At the Smartphone Academy in the evening of 15 June Telenor Hungary announced the launch of its startup accelerator programme, the first local corporate accelerator programme in Hungary. The goal of the new entity is to help Hungarian startups gain appropriate market traction by offering them access to top mentors, senior managers, funds, investors and the international customer and partner base of the Telenor Group.
Telenor Accelerate invites Hungarian startups from the digital scene to apply for acceleration starting in September. The top 5 projects selected by the jury will receive a unique 3 month acceleration including a series of workshops and mentoring sessions and access to Telenor infrastructure for testing and marketing opportunities among customers.
“At Telenor we are passionate about innovation, bringing new ideas to the market, ensuring that our customers and partners have access to the latest concepts and products. Relying on our local partners, we have launched several innovative products such as MyTV or Telenor Wallet and we are now keen on extending the circle of our partners and help them develop their products into international success stories”, said Ole Bjorn Sjulstad, Chief Corporate Development Officer of Telenor Hungary at the launch of Telenor Accelerate.
Zoltán Takács, Vice President of Innovation at Telenor Hungary expressed that their program combines Telenor’s international experience with startup acceleration and the knowledge of some of the top minds in the Hungarian digital scene. With the help of their top mentors, Veronika Pistyur, Zoltán Varga, Péter Oszkó, Balázs Várkonyi and Balázs Vinnai, the selected startups will be able to grow during the intensive 3-month-long bootcamp, having the opportunity to use the access that they provide to knowledge, funds, investors and customer base.
About Telenor Accelerate:
The Telenor Accelerate offers a programme worth of HUF 200 million (~EUR 636.000) for startups in return for a small minority equity stake including:
- access to Telenor customer and partner base: testing and marketing opportunities within the Telenor Group’s community of 200 million customers and 1 million enterprise partners,
- one-on-one mentoring sessions with our top mentors and Telenor top managers,
- workshops including service design and communications training,
- access to angel investors, funding and potential local and international partners,
- an excellent infrastructure: co-working space in Budapest and Törökbálint, test equipment, Telenor services (incl. Hipernet and cloud solutions),
- exchange opportunities with the participants of Telenor’s Asian accelerator programmes.
- up to HUF 10 million (~EUR 32.000) investment.
The Telenor Accelerate is inviting:
- early-stage startup teams with an MVP (minimum viable product) that is connected to the internet, e.g. in fields such as FinTech, mHealth, education, entertainment, E- and M-commerce, communication, gaming, IoT, m2m, cloud, mobile application or hardware,
- Hungarian or Hungary-based teams, but Europe-based startups may also be included if they have or are ready to set up a Hungarian legal entity and are willing to relocate to Budapest for the time of the acceleration,
- startups committed to dedicating most of their time to product development and attending the acceleration sessions from September to December in Budapest and Törökbálint.
More info on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/telenoraccelerate
