Episode #48: Techstars, Brexit and Corporate Accelerators with Max Kelly

Max Kelly is currently Managing Director of Techstars London. Techstars is the world’s leading accelerator programme for early stage start ups, having incubated over 800 companies and developed corporate accelerator programs for the likes of Barclays, Nike and Disney to name just a few.

Prior to Techstars, Max spent 12 years at Virgin where he was responsible for the strategy of the group and for starting new companies:

- Virgin Insight - delivered big data consultancy to all the Virgin companies

- Virgin Mobile USA - grew to revenues of $1bn within 18 months

- Virgin Mobile Canada - voted best Canadian network in its launch year

- Virgin Healthbank - freezing stem cells cryogenically

These companies exited for more than $500M for Richard Branson.

Alongside his Virgin commitments, Max also co-founded lastsecondtickets.com which was successfully sold in 2014.

Topics Discussed:

- corporate startup relationships

- fintech and blockchain

- Brexit

- why Techstars success rates hover around 90%

- what Techstars looks for in startup founders and teams

- aligning corporate and startup expectations and metrics

Show Notes:

Techstars.com

LinkedIn - au.linkedin.com/in/maxkelly

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