La Salle Technova Barcelona and Connector Start-up Accelerator create a pre-acceleration program for 3D printing sector companies

La Salle Campus Barcelona-URL, through its innovation park La Salle Technova, launches with Connector Start-up Accelerator a pre-acceleration program for enterprises in 3D Printing sector working in fields such as generation of materials, productive processes or related software. The program will provide corporates a new innovation channel by linking with start-ups with disruptive business models and impact on its business lines. The alliance between established companies and start-ups makes it easier for corporations to explore new business and for start-ups to link up with a partner that facilitate rapid growth and internationalization.

The project was unveiled during the celebration of In(3D)ustry Congress from 21 to 23 June at the Fira de Barcelona which brings together leading expert agents in 3D printing.

Both La Salle Technova and Connector Start-up Accelerator stand out by the mentoring, support to start-ups and supporting entrepreneurs in search of investment, which has allowed this agreement to work together in this sector.

The program is based on the model of Lean Launchpad, one of the most modern methods of creation of companies and products, mainly based on experimentation, which provides a method for creating spin-off and start-up companies with recurring business models, profitable and scalable minimizing their probability of failure. This model has been successfully taught at the universities of Stanford, Berkeley, Columbia and Caltech; and adopted by the National Science Foundation to boost their research and translate it into profitable and sustainable ventures.

For entrepreneurs, the pre-acceleration program will last 8 weeks during which training and onsite support with mentoring that will provide them experience and appropriateness of the strategy of their companies will be combined. During the program, participants will form the basis of the business model, generate a prototype, get their first customers and learn how to swing the project to reach the fit on the market.

For established companies, the program promotes a flow of continuous innovation using agile methodologies through the detection and capture of entrepreneurs who are developing solutions for 3D Printing sector. The involved companies can identify and contact entrepreneurs related to 3D printing, solve problems and generate projects, validate the use of technology and new value propositions in the sector, learn new methodologies for innovation, and position in the entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Connector is a start-up accelerator driven by some of the outstanding entrepreneurs of the technological area of Spain. It was born with the aim to promote and help the Spanish entrepreneurial ecosystem supporting projects and entrepreneurs in the digital sector. It has more than 150 mentors throughout Spain in different areas of the digital sector and has already accelerated more than 70 start-ups.