Join us
Berlin Academy.
Our Academy program in Berlin, one of the hottest startup hubs in the world, boosts startups from seed to fully functioning profitable ventures.
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Startups
Class of 2019.
We welcomed seven startups from around the world who were chosen to receive 12 weeks of training in business, leadership and pitching skills. Watch our Demo Day video to see their journey.
Our deal
What we offer.
We’ll host you and your team in Berlin – one of the most promising startup capitals in the world — for six months. We’ll enrich your team spirit, feed your entrepreneurial savviness, accelerate your learning curve, challenge your pivoting skills, grow your network, and open doors to the most important players in the sports industry.
12 weeks of high-intensity training
Business, leadership and pitching skills, stress testing your business plan and a full setup of business documents and legal framework.
Embedded in a high-class industry and experts network
Sports business veterans, successful founders, CEOs as well as VC’s and tech experts that share their experience, skills, and network.
Test, improve and scale your product
Get not only the smartest early product feedback possible with our industry partners, but possibly also gain customers.
Get direct access to capital
Pitch in front of dozens of investors at demo day and in 1:1 meetings with selected VCs.
Benefit from service partner deals
Tailored to the needs of startups and sports startups in particular.
50.000€
Up to 50.000€ for each one of the final startups.
Gain visibility via leAD
The first sports accelerator in Germany and one of the 1st movers globally.
Live your "Passion for Sports"
Free membership deals plus regular sports and mindfulness sessions on-site.
leAD receives 8% equity
Of the final selected startups.
"If you are looking for investment, you should be lucky to get it. You would be silly not to try. Because the doors that these folks can open for you are probably doors you can't open yourself." - Ali Ghafour, 20/20 Armor Founder & CEO
"It made our vision come true. The mentorship and the experience from all of the different individuals really helped us to do something meaningful with the resources and create something that is scalable." - Maik Burlage, Wingfield Co-Founder & CEO
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Interested in joining our program?
Reach out to our scouting team!
Important dates
Timeline 2022.
APPLICATIONS DEADLINE
15 Apr
17 May
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23 Jul
VIRTUAL PROGRAM
SELECTION DAYS
15 Jul
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16 Jul
17 Aug
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13 Nov
ON-SITE PROGRAM
DEMO DAY
15 Oct
13 Nov
Transition into leAD Portfolio
Our lineup
Mentors.
Program participants attend intensive training sessions with our partners and mentors – experts in their disciplines who have one thing in common: a true passion for sports.
Our network
Partner deals.
Participants benefit from exclusive product and service deals by our partners and access to our vast network of pivotal corporates in the sports and startup world.
Cryptr
Cryptr enables any organization to use an highly secure authentication technology without passwords for their customers.
Deal
Startups get a free audit of their authentication and user onboarding process. The offer runs for 15 months; first 3 months for free & the next 12 months at 50%. If startup recommends Cryptr, startups get an additional 1 month free up to 6 months.
Services
Zendesk
Zendesk is a service-first CRM company with support, sales, and customer engagement products designed to improve customer relationships.
Deal
Startups get 6 months of free access to Zendesk Support Suite and Sales CRM, Zendesk Explore and Zendesk Sunshine. Offer available for startups that are new customers with fewer than 100 employees and funding no greater than Series B. Apply here.
Tools & Software
Lyon Visuals
Lyon Visuals is a full-service visualization studio. Their team works closely with the world’s leading brands, agencies, and businesses; providing them with 3D modeling/rendering, photography and production CAD files.
Deal
Lyon Visuals is giving all leAD Accelerator startups up to 15% off their modeling and CAD needs.
Design
Hubspot
HubSpot is a software platform that helps generate leads, close deals and manage pipeline, with products for customer relationship management, marketing, and sales. HubSpot Service helps you connect with customers, exceed their expectations, and turn them into promoters of your business.
Deal
HubSpot’s CRM aligns sales and marketing, HubSpot Marketing helps you grow traffic and convert visitors, and HubSpot Sales helps you skyrocket your productivity and close more leads with less work. All at startup-friendly pricing up to 90% off.
Tools & Software
Freshworks
Freshworks is one of the fastest-growing unicorns backed by Google Capital, Accel, Sequoia, Tiger Global. They're a leading maker of cloud-based customer and employee engagement software. Trusted by 250,000+ businesses across 150 countries.
Deal
Startups get $4000 in credits on the Freshworks suite of products and priority access to Freshworks startup program. Boost your startup with leading solutions from Freshworks including CRM, LiveChat, Support, Marketing automation, Project Management, and HRMS.
Software
Riedel Communications
Riedel Communications provides pioneering real-time signal transport networks for video, audio and communications serving broadcast, pro-audio, event, sports, theatre and security applications worldwide.
Deal
RIEDEL provides dedicated partnerships for product development, marketing and sales support in the areas of data acquisition and transmission (tracking, tele metrics, radio, broadcasting (audio and video), timing, etc.).
Corporate
Marlin Motion
Marlin Motion helps product managers and marketers add video and animation to their products and services. With a background in technology, the Marlin Motion team specializes in explainer videos, app previews, tutorials and video ads for apps and software products.
Deal
Marlin Motion is giving all leAD Sports Accelerator participants discounted startup rates for all their services.
Design
Amazon Web Services
Amazon Web Services partners with leAD Sports Accelerator and offers a plethora of benefits for companies backed by LSA. This includes training, credits, business support and a whole team devoted to helping startups scale their company.
Deal
Amazon Web Services offers discounted rates for their services to all selected leAD startups.
Hosting & IT
GoCardless
GoCardless provides a simple and cost-effective way to accept recurring payments by Direct Debit across the Eurozone (SEPA), UK (Bacs) and Sweden (Autogiro).
Deal
GoCardless is delighted to offer the leAD portfolio 50% off fixed fees for the Plus and Pro packages for their first 12 months.
Payment
Zipper Studios
Zipper Studios works with startups to transform their vision into great software products through a process focused on fast prototyping and attention to detail, creating stunning UI and an intuitive but simple UX, efficient development, product management, and technical management expertise.
Deal
leAD startups receive a 20% discount on Zipper Studios software development services. On top of this, leAD startups have exclusive access to a 14 days prototyping service.
Hosting & IT
GORNYLAW
Be it the natural evolution of the business or pivoting, entrepreneurs need to be ready to adapt. Gornylaw is a boutique law firm that offers flexible and tailor-made solutions with a personal approach to suit the needs of startups.
Deal
All leAD startups will receive a free first consultancy on IP law as well as special discounts on tailor-made packages. They will also get 30% off the 2017 hourly rates for IP, Trademark, Sports, Media, Food and Business Law.
Services
Lemberg
Lemberg is an IoT, mobile and web development company focused on accelerating startups with feasible technologies. Lemberg is currently running a team of 90+ professionals who can help startups throughout all stages of IoT.
Deal
Lemberg supports the leAD startups with hardware design and prototyping, embedded software development, mobile apps creation, cloud development and integrations with third-party systems and devices.
Hosting & IT
CurrencyTransfer.com
CurrencyTransfer.com is the world’s first global payments marketplace. With over 10,000 registered clients, CurrencyTransfer saves you time and money by ensuring the best rates from the right marketplace supplier for every international payment.
Deal
Startups get preferential rates for transfers on the more than 40 currency pairs and 600+ routes available on the global payments marketplace, access to award-winning risk management tools, and a dedicated relationship manager.
Payment
Sportradar
Sportradar is multinational cooperation that collects and analyzes sports data from all over the world. They are the leading provider in data and content services in many areas —Sports Media, Betting, OTT, to name a few. Their clients range from startups all the way to federations.
Deal
Startups have access to the program ‘Acceleradar’ that offers access to data as well as other services such as access to mentors, non-third party sports data API, Mobile Development Platform, Pre-Match & Live Odds, and Sports Data Widgets for up to a year.
Services
SEOMONITOR
SEOmonitor is an award-winning tool designed to help businesses overcome the industry’s challenges by developing innovative technologies for specialists to make the most out of the available data and deliver insightful and reliable reports
Deal
SEmonitor tool usage for all the startups. The promo code gives the start-ups unlimited users, 1 website & 200 keywords to track. It is available for one year from the moment it is used.
Digital
Milk
MILK is an independent owner-managed fullservice agency. We offer strategic brand management and creative design – supporting all media: online, offline, motion and live communication.
Deal
All leAD startups receive a 20% off the regular MILK fees. On top MILK would love to award one of the leAD finalists with a “Start-Up” design package up to 5.000,- EUR. Add some color to your outstanding product – welcome at the MILK table.
Services
SKW Schwarz
Digital change transforms the world at a rapid pace. SKW Schwarz roots go back to 1949 and they offer legal advice that tackles today what will be the issues of tomorrow.
Deal
SKW Schwarz gives all selected leAD startups a 20%-40% discount off the hourly rate and more depending on overall amount of hours and 30%-40% off the IP application rates (German, EU and IR Trademark).
Legal
betahaus
betahaus is a coworking space for people who want to work on their own projects while exchanging knowledge, ideas and inspiration with others. betahaus is there to open doors and to expand possibilities.
Deal
betahaus is providing startups from the leAD Sports Accelerator a discount on their coworking space.
Facilities
Urban Sports Club
Urban Sports Club is the most flexible and diverse sports offer in your city. You can choose between 50+ types of sports (ranging from classic gym workout, swimming, yoga, or bouldering, to team sports and lots more).
Deal
Urban Sports Club is giving startups from the leAD Sports Accelerator a special discount on their membership.
Facilities
ChillBill
ChillBill, your digital shoebox for your invoices, helps startups which are at the beginning of a long and exciting entrepreneurial journey to never lose track of their finances again.
Deal
ChillBill is giving startups from the leAD Sports Accelerator a special offer on their services during the duration of the program.
Tools & Software
LambdaWorks
LambdaWorks is a software development studio specialized in helping startups with the technical side of their product, supporting founders in the early tech decisions. Core services: concept design, prototyping, mobile, web and custom software development, BI, and product management.
Deal
leAD startups receive free technical consulting, a 20–30% service discount for 6 months and the first 2 weeks are on us if we're not a fit.
Services
Stradigi ai
Stradigi AI is an AI software company that enables organizations to bring business-accelerating AI to fruition, quickly. Kepler alleviates the AI talent gap by empowering users with access to intuitive Automated Data Science Workflows, built to generate results for use cases across the business stack.
Deal
Selected early-stage sports and health tech companies that are part of the program will be able to use Kepler, Stradigi AI’s newly launched self-service version of its Machine Learning platform.
Tools & Software
Our process
The program.
Our program is designed to provide you with lots of knowledge to boost your business while giving you enough time to put these insights into practice. Expect weekly input and coaching sessions in the most relevant topics and weekly recurring activities to help you set and meet milestones, deepen your knowledge, grow your network, and have fun while at it.
