Catalysr

Who we are

Catalysr is an award winning startup incubator for migrant and refugee entrepreneurs (aka migrapreneur) across Australia. Our vision is to create an Australia where every migrant and refugee has the skills, resources, networks and opportunities to succeed.

To achieve this vision we are on a mission to create, cultivate and celebrate migrant and refugee entrepreneurs (migrapreneurs) across Australia.

Our work is a strength based model, which centres lived experience expertise and is led by migrapreneurs for migrapreneurs.

Our core team is all made up of successful migrapreneurs and includes:

• Co-founder and CEO - Usman Iftikhar https://www.linkedin.com/in/usmaniftikhar/
  
• Operations Manager (also a catalysr alumnus) - Shelby Clark https://www.linkedin.com/in/shelbyclark/
  
• Community Manager - Devarshi Desai https://www.linkedin.com/in/devarshi10/

What we do

Catalysr is an award-winning startup incubator that inspires, empowers and connects migrant and refugee entrepreneurs (aka migrapreneurs) to launch their own startups in Australia.

Since 2016, we have supported over 1000 migrapreneurs across Australia, coming from 87 countries, with 46% of them being women.

There are three key ways in which we support our migrapreneurs

Firstly, we 'create' new migrapreneurs through the Migrapreneur Fellowships.

"Migrapreneur Fellowship" includes masterclasses on fundamental topics on entrepreneurship, community sessions (online), community events (in-person across major Australian cities such as Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide) while also giving access to our community slack and mentoring with Catalysr team and our mentor community.

We offer two migrapreneur fellowships annually, one on Tech Startups and the other one on Social Impact.

Secondly, we 'cultivate' migrapreneurs and startups they have created through our Accelerate Program.

"Accelerate" program runs for 3 months and offers an intensive 1:1 mentoring with our world-class entrepreneurs-in residence to help our migrapreneurs take their startup idea, validate it, launch their startup in the market and get ready for growth.

Thirdly, we 'celebrate' our migrapreneurs through sharing their stories via our podcast 'Migrapreneur stories' and other media channels