The Microsoft Startup Accelerator Program Opens for BusinessFor the thousands of technology startup companies that emerge each year, achieving and sustaining business success is a tough proposition. Many don’t make it, succumbing to the myriad challenges along the way — from funding to marketing, to changing market conditions.
But startups don’t have to go it alone, and many successful startups achieve their business goals with the help of a strong set of partners. The Microsoft Emerging Business Team was established in 1999 to partner with startups and work with venture capitalists worldwide to support innovation and accelerate the software ecosystem. Today the group is launching a new program, the Microsoft Startup Accelerator Program, to further the company's support of this important community.
For more insight into the work of the Emerging Business Team and goals of the Microsoft Startup Accelerator Program, PressPass spoke with Dan’l Lewin, corporate vice president of Microsoft’s Strategic and Emerging Business Development.
PressPass: What is the Microsoft Accelerator Program and how does it fit within the emerging business efforts of Microsoft?
Lewin: The Microsoft Startup Accelerator Program is designed to foster the success of high-potential software startups on the Microsoft platform. The companies we identify as high-potential startups will receive customized engagement plans to support their software development, provide accessibility within Microsoft and increase market visibility. Twenty companies were initially selected to join the program, based on their innovation, high growth potential, funding, platform decision and strategic importance to Microsoft. It is a global program with local implementation in the United States, France, the United Kingdom, Germany and 12 additional countries. Our goal is to help emerging businesses be successful primarily on two fronts — accelerating software development and accelerating their market visibility.
Microsoft has a long history of partnering effectively with some of the top hardware, software and service vendors in the world, and our partner ecosystem is a huge part of who we are at Microsoft. The mission of the Emerging Business Team is to identify and focus on new technologies and business models that emerge from early stage startups that we identify as innovative, compelling, disruptive and potentially strategic to Microsoft. We then facilitate opportunities for those startups and the venture capitalists that fund them. Of course, we want to partner with all startups using our platform technology, not just the high-potential ones, and we have many other programs that encourage them to engage in the Microsoft ecosystem. Many of these programs are self-help, typically Web-based tools for the tens of thousands of ISVs that we work with. And we have the Microsoft Startup Zone, which is a great resource for startups that are interested in getting the most out of Microsoft's programs and resources, and increasing their success with Microsoft.
PressPass: So your focus is not only on the startups, but also on the venture capitalist community for funding, is that right?
Lewin: That’s correct. On the investor side, we also develop relationships with venture capitalists and with relevant members of the angel investor community. We hold an annual forum in Silicon Valley called the VC Summit where we share with them our current key initiatives and related technology roadmaps. Our goal is to be really transparent to help them understand where we can be helpful to their portfolio companies and they can decide where they want to engage with Microsoft. They might find that we have a competitive product and they might choose to compete with us, and that’s OK, too. We also connect interesting companies in need of funding. And, as venture capitalists are looking at companies that are on the Microsoft platform, they often will come to us, and we will help them evaluate companies. It’s a mutually beneficial relationship that we have with the investor community.
The Startup Accelerator Program focuses on a subset of the startup community — those with the highest potential for strategic partnership with Microsoft — and helps move them through the partner program and gain customer adoption. We typically do not fund these companies from a direct investment standpoint. Rather, we put enormous amounts of human and technology investment into our offerings.
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