Startup Wise Guys Are Going after B2B

    Startup Wise Guys, an Estonian accelerator that was behind startups such as VitalFields, WappZapp, EpicList and Cloutex. They have gone through three batches of companies so far: Summer 2012, Autumn 2013 and Winter 2013. However since then we have not heard much about their plans for the future and were suspecting that there would be a change coming.

    So a few days ago, they announced that they will change their focus towards B2B commerce and adjust their program accordingly by launching “BusinessTech”.

    This seems to be a common trend in the current investment world, as many want to look into companies that start making money pretty early on. On the one hand, it minimizes risk but on the other, it cold potentially decrease the amount of mega exits. Although those are pretty rare anyways.

    To facilitate this new approach, one of the main changes will be to add a whole month to the program that will focus on business partnerships, going international and raising funding. As any #EstonianMafia member would tell you, the wise guys behind the accelerator, list their core competences as: payments, security and cloud.

    “Taking an in-depth look on the already established mentor and connection base at the Startup Wise Guys programs and concentrating on the three core areas, we see a clear advantage in the B2B field,” says Mike Reiner, founder of Startup Wise Guys.

    In addition to the already existing mentorship base, it helps that they have partnered up with key partners in the chosen areas. Microsoft Ventures for cloud, Paypal for payments and Clarified Security for security.

    Startup Wise Guys has 24 companies from 15 countries in their portfolio that have already raised $2m in the first quarter of 2014. So if you are interested in becoming their made man, apply here.