Aussie startup industry loses another accelerator program

The Australian startup industry has lost another accelerator initiative, with PushStart choosing to shut its program down to focus more on the grassroots level.

In an announcement on PushStart's blog, co-founder Kim Heras said that PushStart's reason for existing started as a gap filler, creating the educational events, networking, and mentoring opportunities that the industry is founded on.

However, having promised the community a commercial accelerator program, it created PushStart Accelerator. Heras said that the industry has matured to the point where this gap has now been filled, and it is time to go back to its broader community activities.

"It's clear now that it's difficult to be fully committed to both building the community and to commercial activities at the same time. When trying to do it through the same organization, it becomes significantly more difficult," he wrote.

The close of the accelerator program is not, however, an indication of any lack of success.

"Six of the eight [PushStart Accelerator 2012] teams continue to operate successfully and, without wanting to steal anybody's thunder, there should be various announcements in the not-too-distant future which will demonstrate how well they've done as individual startups and as a group," he wrote.

PushStart's structure will also change, with co-founder Roger Kermode taking up the lead role in the organisation as it moves to focus on more non-commercial activities.

Heras himself, however, will be be focusing on a commercial startup initiative, which, while expected to have close ties with PushStart, will be a separate organisation.

Heras has yet to announce what the new organisation will be, or what it will offer, but has said that it should provide more opportunities and options that PushStart was able to offer previously, while still keeping potential investors happy as well.