Techstars, a global startup accelerator that helps entrepreneurs succeed, announced on Wednesday, March 22, that it is shutting down its programme in Stockholm effective immediately.
The announcement comes a week after welcoming a new cohort of 30 founders in Stockholm from various countries, including France, Spain, Estonia, and Sweden, reports Sifted.
Techstars launched its accelerator programme in Stockholm and Paris simultaneously in September 2021 after raising €126M in funding.
The decision to shut its programme abruptly has sent shockwaves in the ecosystem.
Several international mentors, who had made travel arrangements to Stockholm for Thursday morning, were notified via email on Wednesday that “all programme sessions had been cancelled.”
The entrepreneurs who enrolled in the latest Techstars cohort in Stockholm were informed during their lunchtime on Wednesday that the programme had been terminated, reports Sifted.
Jonas Almeling, Head of Nordics at Seedrs, shared a post on LinkedIn saying “On Tuesday I was mentoring the great batch of diverse, amazing founders from all over the world that are(were) part of the Stockholm Techstars Accelerator.”
He continues, “Tuesday evening, 1.5 weeks into the programme, they pull the plug on the programme and immediately shut it down. No matter what has happened behind the scenes here (yes I know the backstory as well, and to be clear the team has not, to my knowledge, done anything wrong) this is NOT how a “give first”, pay-it-forward-values based accelerator & investor that I have been proud to support should act towards the founders and the community. I think we all deserve a really good explanation here.”
Techstars: What you need to know
Founded by Brad Feld, David Brown, David Cohen, and Jared Polis in 2006, Techstars currently operates 47 accelerators in 33 cities and 12 countries globally.
Techstars invests in approximately 500 startups and deploys approximately $130M (approx €109M) every year, making it one of the largest investors in high-growth early-stage companies by volume in the world.
Since its inception in 2006, Techstars has invested in over 3,340 companies. It counts 15 unicorns among its accelerator graduates, including DigitalOcean, Chainalysis, PillPack, and SendGrid.
We have reached out to Techstars and will update the article as soon as we receive their responses