Deadline:
As soon as possible
Location(s)
Online United States of America
My startup is not located in New York City. Can I still apply for a spot with ERA? Absolutely! We are looking for the most promising business ideas, and we know those come from all over. ERA welcomes applications from anywhere in the world, and we operate in-person with some remote-friendly programming.
Overview
Details
The Program
ERA combines seed capital, hands-on help and a great co-working location with an expert team to positively impact the trajectory of early-stage startups. ERA runs two, four-month programs per year.
We are New York City’s largest accelerator program. ERA has NYC’s deepest and strongest mentor network with 500+ expert investors, technologists, product specialists, marketers, customer acquisition strategists, sales execs, and more, across all major industries represented in NYC. ERA companies gain direct access to leading members of the New York City tech community through the ERA mentor network and are also given access to the right investors, sales prospects and partners. We look for companies from anywhere in the world that are able to take full advantage of the NYC opportunity as a starting point to successfully enter the market for their product, service or application.
To date, our alumni companies have raised more than $2B in investor capital and collectively exceed $10B in market capitalization.
A Day in the Life
A typical ERA week looks like this:
- Founder Speaker Series–NYC’s most successful business builders from entrepreneurs to VCs discuss topics ranging from how they built their companies from idea to exit to details about acquiring customers and investment strategies to trends and what they mean–or don’t mean.
- Workshop Series–Outside experts and ERA alum cover wide-ranging and diverse specific relevant topic areas. Sample workshops include: Enterprise Sales Tools and Tactics, User Optimization and Testing, Data Science and Decision Making, Digital Marketing Best Practices by Channel, IP and Patent Filing, and more.
- Fundraising Sessions–ERA partners lead sessions that cover funding categories, cap tables, understanding and preparing to meet your potential investors, tracking and follow-up meetings, investor decks, etc.
- CTO Roundtable–Problem solve with your cohort and other CTOs in the trenches.
- Mentor Meetings–ERA’s 500+ mentors, who have expertise in every imaginable functional area. ERA mentors are generous with their time and resources, available to advise our companies for the duration of our program.
- Resident Expert Office Hours–consult with technologists and other pros on specific tactical issues you encounter.
- KPI Review–You and your cohort track and discuss weekly progress together in a lively game show atmosphere that fosters teamwork.
- Pitch Practice–Practice, revise and refine your pitch; get feedback from your cohort, entrepreneurs and investors.
- Open Door to Partners & Staff–Our partners and staff are always here to help build your business.
Mentorship
Mentorship is the heart of ERA’s program. ERA has the largest mentor network in New York, with more than 500 active for any one program. These are expert entrepreneurs, investors, executives, and others who are often the path to our startups’ “firsts,” including: first customer, first outside employee, first outside investment, first marketing program. Apart from these “firsts,” ERA mentors work with our startups on areas like product engineering, building a sales funnel, user testing, hiring, SEO, Google analytics, branding, and more. Mentors in our program can help startups focus on the right metrics to help get to product market fit. Through our deep mentor network, we connect you with the partners you need and provide you with critical access to the industries that comprise the New York opportunity.
During the first week of the program, you are matched with a lead mentor, who helps you achieve key milestones, and works with you through the entire program.
Many of our alumni continue to seek counsel from their lead mentor long after the program ends. We also pair our companies with one of our incredibly talented alumni mentors.
Fundraising
It takes real capital to build a real business, so you will need to raise money–and most likely, more money. Fundraising is complicated and frustrating; we provide you with the support and resources to needed to navigate the process from valuation and timing to presenting your investor message and creating your deck to scheduling and tracking meetings and evaluating the right/appropriate financial partners for your business.
Opportunity is About
Eligibility
Candidates should be from:
Description of Ideal Candidate
What types of companies can apply?
While we leave ourselves open to great entrepreneurs with transformative ideas, we have some general guidelines around company focus.
ERA companies are technology companies, or companies with a significant technology component, since those are the companies we can help the most. We look for companies best able to take full advantage of the New York City opportunity as a starting point to successfully enter the market for their product, service or application.
Most ERA companies will be software or software-related in some way, and may be either B-to-B or B-to-C-focused. Our interests are as diverse as your ideas: Internet, Mobile, FinTech, Payments, SaaS, E-Commerce, Health Tech, Climate, Education, Real Estate, Logistics, IoT, Fashion Tech, Ad Tech, Media, Marketing, and many more. We are looking to you to wow us with anything Internet and software-related that you think is cool. We consider all the business questions around the product business concept and market size. In the end, we want to know if yours is a great team and the right team for your product and business.
Do you require companies to be for-profit?
Yes. We are unable to invest in non-profit organizations.
Are you looking for a particular stage company?
We have no specific stage requirements, but most companies will have assembled a team and developed an initial product. Many have early customers and revenue. We don’t reject companies just for being earlier than that, but we need to see the team has made a real commitment to the company and a clear vision for its future.
Do you require a certain number of founders?
No. It’s your company. That said, our bias is for two to four person teams, which is based on our experience for the optimal combination of “small enough to move quickly but large enough for idea sharing.”
Do I have to be technical to apply?
We have a strong preference for technical cofounders. While we don’t require startups to have engineering founders, we are looking for companies that can make substantial progress on their product during the course of our four-month program. Companies with at least one technical co-founder are better able to implement at least some product changes and improvements without hiring additional resources.
Dates
Deadline: As soon as possible
Cost/funding for participants
How much does ERA invest in each company?
We invest $150,000 on a post-money SAFE in return for 6% of each company selected. We don’t vary the amount per founder. We invest in the company directly and the founders decide how to use the funds.
In addition to this financial investment, our companies are immersed in our mentor-driven program. We also provide free office space, free hosting credits with several major cloud providers, and additional benefits through our legal, finance, accounting, and other business-service partners.
What are the benefits that each ERA company gets as part of the program?
Here are some of the benefits that our partners and sponsors provide to each ERA company:
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Up to $100,000 in webhosting credits from Google Cloud
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Up to $150,000 in webhosting credits from Microsoft Azure Credits
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$25,000 in webhosting credits from Amazon Web Services Activate Credits
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Up to $120K in webhosting credits from IBM Cloud
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$70,000 of fee-free payment processing with Stripe
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$50,000 in Segment credits in your first year
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$7,500 in credits from Plaid
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$5,000 in OpenAI API Credits
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$3,600 in credits for MongoDB Atlas
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$2,000 Airtable credit
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$500 in free cloud credits and 70% discounted cloud services for two years
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Preferred pricing from Thoropass
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Preferred pricing from Carta
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Preferred pricing from Justworks
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Preferred pricing from Deel
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Bank bonuses with Rho, Mercury, and Citizens Bank
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Free and discounted services from Withum, HubSpot, Streak, Dropbox, LangChain, Pilot, Capchase, Apollo, and more.
What is a SAFE?
A SAFE is a “Simple Agreement for Future Equity.” It is a form of investment that gives investors the right to receive stock in a company at a future date when it raises an equity round. A SAFE is not debt, it does not accrue interest and does not have a maturity date. SAFEs let founders get funded now without having to negotiate all the documents associated with a typical equity round. When an equity round does then occur, that becomes the trigger to convert all prior SAFE investments.
The ERA SAFE will convert into preferred shares representing 6% of your company’s fully-diluted capitalization at the time of your next equity round.
What do you mean by “post-money” SAFE?
A “post-money” SAFE is a way to define the price per share or the ownership percentage that an investor receives after all SAFE investments are converted to equity. This all occurs immediately before the new money that comes in with the equity round. That next equity round then dilutes all the prior investors in the company including SAFE investments.
Un-save Opportunity
Internships, scholarships, student conferences and competitions.
