Brexit Has Had No Impact On Startup Applications

That's right – we've seen no impact on the number, quality or geographical location of startups since Brexit. In fact, we've had over 300 applications of which a high proportion have been impressive quality.

And as it's that time of year where we draw close to both our investment campaign and startup application deadline, we thought we'd dig into the data and discover the startup trends of 2016/17.

Check out our favourite five snippets of what we can expect in the marketing and advertising world:

1. Around 10% of all applications from the UK are in advertising and analysis.

2. Almost 3/4 of applications are from Europe.

3. The primary focus of Israeli startups this year is on big data or blogger outreach/marketing.

4. Other than the UK, the next highest number of applicants from a European country is Spain.

5. Almost double the overall applications relate more to marketing than they do advertising.

Interesting, huh?

What Countries Are MadTech Startups From?

As we draw nearer to the application deadline for our Class of 2017 – and yes, we're pretty excited – we're once again amazed by some of the ideas coming through from MadTech startups. Searching for the very best in MadTech is our number one priority – in fact, you can see a little more about the processes we go through here, and how successful it's been here!

But have you ever wondered where the majority of MadTech startups are based? Is there such thing as a majority? Then wonder no more and check this out.

Here are the countries so far...

If maps aren't really your thing, then fear not – we can do lists too.

Austria, Bangladesh, Belarus, Bulgaria, Chile, China, Colombia.

 Czech Republic, Egypt, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Hong Kong, Hungary.

India, Indonesia, Iran, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Kazakhstan, Lebanon, Netherlands, Nigeria.

Pakistan, Portugal, Russia, Slovenia, Spain, Turkey, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates.

United Kingdom, United States.

Startup Intellectual Property Tips and Tricks

Collider startups recently visited the London offices of one of our legal sponsors, Mathys and Squire, to discuss the world of Intellectual Property (IP). One super insightful session later, our goody bag to take home was a wealth of information, including the insights any startup should know, and how to build an IP strategy that works for you. Said goody bag fully digested and lots of our startups prepped ready to take next steps, we thought we'd summarise our key learnings – because it would be greedy if we didn't share, right?

What is Intellectual Property?

IP – intellectual property – protects the result of your creativity as an intangible asset (or property). It does not protect an idea alone, but the ‘physical’ embodiment of that idea. There are four main types: patents, trademarks, registered designs and copyright.

Having the right type of IP protection can help prevent others copying your inventions, the names of your products or brands, the design or look of your products, and the artistic works that you write, create, produce or record.

What can I do about it?

There are some basic steps you can take to develop an IP strategy that works for you:

Understand

Get to grips with how you can use IP to both protect your business and attract interest and funding.

What are you making; what are selling; what sets you apart; are you keeping records of who has created what and when – get your head wrapped around the basics of IP, and answer these questions as a starter for ten.

Identify

You now need to identify your core IP. Find where your value lies – is it the design, the brand, the unique technology?

Strategise

Once you've identified the elements you want to protect, develop a strategy for how you'll do that – is it a trademark, copyright, design or patent?

Plan how and when you will go about putting the safety net in place and capture it all in your overarching IP strategy, even if you don't intend to register your Intellectual Property until you have secured more funding.

Execute

Take the steps you are able to take immediately, and start planning for the future. Track your sales, inventions and progress, and although it might seem a pain, record everything.

Mitigate

Keep track of what applications are being filed and approved to help de-risk your IP – various portals and tools online can assist with this and look around to see what others are doing. Patents can be a great R&D resource - to stay focussed.

Why does it matter?

IP is all about protecting, but also creating value. A solid IP strategy and goals can demonstrate a level of understanding about your present and future that will satisfy an investor’s appetite, and adds significant value as you look to scale.

"We identified four possible opportunities [Mathys and Squire] felt were worth pursuing and reviewed our existing trademark protection," said Scoop Retail, one of Collider's Class of 2015 and attendees of this workshop.

"They really took the time to understand our business!"

So You're Thinking Of Investing In An Accelerator?

You're thinking of investing in an accelerator.

Great. But which one?

Yeah yeah, we’re biased – sure; so we thought we’d let the numbers do the talking.

We’ve put together this little infographic to illustrate what we’ve achieved at Collider over the past three years –  that’s three incredible, ground breaking and sometimes-a-little-mad three years.

It’s about practicing what we preach and above all, making it clear to our community that they’re our number one.

We’d love for you to be part of that.

Investing With Accelerators: 5 Tips From Frederic Court

We recently heard from Frederic Court, founder of VC Felix Capital and expert in MadTech investment. Here’s his top tips on investing in this space:

1. People, not business

With business comes people, and they’re the ones that make stuff happen. The idea matters, but don’t forget their passion too.

According to Frederic, successful investment opportunities comes down to three things: reputation, network and luck.

2. Be friendly

It’s okay – we can be grumpy too. But whilst it seems like an obvious point to make, taking the time to get to know the people behind the business.

3. Be patient

Investing in a start up will never see immediate results, with a normal exit cycle around 8 years. Anything less lands in the ‘pretty quick’ category, although can be done.

4. Be prepared

There’s often two choices for an early stage individual investor: front the cash to maintain your equity stake or be content with getting diluted out.

5. Be reasonable

A normal fund return is around 1.4x – 3x is a really good return and anything above this is rare. And yes, unicorns are rare creatures to find in every sense of the word.