About

What is Bootup Labs?

A Vancouver-based startup accelerator designed to help founders build tech startups and take them to their first round of funding over the course of an eight month placement.

We work with founders starting companies in the areas of:

  • consumer internet
  • mobile
  • gaming
  • enterprise internet

Our goal is to build Bootup Labs into the best program and Vancouver into the best place to found and build your digital media startup.

The Program

We work with founding teams to get them from prototype to traction. We look for great teams with big ideas, and provide them with financial, mentoring, and other support to help them succeed.

We do intakes in January and May of up to 6 companies. That means that we have 12 companies at any one time.

If accepted, we'll work with your startup for 8 months, helping to build your company into a state where it is ready for Series A financing - or whatever you decide to do next. We do this by picking up the tab for a lot of the day to day expenses and worries, and getting you to focus on building your business. The expenses we cover include office space, financial and accounting tasks, and corporate legal expenses.

The staff at Bootup Labs has experience in building, marketing, and funding startups, and they work with you to grow your startup. We match this with an all star cast of mentors with different sets of expertise and industry knowledge who visit Bootup Labs on a regular basis.

Lastly, we do make some direct cash available to your team. This is structured as a line of credit, which you can access when and if you need it. Some more experienced entrepreneurs opt to not draw down any money, but love the main structure and value of the program. What's the catch? Upon being accepted into Bootup Labs, you'll give us a 5% equity stake in your company. If you use the entire line of credit, you'll give up another 10% equity stake.

To recap:

  • January and May intakes
  • 8 months of office space, finance & accounting and corporate legal
  • Access to great mentoring and hands on support from Bootup Labs and group of world class CEOs and Founders.
  • Graduation "demo days"  where you present your company to a Angels and VCs in Vancouver and beyond
  • $100,000 convertible line of credit
  • 5% - 15% equity stake

How to Apply

Fill out our application form to get started. If there is currently no live application, you can subscribe to be notified of future application openings.

We've blogged about Four things to have a hope of being funded, but the most important two at an earlier stage are having a co-founder and a starter executive summary (or rather, a clear idea of the business you want to build). Check out our templates page for useful documents to start working with.

Other questions? Don't worry, we love meeting entrepreneurs and introducing them to the local community. Just get in touch and we'll go from there. The FAQ might cover some items as well.