StartUp
Academy

Together with Meta

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Free online program on how to scale profitable tech businesses, taught by the founders and C-level executives of global tech companies

Duration: 2 months

Free two-month online program on how to scale profitable tech businesses, taught by the founders and C-level executives of global tech companies

Join if you are:

Founder

Discover what it takes to scale up a company with input from world-renowned experts.

C-level executive

Learn about the building blocks of tech startups and get step-by-step business tactics.

The program is designed mainly for tech-driven startups starting from Seed and higher stages of development, in domains such as FinTech, EdTech, Mobility, B2B (SaaS) and Apps, but not limited to.

Why enroll in StartUp Academy?

Become one of the Academy participants and instantly receive $110k worth of non-cash bonuses and other benefits.
01

Program

Refine your product by participating in deep-dive lectures, practicing with real-world cases, and discovering new business horizons.



02

Mentorship

Participate in a series of individual sessions and receive actionable advice and comprehensive feedback to update your pitch deck.



03

Investment

Win a chance to raise venture capital for scaling your startup by participating in the Pitch Day at the end of the program. Last year, 5 startups raised investments from $100K to $1 million.



04

Community

Become a member of the international community of Academy graduates and other СEE entrepreneurs with great ambition and impressive track records, all of whom are able to support and inspire others.



05

Benefits from partners

Each startup receives an average of $110K worth of financial assistance in the form of credits, free access to their services, and mentoring sessions.



Transform the future
of your business

PROGRAM

Strategy

  • 01
    How "what needs to be done" depends on the business model and how to change it as the company develops.
  • 02
    Market analysis and life hacks on how to get complex information.
  • 03
    How to build a strategy for entering the market or scaling market presence.

Finance & Investments

  • 01
    Unit economy calculation tricks and a case study example.
  • 02
    Behind the scenes of a venture fund. How they build a strategy and funnel. Investment thesis. Сap table. Term sheet.
  • 03
    Pitch deck preparation. Search for investors and see examples of cold reach-out.
  • 04
    10 legal failures and how to fix them: hire lawyers, GDPR, payment processing, and much more.

Product

  • 01
    Product planning to move faster. DevOps principles and strategies for reducing time-to-market.
  • 02
    Roadmap, feature packaging, pricing. Cases and templates.
  • 03
    How to skyrocket your retention.

Marketing & Sales

  • 01
    Marketing strategy and what to focus on at the scaling stage.
  • 02
    How to find market-product-sales fit and scale sales dramatically.
  • 03
    Generate 80% of incoming traffic organically using SEO, ASO, virality, and more.
  • 04
    PPC for $1M+ monthly. Buying traffic. Creative pipeline.

Management

  • 01
    Leadership: 10 most difficult challenges and lessons from startup founders.
  • 02
    How to build a recruitment funnel, hunt A-players, and fire people the right way.
  • 03
    People management. How to create and change organizational structure. Performances and salaries.

Technology & Innovation

  • 01
    Building IT infrastructure on AWS. How to troubleshoot various scenarios and automate deployment.
  • 02
    Innovations to boost your business. Metaverse, Creators, and more.

Mentorship

During StartUp Academy 3.0, you will be able to work with mentors from the Genesis and Meta communities, founders of global tech businesses. The mentoring program includes both individual and group sessions.

Startup journey reviews with AWS

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the world’s most comprehensive cloud platform, offering over 200 fully featured services from data centers globally. As a participant of the Academy, explore all the ways that AWS can support startups, including planning your journey to receive additional AWS support starting with $10K credits and up, AWS Marketplace, free training, and one-on-one AWS experts sessions.

Pitch Day

At the end of the program, all participants will have the opportunity to pitch their startups to venture capital funds. We conduct Pre-Pitch, an event during which more than 20 experts and peers provide feedback for each pitch deck. However, we cannot guarantee that your startup will receive funding – it’s all up to you!

Connect with the best experts
from around the world

Volodymyr Mnogoletniyi

CEO, Genesis

Olena Mazhuha

Investment Director, Flyer One Ventures

Stanislav Birov

Client Partner, CEE, Meta

Maksym Shtepa

CEO, SKELAR

Vital Laptenok

General Partner, Flyer One Ventures

Artem Kopanev

COO, Genesis

Vasilii Tofan

Senior Partner, Horizon Capital

Adina Francu

Account Manager, CEE, Meta

Sergei Žunajev

Business development coordinator, e-Residency programme

Olga Shapovalova

B2B & Partnerships Director, Headway

Oleksii Yermolenko

Principal, Flyer One Ventures

Viacheslav Tsurkan

Head of Product Marketing, JIJI

Georgiy Fomichev

Partner, SKELAR

Oleksandr Matsiuk

COO, Trible

Robert Guenther

Head of Reality Labs Developer Partnerships, EMEA at Meta

Serhii Bohoslovskyi

Founder & CEO, Trible

Hannes Ortmeier

Startup Partnerships Manager EMEA, Zendesk

Roman Lobas

Partnership Manager VC, Accelerators & Startups in EMEA, Deel

Our Mentors

Startups in the program can book sessions with our experts to get actionable advice on their business cases or challenges.

Denys Sychkov
Book your session on
Unit economics
Operations
Strategy

Denys Sychkov

Investment Director, Horizon Capital

Vadym Voitiuk
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Mobile engineering
Payments
AI/ML/Data-products
Autonomous driving

Vadym Voitiuk

Principal Solutions Architecture, AWS

Alina Georgescu
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Pitch deck review
Business model

Alina Georgescu

Investment Manager, Catalyst Romania

Anna Khoma
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Marketing strategy
Performance marketing

Anna Khoma

Growth Marketing Expert & Consultant,ex-CMO Obrio

Oleksandr Yaroshenko
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Pitch deck review
Fundraising

Oleksandr Yaroshenko

Head of Strategy & Investments, Headway

Alexandra Naidonova
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Brand strategy
Сustomer research
Сustomer journey

Alexandra Naidonova

Head of Marketing at F1V

Serhii Bohoslovskiy
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Product planning
People management

Serhii Bohoslovskiy

CEO, Trible

Stanislav Birov
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Marketing strategy
Sales in B2B

Stanislav Birov

Client Partner, CEE, Meta

Olga Shapovalova
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B2B sales
Partnership

Olga Shapovalova

B2B&Partnerships Director, Headway

Oleksandr Matsiuk
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Market analysis
Fundraising
Competitor analysis
Operations roles hiring

Oleksandr Matsiuk

COO, Trible

Michał Mroczkowski
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Marketplace mechanics
Network effects

Michał Mroczkowski

Associate, Market One Capital

Bohdan Mashtalir
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Fundraising strategy
Deck & data room review
Market sizing

Bohdan Mashtalir

Scout, Inovo VC

Slava Matskov
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Unit economics
Subscription payments
Hiring

Slava Matskov

CEO, Howly

Mykhailo Tovmashenko
Book your session on
Pitch deck review
Financial modeling

Mykhailo Tovmashenko

Investment associate, Genesis

Anna Shcherba
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Pitch deck review
Financial analysis

Anna Shcherba

Senior investment analyst, Genesis

Daria Popova
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Product management

Daria Popova

Head of product at Muso.AI

Liviu Cadariu
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Community building
Customer development

Liviu Cadariu

Co-founder at We For Real

Bogdan Svyrydov
Book your session on
Fundraising
Pitch deck review

Bogdan Svyrydov

Investment Director at Horizon Capital and Venture Director at u.ventures

Timeline

Application process

Application form to register

Selection gate

Online testing

Selection gate

Pitch Deck review

Program
start date

Selection gate

Personal interviews

Results & Reviews

Together with Meta, Genesis successfully organized StartUp Academy 1.0 & 2.0 and united startup-minded entrepreneurs worldwide.

4 150

applications from 60+ countries

86

startups participated in the program

12

venture capital funds attended the StartUp Academy 2.0 Pitch Day

$5.5 million

secured funds from partners in the form of credits, services, and consultations 

$2.8 million

VC invested in Academy startups during and after the program

"An insane amount of value add through the meetings that I had with the C-levels suite of Genesis portfolio companies. This contributed by generating exposure for us in front of VCs. Winning [StartUp Academy Pitch Day] was another proof point which helped us speed the conversation and win the trust of u.ventures and raised $1 million totally in this round."

Emil Chichioi
Founder & CEO of Bloomcoding
Participant of StartUp Academy 2.0

"Excellent organization from the beginning; rich lectures with a non-standard approach and insights from the “inner kitchen” of a startup builder. Mentors come to sessions prepared with apt questions and hypotheses about your project. [There was a] Pitch Day with a cool lineup in the jury. All of this helped us to build a strategy and take the first steps towards the desired results"

Angelika Romanenko
Founder of Tamaranga
Participant of StartUp Academy 2.0

“For our team, the StartUp Academy was a source of great insights that helped us to level up the company. The most exciting thing about this experience was that the first StartUp Academy became a starting point for Genesis and EducateMe partnership. The learning process of StartUp Academy 2.0. was designed around our platform, and I’ve got a chance to be a learner on it and to get helpful feedback from other participants.”

Roman Shauk
Founder & CEO of EducateMe
Participant of StartUp Academy 1.0

Lectures about unit economics and Internet marketing, as well as practical advice from Meta lecturers, helped me find the answer. As a result of the experiment, we determined the basic model of the unit economics and top-level metrics, adjusted the business model and the direction of product development, confirmed the value hypothesis and collected the base of the first users.”

Oleksandr Korzhenko
Co-founder INTERSOL & CYBERFOX, CEO CYBERFOX
Participant of StartUp Academy 1.0

“I got the insight at one of the lectures on marketing which goes: “Do what no one has done before you. At least in your niche." I have realized that I need to experiment with creatives and convey the value of the product through them. Now the topic of brand strategy and long-term marketing is of great interest to me, so we will launch the first tests.”

Maria Batrin
Co-founder & Product Manager, Bloomy Lab
Participant of StartUp Academy 1.0

We want to support Ukrainian startups, founders, and their teams. Therefore, we provide a special quota for them by allocating 15% of all seats in the Academy to Ukrainian startups only.

Join us and develop
your business!

Frequently asked questions

If you have any specific questions, please contact us

1. How to join the StartUp Academy

Fill out the application. After submitting your application, you will receive an email confirmation from the StartUp Academy team. If you do not receive this email, please check your junk folder. The selection stages include an online test, the Pitch Deck Review, and an interview. We inform applicants about the results of each preliminary stage by email.

2. Why do I have to go through the selection process?

The idea of StartUp Academy is to provide the most efficient learning experience and enable a personalized connection between each participant and speaker. That is why we have to form a group with a limited number of participants.

3. What are the entry requirements?

The program is designed mainly for tech-driven startups from Seed to Series A stages, in domains such as FinTech, EdTech, Mobility, B2B (SaaS) and Apps, but not limited to them. Only founders or C-level executives of the submitted startup can participate in the program.

4. Is participation free?

StartUp Academy is equity-free. Genesis, Meta, and partners support startups without any exchange of equity or fees. We are a platform where the most promising CEE startups meet the leading tech companies and VCs, as catalysts of fast growth.

5. Can I raise investment for my startup at Pitch Day?

At the end of the program, all participants will have the opportunity to pitch their startups to more than 20 venture capital funds. We look forward to powerful and profound work based on the knowledge gained during Startup Academy 3.0. However, we cannot guarantee that your startup will receive funding. Nevertheless, if you are capable of making the investors truly fall in love with your product, you will get the chance to raise money and scale your business.

6. Do I have any opportunities from partners?

Yes, you can get from $10 to $100K of AWS credits.
Our partners, including Notion, Zendesk, and many others, will support you with credits, free access to their services, and mentoring sessions with their experts. Selected startups will be able to learn detailed information about opportunities from partners and how to activate them at the official opening of the program.

7. How is the learning process organized?

The StartUp Academy program consists of approximately 50+ hours of material delivered over two months. Participants will join online live lectures and discussions, personal presence is required.

Homework, mentoring sessions, mastermind groups, and networking activities are important parts of the learning process. The final stage of the program is Pitch Day, participation in which is determined by the startup's level of preparation and its progress in the initial program.

For the convenience of communication, we use Slack, all online events take place in Zoom, and educational materials and homework are available in our LMS.

8. What will be the working language?

English is our working language.