8 SaaS Incubators and Accelerators

Y Combinator

San Francisco, USA

Y Combinator is a well-known startup accelerator based in San Francisco, USA. Twice every year, they invest $500k in many startups.

Over the course of three months, Y Combinator focuses on helping startups take off. They try to extract the best in all those participating and use the time to be super productive. They work closely and intensively with participants to refine their pitches and make sure that they are in the best shape possible. Participants are surrounded every day by people involved in startups – your batch peers, the speakers, and investors. YC also provides office hours, boot camps, “Tuesday Talks”, and more.

All this work and optimization culminates with Demo Day. This is when startups present their companies to invite-only, carefully selected investors. Moreover, after Demo Day YC offers a strong community to help support you beyond your pitch.

TinySeed

Minneapolis, USA

“The first accelerator for ambitious SaaS bootstrappers”, TinySeed is a year-long remote accelerator designed to help founders with a revenue-generating SaaS optimize their product-market fit and grow faster. Companies often apply for the TinySeed program citing TinySeed’s great mentorship, excellent network, and supportive community.

Differentiating them from other accelerators, TinySeed does not have a demo day, there isn’t homework or tests and it is remote! Their program allows founders to focus on what matters most… their company. Additionally, they limit their weekly meetings to 1 hour and there is no minimum time commitment.

They break down the course into three main parts: The TinySeed Playbook takes up the first three months, the middle six months focus on group mentor advisorship, and the last three months provide ongoing education. Those first three months will include presentations, one-on-one help from their team, and best practices. They can help with pricing, funnels, hiring, and lead generation. They break founders into smaller groups based on similarity and host bi-weekly “mastermind calls”. Throughout the whole year, founders have access to a mentor roster for 1:1 help.

Another benefit of joining TinySeed is that they have in-person retreats and MicroConfs, which provide great opportunities for networking and learning, as well as some good relaxation. Check out their portfolio to see past companies that have worked with TinySeed.

L-Spark

Ottawa, Canada

L-Spark is a Canadian accelerator with four different accelerator programs. One of their programs is specifically for SaaS, a six-month intensive program. With this program, founders have access to mentorship with a C-level mentor once a week, networking opportunities, B2B SaaS workshops, pitch practice opportunities, business development, go-to-market strategy support, and more. Another plus of participating in the program is the opportunity to participate in SaaS North, which is Canada’s leading SaaS conference.

L-Spark does not invest in your company as they don’t have a fund. It may be better to call this program an incubator program since they are not actually investing capital in your company. Instead, they take 3% equity in your company if you are selected and agree to participate.

They are specific about what they look for in potential companies. L-Spark looks for B2B and B2B2C SaaS companies who are ready to scale and need help to do so, are passionate about building their software product, Canadian, have a prototype (if pre-revenue) or $5-10K in MRR.

They also have a great resource for female founders, a giant database of Canada’s female founders and funders.

AngelPad

NYC & San Francisco, USA

AngelPad has been ranked the #1 U.S. accelerator, and once you see their track record, you’ll understand why. They’ve helped SaaS giants like buffer and Pipedrive. Because of their success, the pool of applicants is usually huge, around 2000. Every 6 months they choose a group of approximately 15 teams out of those 2000 applications and spend 3 intense months with them. In those three months, they provide 1:1 mentorship, funding, community, and access to investors. AngelPad invests $120,000 in each company, and provides access to other perks like access to over $300k in cloud credits from Digital Ocean, AWS, and Google. Their community provides support during and after they exit AngelPad. By being part of AngelPad, investors already have an idea of the quality of companies that come out of AngelPad, which opens a lot of doors for companies looking for investments.

Apply now!

EGG (Enter Grow Go)

Greece

EGG (Enter Grow Go) is a Greek accelerator that operates out of Kallithea, Athens. They have two platforms: Startup and Scaleup. Depending on what stage you’re at with your business, you can choose the program that best suits you.

The Startup option is a year-long incubator program, broken into 3 parts: Enter, Grow, and Go. Enter is the period in which founders apply to participate and compete for a spot in the program. Grow is the business incubation period that provides financing, mentoring, business training, and a headquarters in Kallithea, Athens. Lastly, they have Go which is the graduation from the program that gives participants access to the financial tools and more networking opportunities with investors and potential clients.

Scaleup is an accelerator program to help businesses that have been running for 3+ years to grow and expand. EGG offers an integrated framework focusing on business growth. EGG invests in the companies, injecting capital into the company. They give guidance to founders to assist in establishing their long-term vision, better target their product, promote their business within Greece and internationally, and finally come up with a financing strategy. There are more details available on their website about the Scaleup platform.