Snapchat’s parent company has announced that it’s opening its Snap Accelerate program to startups across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.
The news comes almost three months after the Californian company debuted the program for startups in the U.S.
The core raison d’être of Snap Accelerate is to help initiate startups into the world of Snapchat advertising by offering a range of perks, including media coupons, branded filters, creative services credits, business and technical support, and early access to Snap ad products. Snap claims that the services it’s making available ranges from $ 20,000 to $ 100,000, depending on what “partner tier” a startup is accepted onto.
Above: Snap Accelerate: Partner tier
Successful applicants must already have venture capital funding, and should be growth-stage with a focus on mobile platforms.
Snap continues to hemorrhage money, recently reporting a Q3 net loss of $ 443 million while also falling short of revenue expectations. The company blamed part of its revenue miss on its shift away from direct ad sales to a new bidding system.
The long and short of all this is that Snap needs more advertisers on Snapchat, and that is what Snap Accelerate is designed to achieve. Around one-third of Snap’s 178 million daily users are located in Europe, so this market in particular could prove key to Snap growing its ad revenue.
The 2018 Accelerate program is open globally now, with the program’s benefits set to start on January 1, 2018.
