Virtue X Techstars experience

Earlier this year we got the epic news - Virtue, formerly Pledger, was invited to take part in the prestigious Techstars Tel Aviv program! Were we over the moon? 100% yes. Was there an epic journey ahead? Also yes.

Let's start from the start. We've known about Techstars for as long as we've been working in tech. They are super famous because a) Techstars, being a pioneer in their field, is one of the longest running and well-known accelerators on earth b) Techstars has had some huge successes, being early stage backers for startups such as SendGrid, Classpass, Digital Ocean, to mention a few and c) they have massive reach and network.

The quality of the program and Techstars success stats make it one of the top, shoulder to shoulder with Y Combinator and 5oo Startups.

But this ^ is all stuff from the internet. Let me share what the TS experience meant for us in our unique position.

To adventure or not to adventure?

The first time we engaged in conversations with the accelerator, Mariya', New Zealand based Virtue CEO, had just had a baby. Relocating to Tel Aviv with the little human was not on the radar until then. Westen, Virtue CMO, has just spent 8 months on the road. He and his wife were super excited to finally set roots in his newly rented London apartment. Liam, the CTO, had so much on his plate at the time that this page will crash if we were to list it all here. Despite all of this - we went for it! The opportunity was too good and we were ready for an adventure to mark the end of Covid rules and the start of our journey as a seed funded startup.

Tel Aviv