Veleza, a mobile community of beauty lovers, joined London's Founders Factory six-month long beauty tech acceleration programme with L'Oreal in August 2016. Founders Factory is inviting more Lithuanian startups to join its programme, and so we had a quick word with Martynas Nikolajevas from Veleza about his experience at the accelerator.

How and when did you discover Founders Factory? What drew your attention to this programme?

Martynas: I've received two, almost simultaneous, introductions to Founders Factory from mutual contacts in late spring. It seems the introductions happened after Founders Factory announced its focus on beauty tech and partnership with L'Oreal. We've started conversations in May. After series of interviews and a few signatures on the dotted line, Veleza joined Founders Factory beauty tech acceleration programme in August 2016.

What are the benefits of Founders Factory you have already experienced?

Martynas: The team behind Founders Factory is already helping us with business strategy and access to beauty industry insiders. As part of the accelerator programme, we receive six months of support from the Founders Factory’s 40+ team of technology experts and access to its partners including L’Oreal. We get a very hands-on support in the areas we need most now – like growth engineering, marketing, public relations, networking, intros to potential next-round investors, etc.

What do you expect from this programme?

Martynas: Joining the Founders Factory acceleration program made perfect sense for us because of their focus on beauty tech and partnership with a global cosmetics giant. When you add a great team of professionals behind Founders Factory to the mix – magic will happen. We do expect to save time by fast-tracking certain aspects of our product and business development. This is how we understand acceleration. By the way, some people say time is money.

What were the conditions of your participation?

Martynas: The conditions are straightforward – everyone does their very best to achieve the objectives we've set out at the beginning of the program. The financial terms are quite standard of what you'll expect from an accelerator in 2016.

Where currently is Veleza in business terms? What is on your radar now?

Martynas: We’ve created an app-based community of beauty lovers who help people discover cosmetic products matching their personal needs. Community members can find makeup inspiration, beauty advice and the best product offers around. The product is already in the market and community growing at a healthy pace of ca. 20% monthly. We've just started working on a product for beauty businesses – we're aiming for a functional MVP, revenue generation and raising new funds to fuel our growth.

Thank you, Martynas!

Founders Factory is now calling for new EdTech, Media, Beauty and FinTech startups to take part in its programme! They invest seed capital for an equity stake, offer desk space in their West London office and provide intense support over the six month period from their in-house team of 40+ tech experts to help the company grow rapidly.

Founders Factory claims this is unlike other accelerators that offer ‘mentors’ who founders will see irregularly – here they are available at all times to assist the startups. In addition, they get deep access to Founders Factory’s sector partners whilst remaining completely independent e.g. consumer insights and market access from L’Oreal. On top of this, the accelerator also provides an exclusive programme of events and speakers.