Google has opened applications for its Black Founders and Women Founders startup accelerator programs.
The deadline to apply for the Women Founders program is on July 25, while the Black Founders program is taking applications until August 2.
Canadians were the minority in the 2022 cohorts for both programs.
According to Google, it will select twelve startups from across North America for each program, which are both three-month, virtual bootcamps. Participants will receive mentorship and technical project support, as well as attend workshops focused on product design, customer acquisition, and leadership development.
The American tech giant launched both the Women Founders and Black Founders programs in 2020. Though the program for women has been available to both Canada and the United States (US) since its inception, the accelerator for Black entrepreneurs was first made available in the US, then extended to Canadians a year later.
In the previous cohort for women founders, three Canadians were selected to participate among a group of 12. They were Blossom Social Emaww, and MedEssist. The program for Black founders saw the same amount of Canadians last year, comprising Node, Beam.city DNA, and HumanSquad.
Though Canadians were the minority in the 2022 cohorts for both programs, compared to their counterparts in the US, it is an improvement from past representation. For example, the 2021 installation of the Black Founders cohort only had one Canadian company, which was Toronto-based Mommy Monitor.
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Google launched its first Canadian accelerator in Kitchener-Waterloo in February 2020. It has opened several other programs to Canadian companies since then, such as those focused on Climate Change and building on cloud computing services.
For past accelerators, Google typically launches the pilot in the US then extends it to Canadians. In April, however, Google did the reverse.
Google launched its accelerator program for cloud-native startups in Canada in 2021. After another year of offering the program exclusively to Canadian companies, Google expanded it to the United States this year, citing “strong demand” for accelerators focused on cloud services.
Featured image courtesy Google for Startups.
