Accelerator Archives - Page 17 of 18

The Brandery’s Rob McDonald & Mike Bott Explain Why Their Program Works VIDEO

The Brandery, an incubator founded in 2010 in Cincinnati is uniquely different from most of the incubator’s across the country. A blanket description of what an incubator does for startups wouldn’t justify what co-founder; Rob McDonald, Dave Knox and JB Kropp have put together at 1411 Vine Street in Cincinnati’s Over-The-Rhine neighborhood (Voted Cincinnati’s best neighborhood in 2011 and 2012)

First off The Brandery is in what appears to be a traditional older storefront in a building dating back to the 1860’s. The building the Brandery is in as well as the surrounding buildings typically housed a storefront on the bottom floor and then residential units above. In the case of the Brandery, the first floor has been converted to bull pen style desk space where each of the 11 startups in this session can collaborate, bounce ideas off of each other and inspire each other through competition.

The second floor houses a group classroom like area and the third floor is what Brandery GM Mike Bott says they’re informally calling the “alumni penthouse”.

We got the chance to have an in-depth interview with Bott and McDonald who are very proud of what they’ve built so far. While the Brandery runs a familiar model, which most of the Global Accelerator Network accelerators utilize, there are things about the Brandery which are inherently different, that make it a special place to grow a business.

First off the Brandery is a non-profit organization. Yes the companies selected for the program give up six percent equity for a $20,000 seed investment. However, that investment is coming from the Brandery, and not the founders, or investors. In other words, as Bott confirmed, when Brandery alumni start to make big exits, the money goes back to the Brandery directly to run the program and invest in more worthwile startups.

Next, the Brandery keeps the class size small. This year there are only 11 companies. Companies move in at the start of the session. They have three months of vigorous boot camp style work, training, seminars and business education, but after Demo Day they don’t move out, in fact they are encouraged to stay around where they still get the benefits of the mentors who show up to the Brandery for basketball, beer pong and the latest new and interesting lecture.

Even after the first year, alumni companies can pay very minimal rent and move up to the alumni penthouse.

The Brandery companies are also encouraged to play a big role in the Cincinnati entrepreneur and startup community. For instance, just after arriving in Cincinnati this year, all of the Brandery companies participated in the BunBerry TechBurry Pitch Wars, which 2012 Brandery company Crowd Hall actually won. But what’s great about that event was that all three Brandery classes were represented there.

Also at Startup Weekend Cincinnati all of the Brandery companies have been given a free pass to help Startup Weekend teams, and were even encouraged to pitch. In fact, CrowdHall’s Austin Hackett pitched one of the ideas that’s being built this weekend. While there was a lot of banter on Impulcity about Hackett and his Startup Weekend venture, he assured us that his team is 100% committed to Crowd Hall and we’re working on that all weekend too. Even Brandery co-founder Rob McDonald was an official mentor for Startup Weekend as well.

The involvement with the community works both ways though as Bott explained later on. For instance 11 different local advertising agencies in Cincinnati have donated time to work with each of the Brandery companies. There are also a lot of area mentors who work closely with each Brandery company.

Check out our indepth video interview with Rob McDonald and Mike Bott here:

Linkage:

The Brandery’s Website

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DreamIt Ventures Expands South To Austin Texas

DreamIt Ventures, the Philadelphia based accelerator, that was recently ranked one of the top the incubators in the country by Forbes magazine, has announced that they’re expanding into Austin Texas.

DreamIt is Philadelphia based, which is where they set up their initial accelerator program. They then expanded to New York City. Last year they also opened up shop in Israel with a program that currently feeds into New York but could feed into their Philadelphia program next year.

Kerry Rupp, a Philadelphia transplant from Austin Texas was overseeing the DreamIt program in Philadelphia. They recently announced the appointment of Karen Griffith Gryga as national director based in Philadelphian which frees Rupp up to return to Austin and launch their Austin program.

Austin is a great place to expand for DreamIt. There is a lot of innovation happening in Austin and the other DreamIt locations will be able to leverage their Austin based program to show off other DreamIt startup graduates at South By Southwest Interactive next year.

“We’ll be able to use it to showcase all of the other DreamIt companies that are out fundraising” when SXSW is held, Rupp said to the Austin Business Journal

As of April 2012 65 companies have successfully gone through the DreamIt program. DreamIt also has a program targeted towards minorities called DreamIt Access, that first class has 15 startup participants.

DreamIt Ventures New York program finishes with a Demo Day on August 8th. Philadelphia’s program kicks off the weekend of September 6th and 7th. The Philadelphia class will hold Demo Day December 5th. Austin’s program will start on December 14th which times the ending right up against SXSWi 2013.

Linkage:

Check out DreamIt Ventures here

Source: Austin Business Journal

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South Carolina Startups Get New Innovista Center For Product Realization

South Carolina startups now have another new exciting resource to tap into. The University of South Carolina has announced it’s plans to open the Innovista Center for Product Realization or ICPR. The main funding for the new center is coming from a $645,000 five year federal grant. The main purpose is to help startups with product development.

The center will be available to students, alumni and residents who are working on a startup based in South Carolina.

One of the major constraints facing firms outside of regions like Silicon Valley is access to sufficient capital and talent to achieve critical mass and scalability for their product offerings,” said Don Herriott, director of Innovista. “ICPR will provide the infrastructure, resources and collaborative relationships that capital-starved startups require to take their idea or technology to the next level.” reports the SC-Israel collaboration.

Startups that utilize the center and it’s resources will be able to tap into the expertise of USC faculty at the College of Engineering and Computing, the Darla Moore School of Business and the university’s Office of Technology Commercialization.

“The product realization center is yet another example of the university’s commitment to cultivating innovation, entrepreneurship and technology commercialization,” Herriott said. “It furthers Innovista’s mission of attracting and growing new high-tech businesses to our community and across the state.”

We’ve recently reported on two exciting startup ideas brewing in and around the University of South Carolina. The first was a report on two engineers working on developing a t-shirt material that could charge phones directly from the shirt itself. The other 52 apps, is an innovative app development startup that will release 52 apps a year by vote (we reported on them 4 weeks before mainstream media).

Individuals and startups looking for more information on ICPR should reach out to Lauren Edwards at (803)777-9796 or by email at laurene@mailbox.sc.edu

Linkage:

Source: SC-Israeli collobaration

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Washington DC’s Acceleprise Welcomes First Six Startups

Back in April we brought you this story about the newly formed accelerator in Washington DC called Acceleprise. Acceleprise is targeting new startups in the enterprise space. TechCrunch called it the 500 startups for “enterprise”.

Acceleprise has great DC based founders in Sean Glass, Allen Gannett and Collin Gutman. They also have some great mentors that include well known founders, executives, venture capitalists and experienced operators. Their mentor list includes Scott Case, head of Startup America, Katharine Weymouth CEO of Washington Post Media, Maria Thomas former CEO of Etsy, Sonny Ganguly CMO at wedding wire and many more.

Their website says they are “The Enterprise Technology Accelerator”. Enterprise was a natural sector to pursue, Glass told TechCrunch’s Sarah Perez that he started thinking about how he wanted to do his personal angel investing. He found while evaluating his portfolio that he had the most success with and was able to help the most in early stages, were all enterprise focused.

Washington DC is also the perfect location for an enterprise focused accelerator. Of course the federal government is the largest enterprise customer in the country. In their immediate surroundings you have most of the largest defense companies and contractors in the world. Accelleprise is also a quick 4 hour drive to New York City and not to far from Atlanta as well.

They’ve now announced their first class of six enterprise focused startups. Each chosen startup will receive a $30,000 seed investment, mentors, office space and business resources.

The six enterprise startups have a mixed range of ideas but all tie back into services, applications and ideas that will benefit the enterprise space.

The Washington Post published this list of the six startups:

ConferenceEdge provides Web-based software that facilitates event management. Organizers can use the program to register attendees, corral feedback, manage digital marketing and process electronic payments.

Conjure sells software that allows companies to store and access strategic ideas or best practices that may otherwise wind up forgotten and unused in e-mails, PowerPoint presentations or an employee’s mind.

ExecOnline enables large corporations to offer online business courses to their employees through its partnerships with universities. In addition to its online learning platform, ExecOnline helps to develop the curriculum and puts forth investment capital to get a program started.

Employers looking to slim down their workforce and save on health care expenses use FitFeud to coordinate fitness competitions across their organization. The software can be used to register participants, send reminders, track progress and assess return on investment.

Mercury Continuity helps businesses and government entities keep their information technology network humming in the event of a “catastrophe” or other disruption. The company works with technology partners to deliver broadband connectivity in multiple ways, including through satellite and fiber-optic technologies.

Companies or individuals can store and manage their credentials online through Sigkat, then use them to validate their reputation with employers and business partners. The firm aims to make the exchange of credentials both reliable and inexpensive.

Linkage:

Find out more about Acceleprise here

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We are having a big push for this right now.

Live Broadcast From Silicon Beach Fest Of Demo Day And More

Tomorrow at 2pm PST we’ll be broadcasting live from SBF Demo Day presented by StartEngine. As well as broadcasting from other events live throughout the whole event that starts tomorrow. Panels ranging from Meet The Accelerators to How To Hire A Developer. Into coding and actually products, don’t worry as StartEngine has you covered with a full 48 hours Hackathon going on throughout the event. Quick hint, teams from Disney are among those who’ll be showing up to show us what they can do.

We Interview Ari Rashti Of StartEngine And Angel Vision Investors

Over the past weekend, I was able to interview Ari Rashti, from StartEngine and Angel Vision Investors. We where able to talk to him about how the Los Angeles Tech Scene has come and gone, and then coming back again. Along the same lines we dug deeper into why LA hasn’t seen as many hot startups come from here, as well as the valuation disparity we have from the Bay.

Silicon Beach Fest What To Look Forward To On The 21st

Over the past weekend both Kyle and I were at startup events, and if you think with all the events so far this month the two of us have been covering is enough you’d be wrong. Later this month I’ll be covering Silicon Beach Fest in Santa Monica California from June 21-23rd. Organizes by Kevin Winston formally of MySpace, and current CEO of Digital LA. Jason Crilly, CEO and Founder of Pagewoo and Efren Toscano. Founder of TechZulu an independent news organization delivering an insightful story of the technology industry by showcasing the very people creating it. Brought together he top Startup Incubators in the Los Angeles area such as Start Engine, io/LA, Idealab, Amplify and others. For this start studded event. When Kevin Winston was questioned about what brought him to creating Silicon Beach Fest, he mentioned to me.

Hollywood Hack A Day, Final Recap

“It’s like a party, you are afraid that no one will show up”

Rahim Sonawalla mentioned to me about his fears about putting together Hollywood Hack A Day. But boy did they show up. While Kyle was in Memphis for a Launch event this past weekend, I was on the West Coast. More specifically Hollywood California to witness Hollywood Hack Day taking place at io/LA which was nice enough to provide their location to use for the weekend. Put together by Ryan Chisholm, Rahim Sonawalla and Abe Burns, this weekends event expected around around 70 developers, graphic artist, and visionaries to show up. Battling 80 degree crystal clear skies, developers spent all weekend from 0900 on Saturday to 6pm on Sunday putting together not only presentations but working projects as well.

We’ll Be Live At io/LA Covering Hollywood Hack Day

This weekend, while Kyle will be on the East Coast at another Startup event. I’ll be at a Hackathon on the West Coast covering the Hollywood Hackathon. The event, which has moved to io/LA’s venue near the famed Hollywood and Highland intersection in the middle of Hollywood. Will be filled with those trying to make it into the entertainment field by way of Tech.

TechStars Announces New Patriot Bootcamp July 18-20 in DC

Veterans are you ready to venture out on your own? Have you had a great startup idea like former Navy Seal Doug Moorehead? If a startup is in your civilian career path then pay attention to this important announcement from TechStars.

TechStars, the Boulder Colorado based accelerator with programs all over the country (“everywhere else”) has announced a new three day bootcamp designed for veterans who want to learn everything there is to know about launching their own startup.

The intense three day program will occur next month on July 18-20 at Georgetown University in Washington DC. If you’re interested in participating you can apply here.

During the three day program participants will hear from successful TechStars alumni, industry leaders, DC area startups, mentors and speakers. All of the speakers and mentors are emotionally invested in supporting Veteran entrepreneurs.

TechStars said on their website:

“Over the course of the three-day program, the presentations by TechStars mentors and one-on-one mentoring will guide the participant to solidify a business idea, focus their fundraising pitch, improve their accelerator application, refine their product concept, or demonstrate progress as it relates to their entrepreneurial path. Each participant or group of participants will deliver a short presentation on Digital Demo Day to share their progress.”

TechStars has assembled a great group of sponsors for Patriot Bootcamp including: the Kauffman Foundation, Kauffman Fast Trac, Silicon Valley Bank, Prediculous and Georgetown University.

Linkage:

Find out more about TechStars Patriot Camp Here

Here’s the application

New Hampshire Startups: $500,000 Startup Competition Launches This Fall

New Hampshire has a budding tech startup scene. Some entrepreneurs are attracted to the peaceful and beautiful climate in New Hampshire. There are some startups in the hospitality industry that are coming out of the University of New Hampshire’s hospitality program that are choosing to stay put to develop their ideas. Now though, there are 500,000 new reasons to launch a startup in New Hampshire.

The New Hampshire High Technology Council and the abi Innovation Hub have announced a new $500,000 tech startup competition. They’ve received financial commitments from 20 accredited investors who will also assist in mentoring New Hampshire startups in the so far unnamed competition, which is going by “The Fund” at the moment.

The $500,000 will be spread out into five annual competitions with $100,00

0 in prize moneyeach year for the next five years starting in September 2012. The first prize will be $50,000 the second prize will be $30,000 and the third prize is $20,000. The top two prizes will be determined by a panel of judges organized by the Entrepreneur’s Foundation of New Hampshire. The third prize will be determined by audience vote at the pitch contest scheduled for every fall.

The first competition will be September 20, 2012.

A separate company is being formed to manage the contest, obtain a name and a URL. Five members of New Hampshire’s tech sector are going to form the company and they are; abi Innovation Hub Executive Director Jamie Coughlin; early-stage investor Matt Pierson; co-founder and chief technology officer of Dyn Tom Daly, a Manchester Internet firm; Executive Director of the New Hampshire High Technology Council Matt Cookson; and member of the Cook, Little, Rosenblatt and Manson law firm Matt Benson.

“This competition fills a void in New Hampshire’s start up scene,” stated Pierson. “Not only are we going to put money into winning start up companies, we’re going to leverage the knowledge of our investors in helping them grow their businesses and ultimately attract additional capital.”

The abi’s Jamie Coughlin stated, “By having a five-year commitment to fund this event up front, we’re sending a strong message to entrepreneurs that we’re establishing New Hampshire as leader in getting start ups off the ground. This is all about investing in people, ideas, and ultimately stimulating our next crop of tech companies.”

“This competition is one more initiative to help drive innovation in New Hampshire,” added Cookson. “This effort will help create new, high paying jobs in our dynamic tech sector. The fact that individuals have stepped up to fund this effort demonstrates the commitment to nurturing our entrepreneurs.”

While “The Fund” is awaiting a name and url information about applying for the contest and the contest itself can be found at the abi Innovation hub website as well as the New Hampshire High Technology Council Site (linked below).

Linkage:

Find out more here at the abi Innovation Hub website or

The New Hampshire High Technology Council Website

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Mass Challenge Announces 125 Startups In Third Session

MassChallenge kicked off the week by announcing the 125 startups that have been chosen to participate in it’s third edition of their accelerator program/competition. MassChallenge is the largest accelerator competition on the east coast.

This years class of 125 startups includes 90 startups from the Boston area, with the other 35 coming from all over the country.

There are 46 tech startups, 25 social startups, 21 in bioscience and life science, 11 in clean tech and energy and 22 in miscellaneous categories.

Here is the complete list.

Energy & cleantech

Arbsource
Black Island Wind Turbines
Bootstrap Compost
Dynamo Micropower
HydroConfidence, Inc.
Invisergy
NBD Nanotechnologies
RainBank Inc.
Solar Tri-Gen
TireTech
Zagster

General

ARCBAZAR
Bio-Fiend
CrewTide
Cryoocyte
Fetch Storage
FX Aligned
GG’s Originals
HelmetHub Corporation
JGOOD
LiquiGlide
LittleBonsai, LLC
Memory on Hand
Ministry of Supply Inc.
Modalyst
Pegasus Performance
Roammeo
RouteSprout
Strong Arm Technologies, Inc.
Sweet Corn Tortilla Chips Inc
TableZest
Te Tama
Zoora

High tech

42stats
A.I.type Ltd.
Akselos
Appsembler
Atomic Tower, Inc.
Bottol
Bounce Imaging
Calcbench
Capital Market Exchange (CMX)
Citybot, Inc
CoachUp
Delightfully
Distinc.tt
docTrackr
Dpicd
Drones For Peace
FansFave
Fantasy Politics
HandyBook
iAgree
IntegralReach
Kahnoodle Inc
Kanopy
Kernel Corp. LLC
Klypper Inc.
Lifeables
Magru
MegaMIMO
Mindcrimp
MOVL
Nordic Technology Group (NTG)
Nsyrt Corporation
pymetrics
Recruiterbox
Schmooze Butler
Securigin Inc.
SocialMadeSimple
Stable Solutions
STUI
Texifter, LLC
Tomorrowish
ToolSense
TripReactor (formerly WaySavvy)
Veenome
Vsnap
Wanderu

Life sciences & health care

Akrivis Technologies
Automated Medical Instruments, Inc.
CardioWave
Cellanyx Diagnostics
eTransitions
Guided Surgery Solutions
Imagnus Biomedical
Ionu Biosystems
iSpecimen
Lab Automate Technologies Inc
Nanoly Biotech
Neumitra
Noor Pharmaceuticals
OnDeckBiotech
PhotOral, Inc.
Quantamerix
Sextant Therapeutics Inc
Ubiqi Health
Vaxess Technologies
WindGap Medical Inc.
Yosko

Social impact

ArtPulse
Chartus.org
Design Museum Boston
EcoValuePoints
Freight Farms
Global Research Innovation & Technology
Gradeable
IoVista
Lovin’ Spoonfuls Inc
LuminAID Lab
Market Publique
Native Brain
NBA Math Hoops
Persistence Plus
Prepmatic
Prime Student Loan Guarantor Corp.
Project Dots
RallyPoint Networks, Inc.
Recovers.org
RetiCue
SilviaTerra
Soundfest, Inc.
Spill
TinkerStories
Zimba

MassChallenge has been the catalyst for growth for lots of great startups. We recently interviewed Brass Monkey, a MassChallenge startup at TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2012 last week. Good luck to all 125 startups from “everywhere else”.

Linkage:

Source: Boston Business Journal

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Chicago Startups: Catapult Chicago Announces Freshman Class

A new startup accelerator/incubator has announced it’s freshman class. They have 7 startups in this first round, that were selected out of hundreds of applications. According to FoxBusiness, the 7 startups were chosen by their peers, founders of startups themselves.

Catapult Chicago will furnish very reduced rate office and common space, access to resources and mentors as well as equipment and other services that startups need. The seven companies in the first class will also work in a collaborative setting so that they can bounce ideas off of other founders in like minded situations.

The first seven companies have a six month tenancy with the option to renew at the end of the period.

“We interviewed over 100 companies and the caliber of the new startups speaks well of our peer- selection model,”Catapult Chicago Co-Founder Ryan Leavitt told Fox Business. “These companies will add to the spirit at Catapult which, in many ways, acts as one collective startup with 12 different business lines.”

The startups in the freshman class at Catapult Chicago have good pedigrees as well. Mixed in the bunch are graduates of Chicago’s own Excelerate Labs, Techstars Cloud in San Antonio, and BluePrint Health in New York.

Here’s the class:

Dabble, a platform for users to sell in person classes for $20 with a wide range of curriculum available.

Buzz Referrals a marketing promotion platform.

Bucketfeet, an artist designed footwear company.

Kula, a peer to peer mobile market place.

Shiftgig a networking site for the service industry

Temp a Big Data startup.

Precured Health, a Health 2.0 startup that helps hospitals discover and evaluate medical devices.

While a lot of the attention in the Chicago incubator/accelerator scene has been on 1871, Catapult Chicago is a welcomed piece of Chicago’s thriving tech scene. They occupy 12,000 square feet of Class A office space in the River North Area which is the focal point of Chicago’s startup scene.

Linkage:

Find out more about Catapult Chicago here

Source: Fox Business

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VIDEO Capital Connection TechBUZZ ’12 Ending Keynote – Steve “Makes Our” Case

(photo: nibletz syndicate)

Capital Connection TechBUZZ ’12 Had Steve Case as the Keynote speaker at the end of the two days. In 1985 Steve Case founded AOL. It was the first internet company to go public, it was the largest media acquisition of its time.

When crowdfunding was brought up he spoke about the ability to raise funds for projects via indiegogo or kickstarter Recently he has been spending a lot of time in Washington DC convincing the US Government to deal with entrepreneurial issues and American jobs. When asked how he feels about crowdfunding (JOBS Act) he mentioned the fact that it has been passed and is waiting for the SEC to finish their part. The law had previously stated that it was illegal to sell private equity to investors online. “You can sell the whole business – 100% but you will go to jail if you sell 1%” Case stated “for the first 6 years it was illegal for us to connect to the internet.” The JOBS act focuses on modernizing an extremely old system.

In this short clip he discusses the benefits he sees in crowdfunding for startups and where it will may have the biggest benefit. As we are well aware, if you are in North Dakota, Philly, St Louis, Chicago, or Everywhere Else – it is very difficult to get covered by media outlets or to raise seed or angel capital. This is where we come in. We are planning on driving across the country for just over a year meeting with startups, incubators, accelerators, and their towns. While we cannot directly assist in helping you raise capital, we are sneaker strapped ourselves, we can help get your names out. We will come to your city and spend time with you. We don’t discriminate against a lack of funds being raised or lack of angels in your region. We only care about meeting startups who are making a go at something new.

We do need some help though, which explains the title of the article, our case has been made by Steve Case himself. Take a look below:

More stories from Capital Connection 2012/TechBUZZ here

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