Accelerate Baltimore Extends Application Deadline To December 21st

AccelerateBaltimore,ETC,Baltimore startups,startup acceleratorThe holidays are upon us but for entrepreneurs and startup founders across the state of Maryland, across the country and around the globe who want to build their startup in Charm City, they’ll probably be on pins and needles, waiting. AccelerateBaltimore, the startup accelerator program put on by The Emerging Technology Center has extended their program application deadline to December 21st, 2012.

Baltimore is a great city to build a startup in, just ask McKeever Conwell who decided to keep his startup “Given.to” (formerly No Bad Gift), in Maryland’s tech city. Conwell, a Morgan State graduate, has been through the AccelerateBaltimore program and he’s been out west. He decided Baltimore’s best for his company.

Baltimore has a thriving tech scene (I may be biased being born and raised there). Video game studios, mobile app companies, mobile ad companies and many more call Baltimore home. In fact, mobile ad company Millennial Media, is a Baltimore startup that recently went public to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. The company has over 38,000 mobile apps on it’s network.

If you want a taste of that pie and you want to learn from some of the greatest mentors around, you still have a couple of weeks to apply. You don’t have to be based in Baltimore, but you do have to be willing to move to Baltimore to participate in the program. It’s worth it.

And speaking of Mentors, the ETC just announced 14 mentors for the next AccelerateBaltimore session including: Chris Brandenburg, Co-founder and CTO of Millennial Media, Greg Cangialosi, CEO of Nucleus Ventures, Ron Schmelzer, CEO of Bizelo and Co-founder of Baltimore Tech Breakfast and Andrew Coy, Co-Executive Director of Digital Harbor Foundation, Ann Quinn of Quinn Strategy Group, Victoria McAndrews of CMD, and Russell Clark Co-Founder of Illuminis.

“AccelerateBaltimore™ is one of the recognized programs that has proven to assist in nurturing startups from idea-stage to viable business,” stated Michael Binko, co-chair of Startup Maryland.  “Formal programs like AccelerateBaltimore™, MindShare, Distilled Intelligence and others in the broader region are a great extension to high-touch entrepreneur events like our own Pitch Across Maryland.  The mentorship, working capital and creative office-space provided by ETC form a great foundation for entrepreneurs who are eager to accept guidance from peer-mentors as well as program facilitators.”

The next AccelerateBaltimore session will begin in February. Six startups will be part of this next cohort and will receive $25,000 in seed funding. They’ll also participate in an intense development program, have free office space, a high level advisory team and more.

Linkage:

Apply to AccelerateBaltimore here

More startup news from “everywhere else”

Hear about McKeever Conwell’s experience in AccelerateBaltimore at the largest startup conference in the U.S.

 

Baltimore Startups: Abell Foundation Looking For Next AccelerateBaltimore Class

The Abell Foundation is back again, teaming up with the Emerging Technology Center’s (ETC) in Baltimore Maryland. They’re looking for the best high growth potential startup businesses for the second class of AccelerateBaltimore. The Abell Foundation is backing AccelerateBaltimore with $150,000 in seed funding, to provide six new businesses with $25,000 each.  The Baltimore Business Journal reports that this is a 50% increase in funding from last April’s class.

Emerging Technology Center’s CEO Deborah Tillett is hoping to attract national and even international startups to Baltimore’s growing technology hub.

“It’s about innovation in Baltimore,” Tillett said to the Business Journal. “We’ll open it up as far and as wide as we can to get a message out to make sure we get great quality companies.”

AccelerateBaltimore runs much like many other cohort based accelerator programs. In addition to the $25,000 in seed funding the six participating companies will also receive boot camp style intense training for thirteen weeks. They’ll also get free office space at one of the two ETC locations in either Johns Hopkins or Canton.

Both locations offer access to mentors, potential investors and other resources. However, the Canton location’s lease is up in September of next year. That won’t affect this next batch of startups going through the program. Tillett told the Business Journal last Thursday that no decision has been made as to whether or not they are renewing the lease at the Can Co building. The building also houses one of Baltimore’s most successful startups, the now publicly traded Millenial Media.

AccelerateBaltimore attracted some great startups in their first class, of them we’ve covered Kithly and NoBadGift.

Linkage

Apply to AccelerateBaltimore here

Source: Baltimore Business Journal

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