Peachscore and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals: Expanding Access to Entrepreneurship for the 97 Percent Left Behind

Each year, more than 1.6 million startups apply to accelerators worldwide. Yet fewer than 3 percent are accepted. The remaining 97 percent, often talented, resilient, and globally diverse founders, are left without access to the education, networks, capital pathways, and institutional support that accelerate innovation and economic mobility. History has shown that exclusion is not a proxy for quality. Companies such as Dropbox and Airbnb were once rejected by traditional accelerator systems, despite going on to define entire industries.

This structural imbalance is not merely a startup ecosystem issue. It is a global development challenge. Peachscore was built to address exactly this gap, and in doing so, our mission is deeply and intentionally aligned with the principles and objectives of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

A Global Challenge Requires a Global Solution

The Sustainable Development Goals call for inclusive growth, reduced inequalities, resilient innovation, and cross-sector partnerships. Central to the 2030 Agenda is a clear mandate: leave no one behind. Yet in entrepreneurship, geography, access to networks, institutional bias, and capital concentration continue to determine who gets supported and who does not.

Peachscore exists to change that reality.

As a global, equity-free, data-driven accelerator, Peachscore was designed to expand access to entrepreneurship at scale, regardless of a founder’s location, background, or proximity to traditional startup hubs. Our model recognizes that talent is universal, but opportunity is not.

Today, Peachscore supports founders across North America, Europe, and Australia, while also actively serving entrepreneurs from regions historically underrepresented in global innovation ecosystems. This includes founders from across Africa, South Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, and emerging European markets.

Among the countries already represented in the Peachscore ecosystem are Algeria, Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, Zambia, South Africa, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Egypt, Libya, Qatar, Bahrain, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Romania, Poland, Portugal, Czechia, Lithuania, Malta, Mauritius, Seychelles, and many others. These founders are building companies across industries, often while navigating limited access to capital, fragmented local ecosystems, and barriers to global visibility.

Peachscore meets them where they are and brings the ecosystem to them.

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Direct Alignment With the Sustainable Development Goals

Peachscore’s mission and operating model align most strongly with four Sustainable Development Goals, while supporting several others indirectly.

SDG 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth

Entrepreneurship is one of the most powerful engines of job creation and economic growth. By enabling early-stage companies to form, scale, and sustain operations, Peachscore directly supports the creation of productive employment and long-term economic opportunity.

Our data-driven accelerator focuses on helping founders build viable, investable companies capable of employing teams, serving markets, and contributing to local and global economies. This is especially impactful in regions where traditional employment pathways are limited and entrepreneurship serves as a primary driver of upward mobility.

SDG 9: Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure

Accelerators are a critical part of modern innovation infrastructure. Peachscore strengthens this infrastructure by expanding access to it.

Through an industry agnostic data-driven evaluation framework, Peachscore reduces reliance on subjective gatekeeping and network-based selection. Founders are assessed on measurable signals of potential, not proximity to elite institutions or existing investor circles. This approach supports resilient, inclusive innovation systems and broadens the pipeline of globally relevant technologies and solutions.

SDG 10: Reduced Inequalities

At its core, Peachscore addresses inequality of opportunity.

By focusing intentionally on the 97 percent of founders excluded from traditional accelerators, Peachscore helps reduce disparities within and among countries. Our global, virtual, and equity-free model ensures that founders from emerging markets, underrepresented regions, and nontraditional backgrounds have access to the same caliber of resources historically reserved for a narrow subset of startups.

This is a direct application of SDG 10’s mandate to reduce inequality and ensure inclusive participation in economic life.

SDG 17: Partnerships for the Goals

No single institution can solve global challenges alone. Peachscore operates as a multi-stakeholder platform connecting founders with mentors, corporations, investors, academic institutions, and ecosystem partners worldwide.

These partnerships amplify impact, unlock resources, and enable cross-border collaboration. They are essential to scaling sustainable development outcomes and reflect the collaborative spirit at the heart of SDG 17.

Education, Access, and Capacity Building at Scale

Beyond these primary goals, Peachscore contributes meaningfully to SDG 4, Quality Education, by delivering structured founder education, mentorship, and capacity building. Founders gain access to programming that improves execution, governance, investor readiness, and long-term sustainability.

Importantly, Peachscore does this without taking equity, ensuring that founders retain ownership while building enduring companies. This approach reinforces sustainable value creation rather than extractive growth models.

A Platform Built for Global Inclusion

Peachscore’s scale demonstrates that inclusive entrepreneurship is not aspirational, it is achievable.

With a global portfolio spanning dozens of countries and hundreds of startups, Peachscore has built one of the most internationally diverse accelerator ecosystems in the world. Our data-driven approach allows us to support founders across time zones, industries, and stages, while maintaining rigor, accountability, and measurable outcomes.

This is not charity. It is infrastructure.

A Statement From Leadership

“Talent is everywhere, but opportunity is not. The Sustainable Development Goals challenge us to rethink who gets access to the systems that shape our economies. At Peachscore, we believe the future of innovation depends on the founders the world has historically overlooked. Supporting them is not only equitable, it is essential to sustainable global growth.”
— Peyman Shahmirzadi, Co-Founder and COO, Peachscore

Moving Forward

The SDGs are not a checklist. They are a call to action.

Peachscore is already executing on that call by expanding access to entrepreneurship, strengthening innovation infrastructure, and enabling founders across continents to build the companies that will shape the next generation of economic growth.

As the global startup ecosystem evolves, the question is no longer whether inclusion matters. The question is who is willing to build the systems that make it real.

Peachscore is proud to be part of that answer.

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About Peachscore

Peachscore is the world’s largest data-driven accelerator, having supported over 1,400 startups from more than 100 countries, with portfolio companies raising over $200M to date. Through Peachscore, founders gain access to the most advanced AI-powered tools, including benchmarking, business intelligence, and market insights, as well as funding and investment opportunities, customer discovery and acquisition, mentorship and guidance, global networking, and over $3.5M in pre-negotiated services from leading corporations, all included in a 12-month program.

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For more information and to apply, visit:

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Peachscore Website: https://peachscore.com/

Peachscore LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/peachscore/

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