Join the program
leAD Lake Nona
We set out to shape the future of living by accelerating startups through a six-month-long program! Are you joining the revolution?
About
Lake Nona.
What began as a desire for a smarter, more sustainable everyday living quickly became one of the best-selling, master designed communities in America and an epicenter of innovation. Imagined as a smart city designed to accelerate innovation and well-being, today the Lake Nona community is a catalyst for economic growth and opportunity.
With a life sciences cluster heralded as “the new global destination for medical innovation,” a booming sports and performance district, high-tech innovation centers, and a growing commercial district, Lake Nona has become a destination for industry leaders looking to be a part of this collaborative performance ecosystem. Creating these “centers of excellence” derives from the Tavistock approach, where design thinking balances innovation, functionality, and aesthetics with a strong financial return.
Our deal
What we offer.
From week 1 on, we make crucial introductions to potential partners, customers, and investors that can truly propel your growth. Our program is designed to provide startups with lots of knowledge to boost their business while giving them enough time to put these insights into practice.
A six-month training program
Learn from experts in areas such as growth marketing, sales, and pitching. Stress testing your business plan and full setup of business documents and legal framework. Get access to a digital learning platform with tutorials, cases, and tools.
Access to the Lake Nona's world-class ecosystem
Through the Lake Nona Living Lab, you get access to more than 5,000 connected homes. Work with leading athletes, coaches and experts in the headquarter of the USTA, the biggest tennis site in the world, the adidas performance center, or two of the best-rated golf clubs globally.
Embedded in a high-class industry and expert network
Get mentorship from sports business veterans, successful founders, CEOs, and VCs from Florida, all over the U.S. as well as the global leAD ecosystem. They'll share their experience, skills, and network.
Access to top tier partners
Through our program, you will have access to our program partners as well as our corporate partners. Get visibility in front of world-class brands such as adidas, Citi Private Bank, Verizon, Inseego, to name a few.
Free services from our local network
Get support from backend and frontend developers to take your product to the next level. Make your business rock solid with the help of our legal and accounting experts.
$75.000 USD
We also provide a cash investment of $75.000 USD for every startup that will be selected to participate in the program.
Dedicated 1500m2 accelerator space
A beautiful and exclusive space for you to focus on what really matters: developing your product and growing as an entrepreneur.
Free housing, sports, and bikes
Yes, free housing for the founders’ team in the brand new Lake Nona apartments next to the accelerator space during the entire time of the program. This includes access to a gym, sports facilities, and bicycles for every participant.
leAD receives 8% equity
Of the final selected startups.
"The whole experience has been outstanding. Coming from a sports background, this has been like another locker room for us. The collaboration and camaraderie we’ve built with the other teams has been amazing. The network, resources, experts, and training have been top notch and have helped us transform in a short amount of time and find clarity in who we are and what we’re doing." - Dr. Tommy Shavers, Founder & CEO at NESTRE
"This program provides you, specifically in Lake Nona, the opportunity to be part of an ecosystem that is just booming and is eager for startups to be here. It provides more support than anywhere in the US that I have ever seen. It’s totally worth the shot to go for it. How much our growth has been impacted, how much we’ve accelerated, how much we’ve learned as individuals but also as a company has been exponential. Highly recommend it to any founder, specifically any first-time founder, that is building a company and wants to take it to the next level." - Justin Hafner, Co-Founder & CEO
"Working with leAD has rapidly accelerated our growth. Aside from the biological age metric, our science team has been hard at work and we are pleased to announce that we will be first to market with the most comprehensive and affordable test for metrics of aging. In addition, we have received over 5,000 beta sign-ups for when we launch direct-to-consumer next month. Lastly, we are in early talks with key channel partners including health providers, insurance providers, and intervention providers who are eager to partner with us and unlock new value with their current offerings." - Cole Kirschner, Co-Founder & CEO
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Download our white paper
5G in Sports and Health Tech
Stay ahead of the curve. Download the white paper to find out about 5G trends in sports and health tech and have a first look at startups pioneering this industry.
Our focus points
What we look for.
All the startups on the program will have a focus on technology, the sweet spot around which the leAD network is centered. Within that, we are focusing our worldwide search for startups on three focus points: sports and health tech, smart cities, and the future of nutrition.
Sports tech solutions are increasingly merging with health tech, with golden opportunities arising at the intersection between the two to help people live healthier and longer lives. For the second area, smart cities, Lake Nona’s unmatched broadband capacity provides the perfect environment for startups who leverage big data to solve everyday issues, particularly those which make us more active, mobile, and healthy. Last but certainly not least, the future of nutrition is a key component of the future of living. Innovative solutions are now bringing professional standard nutrition research & technology to the mass market.
Important dates
Timeline.
Applications
ON GOING
-
15 Mar
20 Apr
Kick-off Virtual Program
Kick-Off Onsite Program
16 May
15 Sep
Demo Day
End of Program
30 Sep
01 Oct
Transition into leAD Portfolio
Important dates
Timeline.
Applications
ON GOING
-
15 Mar
Kick-off Virtual Program
20 Apr
Kick-Off Onsite Program
16 May
Demo Day
15 Sep
End of Program
30 Sep
Transition into leAD Portfolio
01 Oct
Our lineup
Mentors.
We leverage our network to source relevant mentor relations for each startup. By truly understanding our startups’ needs, strengths & weaknesses, we can connect them with accomplished entrepreneurs, corporates and investors.
Network
Partner deals.
Our startups benefit from exclusive product and service deals by our partners and access to our vast network of pivotal brands, corporates, associations in the worlds of sports, health, nutrition, and technology.
Butter
Butter is an award-winning brand design studio specializing in the unexpected. We partner with game-changers in sports and beyond, from startups to global brands, to shape how they're perceived.
Deal
Butter is giving all companies backed by leAD discounted startup rates for their services.
Design
10XBeta
10XBeta is an award-winning product development and venture studio. Employing an agile hardware approach, leveraging 20 years of innovation and manufacturing networks, 10Xbeta is perfectly suited to support the development of new innovative healthcare products.
Deal
leAD companies have access to exclusive project packages and special rates.
Services
Enterprise Legal Studio
Enterprise Legal Studio is a boutique law practice focused on serving entrepreneurs, startups and investors, with emphasis on technology companies. The firm has particular expertise in founder relationships, venture capital financings, and acquisitions.
Deal
ELS offers leAD startups one free office hour, which could include discussions about the company’s legal setup as well as planning for future transactions such as financings, issuing stock options, or developing customer agreements.
Legal
Lake Nona Performance Club
Lake Nona Performance Club is a state-of-the-art community, fitness, sports and wellbeing center dedicated to advancing the pursuit of integrative health and bettering the community by bettering the individual.
Deal
The Lake Nona Performance Club has kindly sponsored free memberships for all founding teams.
Wellness
The PHA Group
One of the UK’s top independent PR & social media agencies, with a reputation for creating campaigns that deliver real impact. PHA work with clients from all over the world, and of all shapes and sizes, from household brands and international corporations, to ambitious startups.
Deal
The PHA Group provides all leAD Sport partners with two complementary comprehensive PR consultations.
PR and Social Media
HubSpot
HubSpot is a software platform that helps you generate leads, close details, and manage your pipeline. HubSpot offers a growth stack of products for customer relationship management, marketing, and sales.
Deal
HubSpot’s CRM aligns sales and marketing with ease, HubSpot Marketing helps you grow your traffic and convert more visitors into customers, and HubSpot Sales helps you skyrocket your productivity and close more deals with less work.
Tools & software
Thumbraise
Thumbraise is passionate about connecting entrepreneurs and investors. Using advanced analytics and highly engaging pitch content, they dramatically improve the status quo of meeting investors or finding investments.
Deal
They've already had over $150 million of investments flow through the platform. Whether it's through custom events, private networks, or managed dealflow, the best place to find to connect to a new investor is on Thumbraise.
Tools & Software
LambdaWorks
LambdaWorks is a software development studio specialized in helping startups with the technical side of their product, supporting founders in the early tech decisions. Core services: concept design, prototyping, mobile, web and custom software development, BI, and product management.
Deal
leAD startups receive free technical consulting, a 20–30% service discount for 6 months and the first 2 weeks are on us if we're not a fit.
IT & Hosting
Lyon Visuals
Lyon Visuals is a full-service visualization studio. Their team works closely with the world’s leading brands, agencies, and businesses; providing them with 3D modeling/rendering, photography and production CAD files.
Deal
Lyon Visuals is giving all leAD startups up to 15% off their modeling and CAD needs.
Design
Think-it
Think-it is an engineering collective that helps innovative teams do more with less. We develop and deploy software engineers, helping partners rethink how to build high-performing engineering teams. We specialize in data science and machine learning, cloud development and full-stack development.
Deal
Hire an engineer or data scientist from Think-it, save 10% per month for 3 months. Or hire 2 or more to save 15% for 6 months. Schedule a 1:1 consultation to discuss remote work best practices, scope engineering requirements, and more at no cost.
Services
Amazon Web Services
Amazon Web Services offers startups backed by leAD Sports & Health Tech Partners a plethora of benefits, including training, credits, business support, and a whole team devoted to helping startups scale their company.
Deal
Amazon Web Services offers discounted rates for their services to all selected leAD startups.
Hosting & IT
WB Engineering
WB Engineering is a product design company dedicated to assisting clients in consolidating ideas into fine, quality products. WB Engineering specializes in optimizing products for better functionality, manufacturability, and profitability, looking at the idea as a holistic, viable product.
Deal
Clients backed and partnered with leAD have access to exclusive project packages which help startups reduce costs with a special leAD rate.
Services
Sportsradar
Sportradar is multinational cooperation that collects and analyzes sports data from all over the world. They are the leading provider in data and content services in many areas —Sports Media, Betting, OTT, to name a few. Their clients range from startups all the way to federations.
Deal
Startups have access to the program ‘Acceleradar’ that offers access to data as well as other services such as access to mentors, non-third party sports data API, Mobile Development Platform, Pre-Match & Live Odds, and Sports Data Widgets for up to a year.
Data
SEO Monitor
SEOmonitor is an award-winning tool designed to help businesses overcome the industry’s challenges by developing innovative technologies for specialists to make the most out of the available data and deliver insightful and reliable reports
Deal
SEOmonitor tool usage for all the startups. The promo code gives the startups unlimited users, 1 website & 200 keywords to track. It is available for one year from the moment it is used.
Digital
Marlin Motion
Marlin Motion helps product managers and marketers add video and animation to their products and services. With a background in technology, the Marlin Motion team specializes in explainer videos, app previews, tutorials, and video ads for apps and software products.
Deal
Marlin Motion is giving all Academy participants discounted startup rates for all their services.
Design
CurrencyTransfer.com
CurrencyTransfer.com is the world’s first global payments marketplace. With over 10,000 registered clients, CurrencyTransfer saves you time and money by ensuring the best rates from the right marketplace supplier for every international payment.
Deal
Startups get preferential rates for transfers on the more than 40 currency pairs and 600+ routes available on the global payments marketplace, access to award-winning risk management tools, and a dedicated relationship manager.
Payment
ChillBill
ChillBill, your digital shoebox for your invoices, helps startups which are at the beginning of a long and exciting entrepreneurial journey to never lose track of their finances again.
Deal
ChillBill is giving startups from the leAD Sports Accelerator a special offer on their services during the duration of the program.
Tools & software
Cryptr
Cryptr enables any organization to use an highly secure authentication technology without passwords for their customers.
Deal
Startups get a free audit of their authentication and user onboarding process. The offer runs for 15 months; first 3 months for free & the next 12 months at 50%. If startup recommends Cryptr, startups get an additional 1 month free up to 6 months.
Services
Zendesk
Zendesk is a service-first CRM company with support, sales, and customer engagement products designed to improve customer relationships.
Deal
Startups get 6 months of free access to Zendesk Support Suite and Sales CRM, Zendesk Explore and Zendesk Sunshine. Offer available for startups that are new customers with fewer than 100 employees and funding no greater than Series B. Apply here.
Tools & Software
OUR PROCESS
The program.
Our Sports & Health Tech program in Lake Nona will enable a group of carefully selected startups to take advantage of Lake Nona’s Verizon 5G broadband capacity, enabling testing of innovative technologies and solutions, and helping talented individuals bring their businesses to the market. We provide ongoing advice, pitch training, workshops, 1-on-1 sessions to ensure that our startups are investor-ready by the end of the program.
