Irish start-ups MagGrow, BonzaQuote and Countr have something in common: all beat stiff competition to win places on high-profile accelerators in the US and the Netherlands.
Accelerator incubation programmes are still in their infancy. The original of the species, Silicon Valley-based Y Combinator, was set up in 2005, with two of its best-known success stories being Airbnb and Dropbox. US-based Techstars and London-based Seedcamp were founded two years later. Techstars now operates in four US cities, while the pan-European Seedcamp is a leading provider of pre-seed and seed stage funding to start-ups.
