insurance giant Sompo, US tech and integrator UST, and financial solutions company MAX, who are Sarona Partners Group's partners and in particular an integral part of the 365x program.
Sarona Partners and the eight partner corporations in the program are offering startups a four-month program, which includes three main elements:
Building a personally adapted base for each startup's scale-up strategy and a practical plan of action for marketing, sales and distribution channels
Building cooperation with the eight corporations and other international companies - and already during the program the startups will examine building cooperation adapted to their relevant market in which the partners specialize, distribution agreements, cooperation agreements, integration of the startup's solution into the corporation, and more.
Building a strategy to raise capital and find investors - the startups will build a capital raising strategy, in addition to full access to investors, venture capital funds, super angels, and global corporate investment organizations in Sarona Partners network. The graduates of the program usually progress towards a large seed or Series A financing round, in which they will raise between $2 million and $15 million from investors in Israel, Europe and the United States.
The program per se finishes after four months but continues for another two months during which the program's managers work together on a business plan and opportunities that were built during the first four months.
"Even after the six months of the entire program, we do not part ways with the startups who took part in the program," said Toot Shani, 365x CEO and a Partner at Sarona Partners. "Our connection will continue throughout the period in which the startup will need us. Our aim is to create a community for the Israeli entrepreneurs, which will promote them each time with an additional step towards scale-up and success on the global market."
Sarona Partners was founded by Philippe Bouaziz, a French-Jewish businessman and Toot Shani, and includes four main activities: Sarona Ventures which makes seed investments in startups; Sarona Space, which builds and operates co-working spaces throughout Israel; Sarona Innovation, which provides corporate innovation services to enterprises and funds, which are interested in cooperation with Israeli industry; and the startup accelerator program from the prototype stage through to international breakthrough; the scale-up program (365x), a program for speeding up international sales, Green Up City, a circular economy accelerator, and SigmaLabs, an accelerator program for early stage startups. Since it was founded, over 100 startups have participated in the nine different courses of the 365x program. Among the outstanding startups that have participated in the program are: CloudWize, BuyWith, LeadSpotting, Edgecase, ByondXR, Keepers Child Safety, Soapy, Eloops, Mobi, and more.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on January 28, 2021
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2021