BoostVC has been an accelerator known for the unconventional bets it has chased — and is still chasing — trends like blockchain and AR/VR that other investors have long sworn off. Its accelerator program has been as classical as it comes, offering perks like office space and living quarters for a relatively tight group of admitted founders.
With the pandemic crisis, BoostVC founder Adam Draper has had to make some adjustments to his latest batch, including a digital demo day taking place next week. Venture capital firms have proven reticent in the past to invest in founders they hadn’t met in person, but the quarantine has forced early-stage investors to step out of comfort zones. Draper hopes that a Zoom-based Demo Day focused on allowing the 13 companies to present and then break off into their own smaller Q&A subgroups will allow investors to feel more comfortable backing the startups remotely.
BoostVC’s digital demo day takes place on April 28.
A smaller group of 13 startups will certainly make logistics easier for Boost; Y Combinator’s latest batch tapped out at 240 companies. The current class is BoostVC’s smallest in recent memory, the result of a format change last year that boosted individual investments to $500K per startup (for a 15% equity chunk) and shrunk the total pool. The change was an attempt by Draper and his team to differentiate the accelerator’s offering and attract founders solving more capital-intensive problems.
