Collider is evolving

Collider exists to drive the future of marketing and sales technology for startups, corporates and investors.

This will not change: we’ll continue to find the very best startups to invest in and scale, bring the right startup solutions at the right time to corporates, and ultimately deliver investor returns.

We’re still about winning customers, it’ll always be about building revenue, and it’ll never be about just finding the next round of funding, which explains why we’re working with more corporates now than ever before (and in Amsterdam too!)

We’re also still focused: focused on marketing and sales tech, and focused on scaling, and the impact of that is phenomenal. We’ve invested in over 40 startups now, which means we’ve built the expertise to make even better investment decisions and add incredible value to our portfolio.

So with over five years of in depth, first-hand experience, one exit and over £13m going into the next generation of marketing and sales startups, we’ve seen a lot.

That’s why now is the perfect time to change and invest more.

https://vimeo.com/232318078

1. Keep the applications rolling

You’ll now be able to apply to Collider UK ANY time of year.

One cohort a year was proving nowhere near enough, especially given the incredible startups we kept having to turn down.

We then dabbled with the classic accelerator model of two a year, but even that didn’t cut it, particularly when taking into consideration the needs of our corporate partners – the key way we give meaning to our accelerator name.

So we settled on four cohorts a year – a minimum of three investments per cohort and a maximum of six. That’s more application opportunities, more cohorts and most importantly, more startups as part of the Collider family, shaping the future of marketing and sales tech.

2. Put meaning back into ‘early stage’

You can now apply even if you’ve raised cash before.

We’ve always been clear on our entry requirements – you must have built an MVP, have a team, be focused in B2B marketing and/or sales tech and have your full SEIS available. But now, could you just rub out point four? That’s Collider Take Two.

Once again, we kept noticing just how many startups would come to us, perfect in every way, other than just how early stage they were – and that in itself is one big, fat contradiction.

So rather than missing opportunities time and time again, we’ll be investing in startups with both SEIS and EIS available. That’s early stage, and early stage. Or in other words, startups with proof of value.

3. Flex the investment model

There’s now options, not just one offer.

If we’re going to recruit startups at different stages, we needed to shake up our investment model too.

Each startup will now have two possible investment options: £50,000 of investment (£15,000 as programme fees) or £100,000 of investment (£30,000 programme fees), rather than one standard offer.

That’ll give us a wider range of companies and different stages in their journey, which is absolutely perfect for our community – the community of potential customers.

Remember – Collider exists to shape the future of marketing and sales technology for startups, corporates and investors. If that’s you, we will officially launch on the 4^th September, and we want to hear from you.

Are you a startup?

We’re looking for ground breaking, world changing, mind blowing B2B marketing and advertising technology startups. If you want to supercharge your growth and collide with the most incredible corporate innovators, apply here.

Are you an investor?

Our investor community is a little bit different, but no one wants the same old, do they? Made up of marketing and advertising experts, our angels also hold superpowers in finance, fundraising and tech – all an incredible benefit to our startups. If you want to help accelerate our startups alongside our other investors, get in touch.

Collider and Unruly Launch New MadTech Mentoring Scheme

What do you get when you cross the very best MadTech startups with some of the most incredible names in video AdTech?

Not a funny punch line, but a pretty impressive mentor network reserved only for Collider startups.

We're super excited to announce the launch of our brand new MadTech Mentoring Scheme, in collaboration with our good friends at Unruly.

The scheme is all about giving the opportunity for our startups to learn from the UK's bigger AdTech star, with some of their most senior and successful team members across five disciplines stepping up to offer help and support.

Paired especially based on the incredible skills of the Unruly team and the challenges of our startups, today marked the first of four mentoring sessions running across the year.

Unruly Co-Founder, Matt Cooke, opened the event.

Brilliant little speech from @unruly.co's Matt Cooke 💪🏼👌🏼

A post shared by Collider (@collidergb) on Jul 20, 2017 at 6:03am PDT

Set in the Home – their zingy, innovative, state-of-the-art house packed with iOT and connected home tech, built smack in the middle of Unruly HQ, the location couldn't have been more perfect.

Joining us from Unruly included: Gel Goldsby – Reporting and Data Team Lead, Jule Owen – VP of Product, David Waterhouse – Global Director of PR and Content, Nat Clark – People Team Manager, Laura Thomas – Client Director and Olivia Goodman, Global People Director.

And from the Collider alumni we had Beem, Miappi, LivingLens, RTObjects, CampaignAmp and Release.

With five cohorts now behind us, this is the latest addition to our growing initiatives and partnerships in offering on going support to our alumni.

Unruly Collider MadTech Mentor Scheme

Get Legal Wise: The Startup Basics In Setting Up Your Business

legal-advice-keyboard

There's this expectation in the world of startups that you're just supposed to know what you're doing. Running the business, finding the talent, getting investment, sourcing loyal customers, and of course, tackling the legal mind field like a boss. But in reality – and the very reason we have co-founders to pick up on those skills we just don't have – we're not going to be pros at everything.

That's exactly why we've teamed up with our good friends at Lewis Silkin to answer some of those tricky business, investment and legal questions we all want to know the answer to, but might be afraid to ask.

Check out our first instalment below, where we delve into setting up your business as a corporation, equity battles, options and employment contracts.

If you've got further questions you'd like us to find the answers to, drop us an email at info@collider.io and we'll see what we can do!

Luke Hakes | How To Become A Successful Angel Investor

Luke Hakes, Investment Director at Octopus Ventures, joined us recently to share his seed to exit story on a number of their investments. As all of our investment currently comes from individual angel investors, community is even more important to us, which is exactly why we put on a surprise or two for our angels, connecting the best with the best in the ecosystem.

Here are our main takeaways from Luke himself.

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https://twitter.com/ColliderGB/status/877226097762545671

It’s all about people

We all know that – but what should you look for? Luke talked about finding what he called the ‘honey badgers’. They’re founders that are attracting the best and brightest talent from other businesses to build and shape theirs.

It’s all about the timing

Alongside people, it’s all about timing. Market timing, expansion, trends – these all require a timely arrival at the table, or you risk derailing the business entirely. Keep an ear to the ground and press go when the time is right.

It’s not just the product

We’ve all heard stories of incredible technology-based exits, but the market is shifting. Teams are being filled out by acquirers, so something new is needed. With little low hanging fruit left, and AI all the rage right now, Luke’s advice was to find companies with a vertically integrated stack, rather than investing in just one part of it.

Leverage

Investors are going to sweat their startups – that’s a given – but they can also provide incredible leverage, especially in follow on rounds and ultimately exit. Leveraging your board at these key points can really help create market tension, and ultimately value, in any process.

Collider Loves: CoSchedule Social Scheduling App Review

If we told you content is king (or queen), you'd quaff with laughter at the use of such a cliche. But, what if we said we've found a pretty nifty content solution perfect for every day use for startups and small teams? Yep, that's peaked your interest.

We know some awesome social analytics programmes, referrals, user generated content and campaign solutions - I mean, check out our past five cohorts... but we wanted to test the market when it came to writing, planning and scheduling. That's where we found coschedule.

As you may know, we not only invest in early stage startups through our accelerator programme, but also have our Scaleup Network, which means we’re constantly on the lookout for companies of all ages.

That means we’re checking the market day-in-day-out, which is how we stumbled across CoSchedule, and realised it could really save a lot of time for our marketing team.

Creating

Coschedule combines your planning, writing and scheduling all in one place, meaning you can say goodbye to spreadsheets and old school flat plans, and hello to marketing ease.

Its ability to create and track campaigns is really what stood out for us – whether that’s email, social, video or even just notes, you can colour code your calendar and use specific set ups for any kind of marketing.

CoSchedule_Dashboard

Organising

Within its simple calendar interface, you can plan campaigns, track to-do lists, assign jobs to team members and view all of your up and coming content in one place. Integrating seamlessly with Wordpress, you'll also see all of your blog posts.

But really… that integration is awesome. It means you can access CoSchedule either by their website login, or through the back end of your site, keeping everything neat and tidy.

And it’s worth digging a little further into their solution for working with teams: the to-do lists are a dream for anyone who loves a good tick to get through the day, and with team names next to each requirement, there’s no way you’ll lose track of your busy marketing schedule.

CoSchedule_Calendar

Scheduling

Whilst Coschedule is no better than other social scheduling platforms in terms of integration and analytics, it's super handy for tracking social campaigns.

You can schedule social posts in advance to any main social network from the calendar interface, but also from each blog post itself, which makes it much easier to track the distribution of information.

This is especially brilliant for using recall – if you’re wanting to re-share your posts but still want it to look organic, this tool makes it look easy. Gone are the risks of re-sharing the same piece too often, sharing too many articles in one day, or maybe even not enough.

CoSchedule_Social-Campaign

Tracking

And you can see some analytics, so you can work out what's really working. This is especially great for re-sharing your previous articles, and testing which day and time works best. No need for more than one tab – it’s all in one place! What's more to love?

CoSchedule_Top-Content-Report

Want to know more? watch the video below:

https://vimeo.com/166544659