Coca-Cola Wants to Own Part of Your Start-Up

There's a new start-up accelerator in town: Large corporation Coca-Cola has launched a new entrepreneurship program for creating start-ups. According to Fast Company, the program is called Coca-Cola Founders, and the company "goes into startup communities around the world and hand-selects founders." The program's website notes that these founders are then immersed into to the company and given access to Coca-Cola's "relationships, resources, and reach" before they create a start up.

Then using Coca-Cola as their strategic partner, the founders are to grow their start ups, though unlike most accelerators the soda company does not set a strict time frame. Once it's proven that a founder's business model works, they must allow Coca-Cola to become a minority share holder which the soda maker believes is a "win-win" model for everyone. So far, ideas that have emerged from the program include a "mobile convenience store" and a food start up based in Berlin.