Berytech organized a three-day Startup Validation Sprint on June 20, 24, and 25 in Berytech Mathaf and Mar Roukoz gathering 10 startups with agrifood solutions to develop their concepts and potentially qualify for the Agrytech Accelerator Program. The sprint was a dynamic event designed to support entrepreneurs and startups in the realm of agrifood technology by helping the entrepreneurs address challenges in the sector and validate their solutions through intensive training, coaching, and guidance over a three-day period.
The Agrytech Validation Sprint was organized under the Agrytech Accelerator Program, a 2-phase program co-funded by the Kingdom of The Netherlands in Lebanon to support entrepreneurs with tech innovations in the agrifood sector, offering them the resources, knowledge, networks and funding they need to grow their ventures.
Three Days of Support
Over this three-day period, seven workshops and power sessions were conducted, along with four one-on-one clinic sessions per startup and numerous peer-to-peer learning opportunities. The entrepreneurs immersed themselves in interactive workshops on solution validation, engaged in expert-guided sessions to challenge assumptions, learned target customer identification and market sizing, developed their business models, and honed their pitch delivery skills.
“Startups and entrepreneurs usually come to our workshops and bootcamps with a lot of risky assumptions. The more advanced the startup is, the more assumptions it has. It is always crucial to zoom out and go back to customers to understand what they need and what the startup is doing right or wrong. This bootcamp also helped startups and teams who did not start by identifying and validating the problem they are trying to solve to go back in the process and reflect on it to identify the way forward,” said Soha Nasser, ACT Smart Programs Manager.
Throughout a three-day period, experts and mentors from the Berytech team and community provided tailored support to participants, equipping them with the essential tools and expertise required to build their prototype, test and validate it with customers, and develop their early business model.
The Winning Startups
On the last day of the sprint, the 10 startups pitched their refined concepts to a panel of judges who assessed them based on pitch delivery, idea validation, startup scalability, and other essential criteria. After careful deliberation, the judges panel announced the winners. Startup Ayki came in 1st place, earning six hours of one-on-one mentorship and 750 USD to further develop their prototype and automatically qualified for the Agrytech Accelerator bootcamp. Wheat Free Bread took 2nd place and was awarded six hours of one-on-one mentorship along with a 250 USD FabLab voucher. EzoMed took the 3rd place, receiving six hours of one-on-one mentorship.
“Ayki is a sustainable permaculture initiative that helps farmers manage and find solutions to problems that are faced from the seed-to-seed cycle. I was surprised by this sprint because it mainly focused on validation which is rare to find and for us this was perfect since it’s what we were looking for in the phase of our startup. The sprint took a human centric approach that was very interesting and beneficial in helping us validate our concepts in just a three-day period,” explained Ara Abadjian, founder of Ayki.
About Agrytech
Berytech designed and developed the Agrytech Accelerator Program to make sure Lebanon has the most competitive companies that are sourcing, solving, growing and transforming food, as well as feeding the world from Lebanon. The Agrytech Accelerator Program launched by Berytech and funded by the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Lebanon to enable the Lebanese entrepreneurial ecosystem and stimulate innovation and startup creation in the agriculture, food, and clean technology sectors.
Berytech supports innovations across these sectors by offering startups the resources, knowledge, support, and funding worth around $100K, necessary to scale their ideas and grow them to penetrate international markets.
