SoftBank is launching an accelerator program for diverse start-up founders in Europe
Summary
The company first introduced Emerge last year in the U.S. with WeWork Labs, the office rental firms start-up incubator, to back 14 start-ups whose founders come from underrepresented backgrounds. "Softbank is a famous investor in the later stages, with massive global successes" such as Uber, Oliver Holle, co-founder and managing partner of Speedinvest, told CNBC in an interview. "But they are not set up for investing in those very early nascent stages of company building." Start-up accelerator programs are a common way for entrepreneurs to get access to mentorship in the early days of building their company. Many well-known tech firms today applied for accelerator schemes and went on to launch successful businesses, including Stripe, Airbnb and Coinbase.