Startup Reykjavik is the name of Iceland’s first startup accelerator.
This is in my opinion a very big step for the Icelandic startup environment and two weeks into the project everything seems to be going very well. The process is simple, 10 business teams are chosen to take part in this 10 week project and in exchange for a 6% share of their company they get the following:
- $16,000 in seed funding.
- Office space with internet and all the essentials.
- Mentorship from 40+ mentors.
- A chance to pitch to angel investors and venture capitalists.
Last Thursday I went to visit the Startup Reykjavik organizers and some of the teams and I was very impressed with how well this project seems to have been organized. Ironically the Startup Reykjavik offices are in a former building of one of Iceland’s largest banks. But only a few years ago the Icelandic banking system was one of the biggest factors in the countries economic problems and now one of those banks is funding and hosting Startup Reykjavik. I think that might be a good sign that Icelanders have started to realize the importance of startups for the economy.
I talked with some of the 10 startups and all of them seem to consist of good teams and interesting ideas. You can find a full list of the startups on Startup Reykjavik’s website and I will try to post some interviews with the teams here on my blog in the coming weeks.
I am going to end this post with two videos from the organizers where they tell us about the first and second week of the project. First video is Kristjan Freyr Kristjansson, CEO of Innovit and the second video is Eythor Ivar Jonsson from Klak.
StartupReykjavik Week one-Vimeo HD.mov from Kristján Kristjánsson on Vimeo.
StartupReykjavik Week two-Vimeo HD from Kristján Kristjánsson on Vimeo.
