Catalysr

200,000 people migrate to Australia annually; 60% of them are either un/under-employed according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Hence over 600,000 people, only in the last 5 years did not realise their potential. With Covid-19, this problem has only gotten worse. 

Catalysr has been solving this problem by empowering migrants and refugees to start their own business to employ themselves and create high-quality jobs.

It is an award-winning startup pre-accelerator with a mission to create 10,000 jobs in the next 10 years. Since its inception in 2016, we have supported 345 migrapreneurs to launch 135 businesses, created hundreds of jobs and added millions of dollars to the Australian economy.

Catalysr's work was recognised as global best practice in the joint UNCTAD, UNHCR and IOM policy guide on entrepreneurship for migrants and refugees, and if scaled globally can solve the problem of millions of refugees and migrants around the globe

Every year 200,000 people migrate to Australia with 60% of them are either un/under-employed according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Hence over 600,000 people, only in the last 5 years did not realise their potential. With Covid-19, this problem has only gotten worse. 

There are various systemic reasons which contribute to this problem for migrants such as: qualifications and skills not recognised, lack of local work experience, lack of professional networks, cultural and language barriers. 

Globally, there are over 250 million migrants and 25 million refugees. Even at the current levels of migration, wealthy countries are unable to support migrants and refugees and have a hard time integrating them socially and economically in their new countries, and therefore many people fall through the cracks leading to myriad second order and third order issues. 

A recent study by Cornell university (2017) projected that climate change will lead to mass migration of 2 Billion people by 2100. As a society, we are not prepared to deal with this global challenge, and this does not account the current global economic depression we have just entered due to Covid-19.

Our solution is to empower migrants and refugees through entrepreneurship. 

Migrant and Refugee entrepreneurs are highly enterprising. Although migrants make up only 28% of the Australian population, Startup Muster's 2018 report found that 36% of Australian startups founders were born overseas. 

We have captured this opportunity through Catalysr which is an award-winning startup pre-accelerator with a mission to create 10,000 jobs in the next 10 years. 

Our 6-months pre-accelerator program is designed by migrapreneurs for migrapreneurs and runs over 2 stages. 

Stage 1 - IDEATE is open to all migrapreneurs and is delivered using online tools such as Teachable, slack, and zoom. It consists of: 12 weekly masterclasses on startup essentials, and experiential learning with other migrapreneus and mentors

Stage 2 - ACCELERATE supports top 20% of migrapreneurs and provides them another 3 months of intensive support through 1:1 mentoring with our Entrepreneurs-in-Residence to develop their MVP, launch their product into the market, and connect with investors and other industry mentors to help them succeed.

After numerous awards and seeing overwhelming success of our programs in Australia, Catalysr is working to scale our programs globally, with a goal to support 4000 migrapreneurs over 10 cities by 2025. 

Catalysr is supporting first generation migrants and refugees who are interested in launching their own startup. They are mostly educated yet either unemployed or underemployed in Australia. 

We understand this segment really well, as our co-founder and CEO - Usman Iftikhar, is also a part of this segment. When he migrated to Australia in 2013, as a skilled engineer, who also got a master in Engineering Management in Australia he was unable to find meaningful employment which led him to set up Catalysr to solve this problem for himself and other migrants and refugees. 

From day 1, Catalysr has co-designed our solutions with migrapreneurs, or as we like to call it - we are migrapreneurs supporting other migrapreneurs. 

Currently, our alumni community consists of 345 migrapreneurs, and we continue to support them and engage with them on a regular basis to learn how we can continue to iterate our product and add the most amount of value throughout the life-cycle of their startup from ideation to scale.

Through our work, 110 businesses have been launched. They are not only providing jobs for these migrapreneurs, but are also helping them support their families and utilise their skills in a meaningful way.  

Catalysr enables small and new businesses for migrant and refugee communities, to help them create high-quality jobs and get access to business networks, understand and implement technology and get access to capital through our pre-accelerator program. 

Therefore, we are strongly aligned with this challenge of providing inclusive entreprenurship opportunities. 

Catalysr is bringing together the two separate worlds of migration & settlement, and startups & entrepreneurship. We were one of the earliest programs in the world to offer pre-accelerator programs for Migrant and Refugee entrepreneurs. Now this movement has taken off globally, and Catalysr has been at the forefront of supporting other organisations to launch similar programs in other countries. 

Our work has received numerous awards, has been recognised by the UN as global best practice and our co-founder and CEO - Usman Iftikhar was named 2018 Commonwealth Young Person of the Year amongst 1.4 Billion young people living in 53 Commonwealth nations due to this ground-breaking work. 

We utilise various software and cloud based tools for our work. Our focus has been to use the best technology available to deliver on our value proposition. 

The software tools we have used thus far include: Teachable, Zoom, Trello, Slack, Google Drive, Whatsapp and Confluence. 

We are also planning on developing our own online platform as we scale and grow our social enterprise.

We are using off-the-shelf consumer technology, to help us fulfil our business purpose. As the tools we are currently utilising used by billions of people, they are pretty robust and reliable.

We have tested and refined our theory of change over the last few years and here's how it currently works in the context of these programs. 

• Inputs: High-performing migrapreneurs, Catalysr team, Entrepreneurs in Residence, Industry and startup mentors, pro-bono services such as accounting, legal and office-space. 

• Activities: Catalysr’s award-winning 6-month pre-accelerator program (more details in the previous questions). 

• Outputs: 100 Migrapreneurs supported through each IDEATE programs, and 20 startups grown through each ACCELERATE program. 

• Expected Short-term Outcomes: 

• 1) 200+ jobs created (on average 2 jobs per startup) for each program

• 2) 20+ startups on growth trajectory i.e. raising further funding and/or accepted into follow-on accelerator programs. 

• 3) Strong community of inspired, empowered and connected migrapreneurs 

• Long-term impact: 

• New innovations and business growth leading to wealth and large-scale job creation. 

• Improved social and economic inclusion for migrant and refugee communities in Australia and around the globe. 

• Creation of role-models to inspire other migrants and refugees to give entrepreneurship a go and strengthen the culture of migrapreneurship to create a positive feedback loop and further grow the Australian and eventually global economy.

Our work has been published in the CFE Refugee Entrepreneurship Report here https://centreforentrepreneurs.org/cfe-research/starting-afresh-how-entrepreneurship-is-transforming-the-lives-of-resettled-refugees/

and UNCTAD here: https://unctad.org/en/PublicationsLibrary/diae2018d2_en.pdf

Currently we support 200 migrapreneurs annually in Australia, but are planning to grow it to support 4000 migrapreneurs by 2025 (next 5 years) in 10 cities around the globe. 

These migrapreneurs will then have a massive influence of their communities and society at large. 

Our goal is to support 4000 migrapreneurs by 2025 (next 5 years) in 10 cities around the globe. 

Funding. We are currently looking for funding to help us scale our impact globally. 

We are working with various corporates, foundations and high-net-worth individuals to fundraise for global expansion. 

Full time staff - 2

Part time staff - 2 

Contractors (EIRs) - 5

• Usman Iftikhar - Co-Founder and CEO at Catalysr - Migrapreneur himself, co-founded and running Catalysr since 2016, has coached 1000s of early stage founders.
• Marlowe Mackenzie, Catalysr Head of Operations - Migrant herself, Helped Hey You (sydney based startup) scale. Joined Hey You as an early stage employee and helped them scale over 5 years. 
• Nehal Chhatrapati -Catalysr Marketing Manager - Worked for various companies to support their marketing campaigns, SMEs to corporates.
• Jacob Muller Catalysr co-founder and mentor - Co-founded Catalysr and has since launched and been a part of multiple startups in foodtech and edtech, also was previously EIR at Remarkable Accelerator.
• Alan Jones - Director at Catalysr and partner at M8 Ventures - Alan is on the board of Catalysr, he's a veteran of the tech startup ecosystem, has done multiple gigs and has been EIR in many well-known programs.Now he's an angel investor.
• Jeanette Cheah -  Catalysr EIR - Jeanette is an ecosystem builder and has supported many startups across Australia and USA
• Pratibha Rai - Catalysr EIR - Rai is a product expert and has mentored hundreds of startups over the last decade. 
• Winitha Bonney - Catalysr EIR - Winitha is a serial migrapreneur who has founded many companies and also coached many founders, with a passion for supporting women of colour.
• Roberto Daniele - Catalysr EIR - Is a migrapreneur and has run similar startup programs in UK and Iran.
• Anthony Cabraal - Catalysr EIR - Anthony is a serial entrepreneur from New Zealand.

We partner with a lot of different organisations for financial support, for getting access to pipeline of migrants and refugees and also follow-on Accelerator programs and VCs. 

Our key corporate partner is Insurance Australia Group (IAG), Vasudhara Foundation, Seventh Street VC, and VIctorian Government's startup body LaunchVic. 

Our co-working partners include State Library of Victoria, Haymarket HQ in Sydney and Grounded Space in Parramatta. 

Our pro-bono services partners include: Legal - Aperion Law, Accounting - William Buck and The Startup Shop, Marketing - HubSpot and MoWorks, Cloud-services - AWS Startups. 

More details of our partners can be found on the Catalysr website: www.catalysr.com.au