How Connect Sverige moved beyond intuition to structured startup assessment, improving founder coaching, programme visibility, and investment outcomes.
Connect Sverige has supported more than 6,000 startups across Sweden. To improve consistency and scale founder support, the organisation introduced a structured startup assessment model with Pitchago, replacing intuition alone with measurable insights. Here’s what changed and what the results reveal.
When you support thousands of startups over more than two decades, you accumulate a lot of knowledge about what separates the ones that raise from the ones that don’t. Connect Sverige Väst has been doing exactly that since 1999, supporting more than 6,000 companies across Sweden and connecting them with capital, mentors, and investor networks.
For most of that time, evaluation looked the way it does in many accelerator programmes: experienced mentors reviewed applicants, relied on pattern recognition, and made judgement calls. It worked. Connect Sverige built a strong reputation and a track record most programmes would envy. But at scale, intuition has limits. And Connect Sverige Väst decided it was time to add something more rigorous.
Running a high-volume accelerator programme means evaluating a lot of companies. Not dozens. Hundreds. And when you’re assessing hundreds of founding teams, inconsistencies start to surface.
Two reviewers assess the same company and reach different conclusions. A team that pitches brilliantly looks weaker once you examine the numbers. A founder who seems rough in the room turns out to have exceptional execution instincts. A co-founder dynamic nobody flagged during interviews becomes a serious issue three months into the programme. These aren’t failures of individual judgement. They’re structural limitations of a process that relies on subjective evaluation without a shared framework.
The question Connect Sverige asked was simple: What would it look like to bring structure to the process without losing the human expertise at its core?
Working with Pitchago, Connect Sverige implemented a standardised evaluation process across its Springboard® programme.
The approach was founder-first. Rather than adding more interviews or increasing reviewer time, founders completed a structured self-assessment designed to surface the dimensions investors actually care about.
The assessment covers 16 dimensions, including team dynamics, decision-making, market understanding, and investment readiness. It takes founders roughly five minutes to complete. The result is a scored profile that gives programme managers and coaches a consistent, comparable view of every startup in the cohort.
First, it created a shared baseline.
Every company entered the programme with a scored profile. Instead of starting mentoring conversations by diagnosing problems before getting to strategy, coaches could immediately begin working on the areas that mattered most.
Second, it made cohort-level patterns visible.
Programme managers could see, in real time, where founders were progressing and where common gaps were emerging across the cohort. That creates a different kind of visibility than any single mentor conversation can provide.
“Pitchago gave me an overview of where companies stood, what they needed to focus on, and provided founders a structured way to keep moving forward.” Felicia Hedström, Growth Capital, Connect Sverige
“The Portal transformed our coaching process, enabling more precise guidance and ensuring ventures are truly ready for investment.” Manolo Obaya, Investor Relations, Connect Sverige
It would be easy to think of structured assessment as something designed only for accelerators: better screening, faster decisions, cleaner data. But Connect Sverige found that the founder impact was equally significant. For many founders, the assessment provided the first structured view of where their company stood across the dimensions investors actually use.
Not feedback from a single mentor. Not a pitch deck review. A systematic, scored view of investment readiness, with clear areas to improve. That’s what Pitchago is designed to create: founders who understand what needs strengthening before they enter the room, not after. And for accelerators, it means coaches arrive at mentoring sessions with context, able to focus immediately on the highest-impact gaps.
Connect Sverige’s experience reflects a broader shift happening across accelerator programmes. The days of evaluating startups purely on presentation quality or founder charisma are fading. Investors are increasingly using AI-assisted screening tools. Due diligence begins earlier. The bar for securing a first meeting is higher than it was even a few years ago. In that environment, accelerator programmes that can demonstrate portfolio quality with data, not just anecdotes, are better positioned to attract investors and improve founder outcomes.
The real question for programme directors becomes: When an investor asks how you evaluate founders, what’s your answer?
Great accelerator outcomes don’t happen by accident. They’re built systematically.
Pitchago’s Portal Plan gives accelerators the tools Connect Sverige uses: structured founder assessments, scored cohort profiles, and real-time portfolio visibility. It’s designed for programmes evaluating startups at scale and looking to demonstrate rigour to investors, funders, and portfolio companies alike.
Explore the Portal Plan at Pitchago →
Pitchago is a structured startup assessment platform built for accelerators, venture studios, and investor networks. The Pitchago Portal is used by Connect Sverige as part of its Springboard® programme to evaluate and develop founding teams across Sweden.