The Morrissette Accelerator Fall 2022

Beyond the start

The Morrissette Accelerator Fall Program is a great opportunity for high growth startups to accelerate the growth of their businesses. Over the course of 13 weeks (Sept 6, 2022 to Nov 30, 2022), ventures accepted into the program will receive hands on mentorship and educational training from in-house experts and industrial partners. The accelerator space will also be available to the entrepreneurs until December 16, 2022 for co-working and cross community collaboration. Our goal is to accelerate the life cycle of high potential ventures and to compress a year’s worth of learning into a few months for these entrepreneurs.

The Morrissette Accelerator is a critical component of the cross-campus Morrissette Entrepreneurship ecosystem and is open to all Western students, faculty, and recent alumni with an expectation of a full-time commitment. The program culminates in a Demo Day that is usually attended by 100+ investors from a variety of industries.


What to expect

During their time in the accelerator, businesses can expect:

- Weekly Programming - Once a week, half-day educational sessions on leadership, sales, investors, pitch skills, etc, as well as mentoring sessions with successful entrepreneurs and in-house experts.
- Networking Opportunities - Once a week, join us for hybrid networking events with successful global entrepreneurs, industry experts, investors and service providers
- Pitch day - Participate in "Demo Day" at the end of program—a dynamic event where teams deliver their idea and business plans to a large investor centric audience from the local entrepreneurship, business and investment communities
- Mentorship - Weekly / Bi-monthly milestone meetings help you to discuss your progress and to set goals for the upcoming month
- Funding - Receive a CA$3,000 / month in the form of a stipend to support your business venture. That's a total of $12,000 spread across Sep - Dec 2022.

As part of your Morrissette Accelerator experience, you are offered programming that will give you the education and real-world feedback that you need to launch your business. Workshop topics include:

Value Proposition versus a Unique Selling Proposition
Design Thinking
Legal landscape and Intellectual Property
Digital Marketing
Public Relations
Sales Strategy
Accounting
Financial Planning
Leadership
And more!


Eligibility Requirements
We look for teams who have a high-potential to scale and who meet the following criteria:
- At least one founder must have a connection to Western (Student, Faculty, Staff or Alumni)
- Teams must be willing to contribute a full-time effort in-person at Western University in London Ontario (Monday to Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.)
- Teams must operate their 'Registered business' from the Morrissette Accelerator and will have access to the co-working space through out the week
- Teams can have up to three founders in the program
- Founders working out of the Morrissette Accelerator must have decision making ability
- Founders are required to participate in all the scheduled events, workshops and competitions throughout their time in the Morrissette Accelerator.


What we look for
We look for startups who have completed product development and have made their first sale even if it is an MVP sale. You need to be ready to launch towards scaling up! If you are still in the idea or build stage, you may not be a good fit for the Morrissette Accelerator yet. Teams who are in early stages can find great resources available for you at Western’s Incubator and Entrepreneurship Centre.

Competitive applications for the Morrissette Accelerator are startups who have high potential to scale (i.e. have IP and/or have a clear competitive advantage addressing a large potential market). We also look for a founding team who have the skills, ability and determination to launch their product offering into the market.


Market readiness
Teams applying to the Accelerator should have a functioning product or service offering in market.

Application process
Entrance to our Accelerator is a competitive process. We accept 6-8 teams per cohort (Fall, Winter and Summer).

There are two parts to the application for the Morrissette Accelerator.

Stage 1
All teams are required to submit a written application via this GUST platform. Please ensure the application is complete and all links are functional.

You will be required to share / upload the following:
- Executive Summary
- Company Logo
- Company Website
- Team Picture with all Co-Founders / Picture of the Founder
- Youtube Link to your 3 min Investor Pitch Video
- Youtube Link to your 1 min Marketing Video / Advertisement
- Investor Pitch Slide Deck - Here’s a sample of the details we look for in your pitch deck. https://entrepreneurship.uwo.ca/services/ondemand-learning/archived-webinars/2021/archived-webinars/pitch-deck-basics/

Stage 2
Applications are reviewed by an anonymous and diverse panel of Judges, the top ranked teams will have the opportunity to pitch their business to a selection committee. In this round each team will be given 5 minutes to pitch their startup, followed by 5 minutes of Q&A.


Timeline
The Morrissette Accelerator consists of 3 cohorts per year (Fall, Winter and Summer). The Fall and Winter terms are for teams who have a product / service solution in the market that is ready to scale up. These cohorts are all 12-13 weeks in duration. The summer cohort is designed for validation-stage startups who have put significant effort to understand their business model and are ready to validate their idea with early adopters.

Please visit our website regularly or join our email list for exact dates for the applications.

All teams that are selected to enter our accelerator in Fall 2022, are mandated to pitch at Round 1 (Qualifying round for Demo Day), early on in Nov 2022 and the qualifying teams have to be prepared to pitch at Demo Day on Nov 30, 2022 (If selected)