First true european startup accelerator?<p>Come on, this is HN. Cut the bullshit marketing crap and tell us what's cool about this, what's different, etc. Don't post a standard marketroid press release...
I have nothing but respect for Alex's work. However, as a coach at the Aalto Venture Garage and the upcoming Springboard in the UK, I think calling it the first true accelerator is <i>borderline</i> insulting.<p>Need I remind you that The Difference Engine had foreign teams? Geogoer is Lithuanian.<p>The startup programs at the Aalto Venture Garage have had teams from Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Russia.<p>I'm not too familiar with HackFWD but I believe they're been international as well.<p>I think StartupBootcamp is awesome. And there's great ambition there. But I think calling each others programs better or worse (or truly european or whatever) is counter productive.
Except for the ones mentioned in other comments there's also Le Camp in France.<p>That makes it:<p>- Le Camp (France)<p>- The Difference Engine (UK)<p>- Seedcamp (London, Europe)<p>- Aalto Garage (Finland)<p>- HackFwd (UK)<p>- Springboard (Cambridge, UK)<p>Great to see all these initiatives. Europe certainly needs some startup mojo. Looking forward to see some successful companies emerge from these accelerators.
The text is rather vague but the sentiment is the most interesting part. They hint at something similar to YCombinator which if they can pull it off could change the way a lot of people think about startups and perhaps open up new opportunities for developers around Europe to take the plunge.
I believe non-english speaking countries are hard for startups. I would personally not choose a country other than UK or U.S. How do I handle company accounts in Spanish? How do I deal with government? In UK government is easy to deal with, you can file everything online.