Energia Ventures works closely with private and public organizations to develop our program. The following are some of our major supporters.
Funding & Perks
Starting a business is hard and we want the Summer Institute to be accessible to everyone; not just those with savings or financial support.
Every year, we do our best to secure financial support for either founders or companies.
PROTOTYPE GRANT
We understand that capital is necessary to build your venture; so we have that covered. Each business will receive up to $2,000 for prototype development.*
ZERO EQUITY
There is no fee to participate in the Summer Institute and zero equity taken from participating businesses. What we want is simple: to support good people who want to make a big impact.
*Depending on funds availability.
GVN/GAN PERKS
IBM Global Entrepreneur is a unique program designed to connect startups to IBM's global ecosystem of clients, partners, business leaders, and enterprise-grade technology, and is offering Summer Institute ventures up to $120,000 USD in IBM Cloud hosting credits over 12 months.
Shopify for Startups is offering Summer Institute ventures up to one year of Shopify's Advanced Plan for companies that are ready to dig in and grow. This isn't your average corporate startup program. Each quarter you'll be eligible for a set of credits based your performance. You set the goals. We'll advise you on how to hit them. If you're in it to win it, let's do this.
Amazon Web Services provides startup with low cost, easy to use infrastructure needed to scale and grow any size business. AWS Activate is a program designed to provide startups with resources they need to get started on AWS. Join some of the fastest-growing ventures in the world and build your business using AWS.
Zendesk for Startups extends $117 USD in monthly credit (worth 3 agents on the Team plan and 3 agents on the Zopim Chat Basic plan) for 12 months. The offer is applied to trials.
Sendgrid is giving a 12 month gold plan credit to all Summer Institute ventures. Get 12 months email deliverability and support for free (up to 300,000 emails/month!). Valued at $24,000 USD.
Coachademy is a mobile app for online coaching. Instantly connect with professional life and business Coaches to get advice on anything related to work-life balance, stress management and personal growth.
This cloud-based voice and call center software helps growing businesses provide excellent sales and customer service with phone support. They will provide three seats for Summer Institute ventures. Valued at $2,500 USD.
The leader in 3D CAD technology and design software that is as simple as it is powerful. Valued at $4,000 USD.
Toptal connects companies to the top 3% of freelance talent. Toptal is an exclusive network of the top freelance software developers and designers in the world. Top companies rely on Toptal freelancers for their most important projects. Their matchers will hand pick the best talent for your venture and provide a VIP experience.
$1 million in perks, such as: Free round-trip flight from American Airlines Elite status & discounts on airlines, hotels and car rentals Credits in exclusive benefits from Rackspace, Softlayer, Sendgrid and 200 more Free access to events and workspaces across the world
Stripe is the best way to accept payments online and in mobile apps. We handle billions of dollars every year for forward-thinking businesses around the world. We think that building an internet business is a problem rooted in code and design, not finance. Our developer-friendly API's let our users focus on building great products. We love the web and care deeply about beautiful code, API's, and documentation.
MaaxMarket helps businesses to automate digital marketing like email, social media and real time visitor tracking. It uses thousands of data points and uses purchase pattern to automatically trigger email campaigns to increase sales. Valued at $15,000 USD.
Microsoft BizSpark gives ventures free software, service, support, and Microsoft Azure cloud services.
Large companies like Samsung, Comcast, Warner Bros and more post projects on SwitchPitch Connect. Summer Institute companies get full, free access to the platform to send details of your venture and your solution to posting companies. You'll also get direct contact information and status updates when you apply to projects.
HubSpot offers a growth stack of products for customer relationship management, marketing, and sales: powerful alone, and even better when used together.
Through IBM's efforts in its Global Entrepreneurship Program and its growing relationship with the Summer Institute, we are able to offer licenses of Watson Analytics for FREE. Every participating venture also gets access to IBM's Global Entrepreneurship Network. This is a gateway to all the resources, networks, and opportunities IBM brings on a Global scale. This also grants an introduction to resources on IBM's BlueMix and the Watson Developer Cloud. Valued at $940 USD.
SoftLedger is a flexible accounting system that can start small and scale as your business grows. For small teams, we can help you get out of excel and automate your bank and credit card transactions to easily track your finances. Then, as things get more complicated, just add the modules you need. Valued at $5,400 USD.
Bowtie is offering a $5,000 credit to Summer Institute ventures interested in their MVP-In-A-Box program. Launch fast with your professional, market-ready MVP. Mobile app MVPs include one platform (iPhone or Android) with option to build both.
Search companies and investors to effortlessly create actionable lists of leads.
UserTesting is a platform that makes it easy to get on-demand feedback by providing videos of real people interacting with your digital property and telling you what they really think. With our platform, you can create a series of tasks, questions, and ratings to evaluate just about anything, from a website to a prototype. Your study will be sent to our panel of users and, in about an hour, you’ll receive videos of the users speaking their thoughts aloud while completing your series of tasks.
Our membership with the Global Venture Network (GVN) / Global Accelerator Network (GAN) has a lot of financial benefits. Through the GAN, our ventures can redeem $1,450,000 USD in member perks. Once you graduate from the Summer Institute, your GAN perks are guaranteed for life. Here are some of the current perks:
AND MANY MORE...