Startup Incubators and Accelerators Editing and Proofreading Services

A founder gives away six per cent of their company in exchange for twelve weeks, a small cheque and a promise of access. Whether that was a good trade is unknowable at the time and obvious in retrospect, and the document that should have made it assessable in advance is usually a page of photographs of alumni. Programmes that write plainly about what the equity buys attract better founders, and better founders are the entire business model.

We edit what incubators, accelerators and startup programmes produce — programme terms and equity documentation in plain language, application guidance and selection criteria, founder-facing programme descriptions and curricula, mentor briefs and mentor agreements, demo day and investor showcase material, cohort communications and alumni resources, investment documentation summaries and term explanations, fund and sponsor reporting, ecosystem and impact reports, corporate partnership propositions, workspace and membership terms, and grant and public funding applications for programme funding. Our editors work on the document a founder should read twice before applying.

What the equity buys is the paragraph that separates a serious programme from a landlord with a mentor list, and it is written honestly by almost nobody. Founders are given access, network, mentorship and visibility — four words that describe nothing and can be claimed by anyone. We write these so the offer is stated in countable terms: how much cash, on what instrument, at what valuation or discount, and when it lands; how many hours of scheduled contact with whom, distinguishing programme staff from mentors who are volunteers; how many investor introductions the last cohort actually received, as a range and a median rather than a total; what the programme has never done, because a founder discovering in week nine that there is no help with hiring has lost the quarter. We also write the terms plainly — what the equity converts into, what happens if the company raises nothing, whether there are pro rata or information rights afterwards, and what a founder is required to do during the programme, including physical presence, since a founder relocating a team on the strength of an implication is the most avoidable failure in this sector. Programmes that publish this get fewer applications and much better ones.

Everything you send is treated in confidence, including programme terms, cohort information and founder material. We are editors rather than investment, legal or startup advisers, and we offer no view on terms, valuation or programme design. What we can do is state the offer in terms a founder can compare with another one.