Business Accelerators

You’ve been in business for about a year and you feel confident in your decision that starting your own business was the right choice. Perhaps you’ve found a niche in the market or you have a steady client base. How do you take the next steps? Perhaps the use of a business accelerator program would be a good place to start. Business accelerator programs are designed to assist existing businesses with additional resources that help them further expand their operations. Through a business accelerator, you can, among other things, gain valuable mentorship from other successful business owners, increase your access to investment capital, and network with other entrepreneurs.

Some business accelerators in Hawaii are:

BLUE STARTUPS: Founded with the goal of diversifying Hawaii’s economy by leveraging its unique strengths.  Historically dependent on the tourism industry, Blue Startups envisions a Hawaii with a thriving technology sector, creating high paying and interesting jobs for our “keiki” (children):  https://www.bluestartups.com/

ELEMENTAL EXCELERATOR: With a focus on environmental sustainability and climate change, Elemental Excelerator seeks to promote fair and equitable access for businesses focused on energy, water, agriculture, mobility, and the circular economy:  https://elementalexcelerator.com/

HAWAII INVESTMENT READY: Focusing on sustainable and inclusive technologies, Hawaii Investment Ready seeks to assist businesses working to solve societal and environmental challenges and to empower entrepreneurs to increase impact while building a resilient enterprise:  https://www.hiready.net/about/

MANA UP: ACCELERATING GROWTH FOR HAWAI’I PRODUCTS. Mana Up’s accelerator is a 12-week intensive program designed to uncover high-impact sales opportunities, tackle production challenges, and develop executive leadership. The program includes workshops, connections to a network of advisers, help in crafting an attractive narrative for expansion, and access to distribution channels through partners and digital platforms:  https://manauphawaii.com/pages/overview

THE PURPLE PRIZE: Since 2016, the Purple Prize has empowered the people of Hawaii to create impactful technology startups that are truly rooted in Hawaiian values. To date we have worked with over 40 teams and deployed significant monetary award to those with the highest potential to create real impact in Hawai ʻi nei: https://purpleprize.com/   

XLR8UH: a public-private partnership between Sultan Ventures and the University of Hawaii (UH), is designed to create economic prosperity through the science, technology, innovation and entrepreneurship formed at UH, and to convert our state’s regional strength of groundbreaking research into new businesses and jobs :  https://xlr8uh.com

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