Working in swimwear and deciding the future of a startup while gazing at the Mediterranean may sound like fantasy. For Decelera, this has been, for ten years, a formula that works. The world’s first startup decelerator has built, edition after edition in Menorca, a track record that backs its distinctive way of supporting founders: the attrition among its portfolio companies is reduced to roughly half the European average.
Across all its editions in Menorca, around 200 startups have passed through the Decelera program. Of them, 33 have received investment and, of those 33, only 4 have ceased operations. In other words, almost 9 out of 10 companies in the portfolio are still alive today. In an ecosystem where entrepreneurship often equates to survival against the odds, Decelera proves that you can build a solid startup without sacrificing mental health or the founders’ clarity.
According to Eurostat, the European Union’s statistical office, only 46% of EU-born companies remain active after five years. In Decelera’s portfolio, that percentage rises to 88%, a notable difference even taking into account that Eurostat’s data covers all European business activity, not just startups.
The key lies in the method that gives the project its name. Against traditional accelerators, which push teams to move faster, Decelera proposes the opposite: pause, breathe, and think with perspective. Its methodology, summarized in three words—Breathe, Focus, Grow—structures an immersive seven-day program that brings together a small group of founders in Menorca, far from the daily office noise, so they can make the most important decisions for their startup with a clear head and the sea in the background.
That rigorous selection process, which only admits 33 of the 200 startups that have passed through Menorca over these ten years, is precisely what explains, according to the founding team, the low mortality rate of the portfolio.
It’s not magic, it’s method
“We’ve spent 10 years proving that being a founder and wearing flip-flops, with your feet in the sand, isn’t incompatible with building a successful company. On the contrary: when you give a team space to think calmly, they make better decisions, and you can see it in the numbers. It’s not magic, it’s method,” says Marcos Martín, founder and managing partner of Decelera Ventures.
“Decelera has been a unique experience I’ll always remember. It’s not just another program, like the two hundred thousand others; it’s an experience with its own, unique DNA, created by outstanding professionals and good people, with a spectacular level. This is about breathing and rethinking things, stepping away from your own movie a bit and watching it from above to see what can be improved behind the props. I came back with sky-high motivation and a bag of fresh ideas to make Flipflow something big. Two months later, I’m still implementing changes that arose from threads I started pulling in Menorca,” says Ricardo García Zorzo, founder of Flipflow.
