RAC and Spacecubed have combined to create Perth’s first tech accelerator.
RAC of WA and Spacecubed have become the first organisations in Perth to fund a ‘tech accelerator’, which should come as welcome relief to the cash-starved start-up sector.
Called ‘RAC SeedSpark’, the accelerator program kicks off on September 2, and will involve the motoring organisation partnering with the co-working space to provide an eight-week course for teams of start-up entrepreneurs, designers and programmers.
Those teams will have a few weeks to hone their ideas before a final public pitch night on September 25, after which the successful applicants will be determined.
Each team that makes it onto the program will be provided with up to $25,000 cash, access to mentors from both RAC and Spacecubed, and use of the Spacecubed facilities.
“RAC have been using Spacecubed for team meetings since we first opened our doors in 2012,” Brodie McCulloch, founder of Spacecubed told Business News.
“And they’ve been asking us how they might better engage with the start-up community. With the shortage of funding for the start-up sector, RAC seemed like the perfect partner to develop an accelerator program with us – not only to provide funds, but to provide quality mentors.”
Teams must provide a technology solution in one of five main categories of safer roads, child and youth, motoring, tourism and ‘making WA a better place’.
“Through this project with Spacecubed, the RAC aims to work with the WA entrepreneurial community to spark ideas which help make WA a better place,” RAC of WA General Manager of Distribution Mr Jamin Hirte told Business News.
”Rewarding innovative ideas is just one of the ways we are working with the community. By providing access to the RAC, underpinned by seed funding for concept development, we aim to jump-start the careers of WA’s budding entrepreneurs.”
The cash should allow some founders and teams to quit their day jobs and make the leap into entrepreneurship, while also gaining advice from people who have been there and done it in the start-up space.
All other state capitals have a tech accelerator of some kind – Adelaide has two, Sydney has five. Perth has lagged behind in this regard and, as reported previously by Business News, overall start-up funding has almost totally dried up, especially since the cancellation of the Commercialisation Australia program was announced in this year’s federal budget.
There have been various whispers of tech accelerators setting up in Perth before, and although this one does not take any equity stake in the participants (as accelerators usually do), it is a step in the right direction for the burgeoning start-up community, and a sign that the big end of town is taking this sector seriously.
For more information: go to racseedspark.com.au
