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Brief Announcement

The next DayOne Cohort (6th) will run in Athens, Greece, starting October 7th for 6 weeks, ending November 15th, 2024.

What is DayOne?

DayOne is a 6-week founder program run by Genesis Ventures for startups that want to get their first institutional investment and scale globally.

What is the structure of the program?

The program has two phases:

Foundation (one week): This is an intensive week, full-time and in-person, where you will be involved in hands-on activities, workshops, community building, and get inspired by successful founders.

Building (5 weeks): This part of the program runs for five weeks and is part-time, runs online, and will be focused on you building a thriving business.

What type of teams are you looking for?

We are looking for concept and pre-seed startups with founding teams who have either quit or plan to quit their job and go full-time into their startup. Specifically, we are looking for the following traits:

A strong team with highly capable and ambitious founders with complementary skills (e.g., business and tech), great chemistry, and a get-shit-done-fast mindset. The team shall ideally be 2-4 people and be committed to working full-time on their startup upon completion of the program, if not already.
A business/product with the potential for rapid growth. We are agnostic regarding the sector, business model, or technology used.

You can enter the accelerator with or without a product or revenue.

Admissions work on a rolling basis, so it is better to apply early

If you are an aspiring founder in search of a team, click here.

That’s all great, but will I get an investment?

Yes, this program is designed to help teams get their first institutional investment. The ticket is €150,000 for 12.5% equity in your company (at an implied post-money valuation of €1,200,000).

What else will my team get out of this?

Besides the investment, you will get the following out of DayOne:

You will build a stronger company, faster. You will get help in building/completing your founding team; coaching and office hours by ex-founders, company builders, domain experts, and experienced investors; masterclasses and other content; and feedback from your peers. All this will challenge your business/product to its core.
You will get on the VC path. We will help you fundraise post-Genesis, connecting you with later-stage VCs, and making introductions to potential hires, potential customers, etc.

What are the teams that have already got an investment?

Here are 3 out of the 5 teams that have received an investment from the cohorts to date. 3 more positive investment decisions were made in DayOne cohort #5. We will be announcing those very soon.

MyTeam (announcement here), a company building a CRM that helps sports clubs/academies and their communities optimise their day-to-day processes. MyTeam has also completed an up-round with the participation of Eleven Ventures (announcement).
ProgressiveRobotics (announcement here), a company building smarter robots for the production industry.
UniStudents (announcement here), a company building a connection between university students and the job market.

What are the key dates?

DayOne 6th cohort has the following important dates:

Applications Open - June 13th, 2024
Applications Close - September 15th, 2024
6th Cohort Begins - October 7th, 2024
6th Cohort Ends - November 15th, 2024

Where is this taking place?

The first week of the program is going to run in Athens, Greece (Location TBA). After that, DayOne will operate online.

For more info, see the detailed FAQ or one of the following pages:

💭Our why ❓FAQ 📒Code of Conduct

🤝 Meet the team