Female Founder insights with Gabriela Matic, ATI Boeing Accelerator

Interesting interview with Female Founder Gabriela Matic, and Programme Director ATI Boeing Accelerator

What is your background briefly?

I am currently the Programme Director of the ATI Boeing Accelerator. Before that, I was the Co-Founder and former CMO of health-tech startup Mindmate, an Ignite and Techstars NYC alumni company, that started in Glasgow, raised over $2M from top-tier international investors and is now headquartered in the US.

While at MindMate, I grew the platform from user t0 to 50,000 and sold into the NHS through my expertise in digital marketing, user acquisition, sales and fundraising. I left the company in 2016 to join Ignite and have worked on accelerator and pre-accelerator programmes since.

Over the last three years, I’ve been responsible for designing, recruiting for and running accelerators across the UK, as well as having a core focus on programme pipelines. Since joining Ignite, I have successfully accelerated and supported over 60 startups and have mentored hundreds more.

Female Founder insights with Gabriela Matic, ATI Boeing Accelerator

Does it seem like a logical background to what you do now?

One hundred per cent! My own startup experience and working with hundreds of founders in different industries over the last three years’ worth of accelerator programmes has given me the insights and experience to support and mentor founders, connect them to the right people and provide them with the content they need to succeed.

1 min pitch for what you are doing now?

The ATI Boeing Accelerator is a 3-month-long programme based at Public Hall in London. Working with Boeing and GKN Aerospace as gold sponsor, we are supporting the innovation and the growth of startups in the UK’s aerospace ecosystem by giving them direct access to and facilitating commercial relationships with our sponsors and partners. The companies also receive a £100K investment from Boeing HorizonX Ventures, office space and programme perks.

Why did you get involved with this initiative?

I have always been passionate about solving big problems. There is a huge potential for new technologies and business models – both within the aerospace sector and in the sectors adjacent to it – to improve productivity, processes and tackle sustainability challenges.

What type of projects are you looking for?

We’re looking for Seed to Series A stage startups creating industry 4.0 and sustainability enabling technologies with the potential to bolster the growth and competitiveness of the UK aerospace industry. We’re especially interested in innovative operations, manufacturing, logistics/ supply chain startups and workforce training and safety.

What is your sustainability strategy around these projects / and your accelerator overall?

One of the core programme themes we’re working on is sustainability. We would love to see the startups that join the accelerator reduce the impact that both their operations and their customers have on the environment. As the programme team, we’re also very lean and conscious of acting in a sustainable way in our day-to-day operations.

How can people find out more about you & your work?

You can read more about the programme and what it offers on our website – www.atiboeingaccelerator.com. We also have office hours (book in here) open for any founder who wants to speak to us directly.

Anything else you’d like to add / we should have asked?

The applications close on the 15th of November and the successful teams will be invited to pitch in front of our sponsors on the 21st of November. The first programme (there will be two in 2020) starts on 14th January 2020. We review applications on a rolling basis so it makes sense to apply early!

About Gabi

Gabi is the co-founder and former CMO of Ignite [Prog. 7, Winter 2015 cohort] and Techstars NYC [Summer 2016] alumni company, Mindmate, a health-tech startup that started in Glasgow, raised over $2M from top-tier international investors and is now headquartered in the US. While at MindMate, she grew the platform from user 0 to 50K and sold into the NHS, through her expertise in digital marketing, user acquisition, sales and fundraising. She left the company in 2016 to join Ignite and has since then ran accelerator, pre-accelerator and remote programmes.

Gabi is responsible for designing, recruiting for and running accelerator programmes across the UK mainland, as well as a core focus on programme pipelines. Since joining Ignite, she and the team successfully accelerated and supported over 60 startups and has mentored hundreds more. This was achieved through the successful delivery of 12-14 week & 6-month accelerator programmes and designed and tailored around the companies selected to participate.

Gabi is an active member of a number of Female Founder groups, the founder of the Female Startup Founders Meetup in London and is a regular speaker and panellist on the subject.

See more interviews here.

More information about Irish Tech News and the Business Showcase

FYI the ROI for you is => Irish Tech News now gets over 1.5 million monthly views, and up to 900k monthly unique visitors, from over 160 countries. We have over 860,000 relevant followers on Twitter on our various accounts & were recently described as Ireland’s leading online tech news site and Ireland’s answer to TechCrunch, so we can offer you a good audience!

Since introducing desktop notifications a short time ago, which notify readers directly in their browser of new articles being published, over 16000 people have now signed up to receive them ensuring they are instantly kept up to date on all our latest content. Desktop notifications offer a unique method of serving content directly to verified readers and bypass the issue of content getting lost in people’s crowded news feeds.

Drop us a line if you want to be featured, guest post, suggest a possible interview, or just let us know what you would like to see more of in our future articles. We’re always open to new and interesting suggestions for informative and different articles. Contact us, by email, twitter or whatever social media works for you and hopefully we can share your story too and reach our global audience.

Irish Tech News

If you would like to have your company featured in the Irish Tech News Business Showcase, get in contact with us at Simon@IrishTechNews.ie or on Twitter: @SimonCocking