Image: Dogpatch
Dogpatch Labs is taking a ‘talent-led approach’ for its new accelerator programme by investing in people and giving them the tools to develop novel start-up ideas.
Dogpatch Labs, the Dublin-based start-up and innovation hub, has launched a new accelerator programme today (28 April) called Founders.
Unlike most accelerators that invest in ideas, the aim of Founders is to find talented individuals with business potential and provide them with the mentoring, networking and funding opportunities to develop a start-up company.
Developed in partnership with Portershed in Galway, RDI Hub in Kerry and Republic of Work in Cork, the programme consists of two phases.
It starts with three months of intensive learning and ideation. The participants will be based in Dogpatch Labs full-time to develop start-up ideas, find a co-founder and pitch an idea for a potential €100,000 investment.
The start-ups that receive an investment will enter a second phase of the programme where they will be helped to scale their new company.
Mentors on the programme include Bobby Healy, founder and CEO of Manna, Áine Kerr, co-founder of Kinzen and head of content safety analysis at Spotify, and Stephen Kinsella, director of immersive software engineering at the University of Limerick.
Dogpatch Labs CEO Patrick Walsh believes there is “a huge untapped talent pool in Ireland”.
“We’re hyper focused on bringing together a diverse group of individuals with a wide range of skills and backgrounds to work together on ideas that can become truly global businesses,” Walsh said.
In terms of participants, Dogpatch wants 50pc of the recruits to have a business background, for example in sales or go-to-market experience, and 50pc of the recruits to have a technical background, for example, software engineers, computer scientists or data scientists.
However, people of any age and range of experience can apply as long as they have what Dogpatch calls “founder potential”.
“The only specific requisite being the ability to problem solve at pace and the ambition to found a high-growth start-up.”
Dogpatch claims to have diversity and inclusivity front and centre in their recruitment process and promises to look for talent “outside of the traditional talent pools”.
The Founders programme will start in September. Applications opened on 26 April. Find more information on the Dogpatch Labs website.
In March, Dogpatch Labs announced the new 2050 accelerator to boost sustainable development.
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