Startup Viagra, An Accelerator For Porn?

Cindy Gallop,Make Love not porn,NY, Startups,Accelerator

Cindy Gallop (photo: Abosch/Twitter)

According to Venturebeat, when Make Love Not Porn founder, Cindy Gallop started discussing the possibility of an accelerator for porn, former TechStars NY Managing Director David Tisch, looked uncomfortable, “get me the heck out of here” expression, says Devindra Hardawar with Venture Beat.

While some may think that Gallop is nuts, she is seriously interested about creating an accelerator for those startups in the adult industry. Her site, Make Love Not Porn, took about two years to find investors brave enough to back her idea. Her site tries to promote more realistic portrayals of adult entertainment.

“I would like to start the Y Combinator for porn,” Gallop said this morning at the Start conferencein New York City. She noted “there is nobody in the world to mentor” startups related to the adult industry, reports VentureBeat.

Adult entertainment and startups aren’t anything new. Back in August we ran an interview with the founders of Offbeatr a crowdfunding platform for adult projects, similar to Kickstarter.

VentureBeat speculates it could be a while for Gallop’s idea to take shape, we’re thinking it won’t be that long.

Sound off in comments.

We’re crowdfunding, see here.

Chattanooga’s GigTank Extends Application Deadline

GigTank,Chattanoga,startup,startups,accelerator

Last year’s GigTank winner Banyan, relocated permanently to Chattanooga from Florida. (photo: NMI 2012)

If you’ve been a nibletz for a while, then you acutely aware of the fact that Kansas City is not the first gigabit city, Chattanooga Tennessee is. With that, Chattanooga hosted their first GigTank accelerator last year.

The GigTank accelerator functioned with two tracks,students and entrepreneurs. The idea behind it was to accelerate companies that would use Chattanooga’s extremely fast internet as a conduit for their business.

This year, the cohort based program will run from May 13-August 16th. There’s a sliding scale for seed money, based on the number of founders. There’s also a pool of $150,000 of guaranteed follow on funding.

Here are the rest of the details:

· Access to Chattanooga’s “living lab” – The city’s 170,000 businesses and homes are connected to one another by a $300 million, one-gigabit fiber infrastructure, and GigTank participants will have this access at their fingertips.

· Access to a “tool kit” of unparalleled technology – Participants to the program don’t need to start from scratch. Every participant will have the opportunity to take advantage of GigTank’s “toolkit,” which ranges from existing prototypes in need of startups to enabling technologies that can be combined to create new concepts. More information about the “toolkit” can be found here. http://www.thegigcity.com/gigtank/toolkit/

· Workspace: All participants will share workspace in the heart of downtown Chattanooga.

· Mentors: GigTank is driven by mentors to help accelerate the process of bringing products to market. This year, participants will have access to industry experts from hundreds of companies around the world.

· Demo Day: Startups will present on Demo Day to crowd of strategic corporations, VCs, angel investors, mentors and media. In 2012, Demo Day had over 500 in attendance. Top performing teams will be taken on a cross-country investment tour as well including Silicon Valley and New York City.

· Funding: Accepted two person teams receive $10,000, plus another $5,000 if there are three or four founders. Individual specialists receive a $3,000 stipend for the whole summer. Teams can get access to additional prototyping capital from Alcatel Lucent, depending on the focus of the concept. These decisions are made independently by Alcatel Lucent. Promising concepts earn access to a pool of follow-on investment capital up to $150,000 per team.

For more information or to apply, interested entrepreneurs and teams can visit this site.

We’re on a sneaker strapped nationwide startup road trip, can you help?

Interview With Shari Wynne Founder & CEO Of Austin’s Incubation Station [SXSW]

The ATX Startup Crawl at SXSW 2013 brought us to the offices of Incubation Station, a consumer packaged goods accelerator program.

The program, founded by Shari Wynne, just announced it’s selections for their second cohort which runs from March 19th to June 11th. The session will close with a Showcase day that will attract hundreds.

Austin is on fire about this new CPG program. At their recent event to announced this year’s cohort it was standing room only. In a city known for it’s budding tech startup community, Incubation Station doesn’t do tech they focus on helping to build consumer packaged goods, and the program is working. Wynne told us in an interview that 5 out of 5 teams in the last cohort received the funding they needed to accelerate to the next level.

Wynne is no stranger to startups of the tech variety though. This firecracker woman who functions like a 25 year old caffeine filled founder, practiced law at two of the biggest firms in Washington DC. After that, she hung her shingle out and worked with the phone on the floor, to help bring legal services to entrepreneurs and startups. Her law firm, MWR, has the big firm experience with the boutique firm feel, and entrepreneurs love the attention she and her lawyers can give them.

As for the Incubation Station, check out the video interview with Wynne below and for more info visit theincubationstation.com

We’ve got a lot more SXSW coverage where this came from

Kauffman Foundation Teams Up With AARP Proving You’re Never Too Old To Launch A Company

The Kauffman Foundation has teamed up with AARP to launch a new initiative that will hone the entrepreneurial skills of people over 50 years old. We’ve seen our share of these golden entrepreneurs, who have either retired or left the corporate world to start a new business venture.

Two such entrepreneurs are 54 year old Elizabeth Van Sant and 68 year old Susan Jones, launched at Washington DC startup called Quad2Quad that serves as a platform providing much needed information to parents, families and students visiting colleges.

Kauffman Foundation, AARP, Quad 2 Quad, Accelerator,startup

The two baby boomer founders of quad2quad at everywhereelse.co 2013 (photo: Allie Fox for NMI 2013)

When we interviewed Jones last September, she proudly said that she was old enough to be Mark Zuckerberg’s mom. Although some may consider them too old to roll with today’s startup hipster, they’ve been touring the conference scene across the country with appearances in San Francisco at Appnation and at everywhereelse.co in Memphis.

Now, the Kauffman Foundation has announced a new program targeted to baby boomer entrepreneurs 50 and over.

Three pilot courses of FastTrac NewVenture™ for the Boomer Entrepreneur will be offered in 2013 by Kauffman FastTrac affiliates. Up to 20 qualified applicants will be accepted per course, and AARP scholarship funds will cover $500 of each participant’s course fees.

The three Kauffman FastTrac affiliates selected to participate in the baby boomer pilot are ProperoHCA, New York City; Tech Coast Venture Network, Irvine, Calif.; and the Miami Innovation Center for Entrepreneurship, Inc., Miami.

ProperoHCA has scheduled its weekly course for April 3-June 5. Tech Coast Venture Network plans to offer its Boomer course this summer. The Miami course, which will be taught in Spanish in an outreach to the region’s large Hispanic population, is also slated for a summer start.

“We look forward to partnering with Kauffman FastTrac to better serve our members interested in expanding their entrepreneurship business skills,” said Jody Holtzman, AARP’s senior vice president of thought leadership. “Through this coursework, they will acquire new insights and tools, explore available resources, and expand their networking opportunities to start and grow successful businesses.”

Content specific to baby boomers was recently added to the Kauffman FastTrac curriculum in recognition of changing U.S. demographics and research that finds a higher rate of entrepreneurial activity among Americans aged 55 to 64 than much younger age groups in recent years.

The initial 10-week baby boomer class was held in fall 2012 in Kansas City.

“We believe there is pent-up demand for entrepreneurship education among more mature audiences,” said Kauffman FastTrac president Alana Muller. “Whether they’re pursuing a lifelong passion, shoring up their retirement accounts, or utilizing skills and experience in a new way, boomer entrepreneurs make big contributions to our economy by creating new businesses and, in turn, new jobs.”

You can find out more about this program here

Work On An Iceberg: Ark Challenge Applications Open Through April 7th

We were really pleased that our neighbors from Arkansas’ Ark Challenge accelerator program were just one of many Global Accelerator Network (GAN) accelerators in attendance at everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference. The Ark crew was at the conference talking to attendees and startups about retail, logistics and food processing the three core focus areas for the North West Arkansas based accelerator.

Startups selected to accelerate in the Ark Challenge program will receive a seed investment of $20,000 for 6% equity to offset the cost of relocation to North West Arkansas.

The program will be held at the beautiful new IceBerg coworking space, where founders will have 24×7 access. They’ll also get access to a huge mentor network, product development and design support, promotion, and access to advisors and funders. On the retail side of things Ark Challenge isn’t far from the largest retailer in the world, Walmart.

The Ark Challenge is one of 20 projects nationwide that receives funding for the advancement of regional competitiveness from the Economic Development Administration (EDA), Small Business Administration (SBA) and the Employment And Training Administration (ETA).

In addition to all of that, two teams are selected to receive follow on funding of $150,000 to help the startup get through “speed up”.

The early bird application deadline is next week on February 24th with the final deadline on April 7, 2013. The session will run from June to mid September with an investor/demo day at the end of the session.

You can apply to the Ark Challenge here

Did you miss everywhereelse.co 2013? Well don’t miss everywhereelse.co 2014, ticket sales open and discounted now for the next six weeks here.

Despite Layoffs New York Times Announces Incubator Program

The New York Times is going through a rough time right now. They are in the middle of staffing cutbacks that are coming in the form of layoffs and voluntary buyouts. New York Times editor Jill Abramson has said there were far few layoffs than they had anticipated, primarily because of voluntary buyouts.

Although the times proper is reducing staff, they have announced a new initiative to spearhead innovation at one of America’s most widely known newspapers.

The new program called timeSpace is somewhere between in incubator and an accelerator. “You may call it an accelerator or an incubator; right now we are calling it an experiment” they wrote on their blog.

The Times is not seeking equity on the companies that apply and are accepted into the program. They hope that when a company that goes through the program, raises institutional financing, that they will be invited to participate. They are leaving that decision to the startup.

timeSpace is seeking media focused startups with a product launched. The startups will either already be based in New York City or willing to relocate to work in the space that’s in their headquarters at Times Square (620 8th Ave). Startups in the mobile, social, video, advertising technology, analytics, or e-commerce spaces are invited to apply for the four month program.

Over the four month period selected startups will be invited to work and grow alongside entrepreneurs and employees who make their livings in digital media, technology and journalism.

We are based in New York City, with six bureaus in the region, fourteen national news bureaus and twenty-four foreign news bureaus. We have more than 1.5 million print and digital subscribers and had 49.4 million unique visitors to NYTimes.com in December 2012. More importantly, we are journalists, developers, designers, product managers and more who are proud to work at the news organization that has won 108 Pulitzer Prizes and Citations. The paper said.

Applications are being accepted through 5pm EST February 19th here. There is no seed capital involved.

Acceleration and Incubation is a major theme at this huge startup conference

Startup America’s Donna Harris & Startup DC’s Evan Burfield Launching 1776 DC

1776, Donna Harris, Startup America, Startup DC, Accelerator

Startup America’s Donna Harris interviews Steve Case (photo: Nibletz Media)

On the heel’s of the Startup America Partnership’s second anniversary a new initiative, incubator and accelerator are launching just steps from the White House. It was on the White House lawn on January 31, 2010 when Startup America was officially launched.

The new epicenter for entrepreneurship in Washington DC will be called 1776 and is being spearheaded by Startup America’s Managing Director, Donna Harris, and Evan Burfield, Chair of Startup DC. These two have worked hand in hand, over the past two years nurturing the Startup America Partnership an organization that supports startup communities nationwide. Harris will transition away from her role at Startup America over the next month.

“1776 is a fantastic example of the entire community rallying around a very bold idea that taps the unique assets of the community rather than replicating what others have done,” said Scott Case CEO of the Startup America Partnership. “I couldn’t be more thrilled that Donna, who was the architect and leader of our National Regions Initiative, and Evan will now focus their expertise on making this bold vision a reality in DC.”

“Washington is one of the most powerful cities on earth, and it has the potential to become an incredible nerve center for startups seeking to tackle big national challenges like education and healthcare,” said Donna Harris. “1776 will be a single rallying point to tie startups into the region’s significant wealth, expertise, and extraordinary advocacy community, and will create a global brand for what makes the DC community unique.”

Harris oversaw the creation of Startup America “regions” across the country. Over the course of the past year Startup America began looking to empower the regions, and their regional champions so that the organization itself could take a backseat while startup communities across the country blossomed.

1776 will provide co-working space, curriculum to help build entrepreneurs and startups, and an accelerator program. The also plan to continue a trend currently in place at Startup America where people and trends that are reinventing America share the spotlight.

“Our goal is to build an explosive entrepreneurial economy based on the assets unique to Washington, DC,” said Evan Burfield, co-founder of 1776. “1776 will have a number of strategies to help the hottest startups in the world — the ones with the bold ideas for tackling the big problems — to navigate regulatory minefields, develop scalable business models, and drive revenue.”

1776 will hold an open house and press conference on February 6th at their campus, 1133 15th Street NW, 12th Floor. DC Mayor Vincent Gray, Startup America CEO Scott Case and other notable national figures from the entrepreneur community will help kick off the new initiative.

For more information sign up for 1776’s email list here http://1776dc.com/

Scott Case and several other’s from Startup America and it’s regional partnerships will be on hand at the biggest startup conference in the U.S. everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference, limited number of tickets still available.

Seed Hatchery Announces 6 Team Class Of 2013

Memphis’ tech startup accelerator program, now in it’s third year, Seed Hatchery, has unveiled the six startup teams participating in it’s 2013 cohort. The cohort will begin next week on February 8th and end with a Demo Day during the legendary Memphis in May Barbecue Festival. The applications were plentiful and this years class features five local startups as well as one startup from Indiana. Also new for Seed Hatchery, and a growing trend across America, three of the startups are led by women.

Seed Hatchery teams will receive seed funding as well as an intense mentor driven program designed to cultivate their idea stage businesses and turn them into viable companies/products.

This year’s Seed Hatchery program will be full time. It also features teams that have been heavily vested in the Memphis startup ecosystem driven by the efforts of Launch Your City/Launch Memphis. Most of the teams, prior to even applying to Seed Hatchery, elected to participate in the Startup Village as part of the upcoming evverywhereelse.co, The Startup Conference.

Here are the teams:

Mentor.me

Mentor.me is led by Brittanny Fitzpatrick. Fitzpatrick pitched her startup at the Upstart Memphis 48 Hour Launch in December. Fitzpatrick has been working for the Ronald McDonald House in conjunction with St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital, which led her to developing this idea.

Mentor.me is essentially a match.com system for matching mentors with mentees. Every year mentor organizations are faced with a problem stemming from mismatched mentors and mentees. This problem actually takes up more time and resources than originally matching mentors. Mentor.me will be an algorithm based platform that matches mentors with mentees in a more efficient way.

IncreaseIF

IncreaseIF plans to match provides cost-analysis software to help scientific researchers figure out which in-house resources should be used. Several factors go into the decision making process for evaluating using an outsourced firm by scientific researchers. These factors include cost, quality, delivery responsiveness, technology and cycle turn around time.

IncreaseIF, where the IF stands for, impact factor, will help automate these decision making processes and speed up the time of scientific research. The startup is led by software engineer Scott Finney, a Memphis local who’s been dabbling in the startup scene and anxious to push forward with this new idea.

Kangaroo

Kangaroo is another local startup co-founded by CEO Nick Redmond and Rachel Hurley, one of the three startups featuring a female founder. Hurley is very active in the Memphis local music scene where the passion for this startup came about. She’s constantly promoting singer songwriters and local bands through venues in town. Redmond is one of the songwriters and founders of Star & Micey a local band which was named the number one band to see live in Tennessee by Paste Magazine.

The idea is to create a social network around bands and music. Sure that idea has been done a hundred times but Hurley and Redmond are putting a brand new spin on it by incorporating geocaching. With Kangaroo they plan to create a platform where touring bands and bands in town can leave behind hidden treasures. Fans can also turn around and leave tokens of appreciation for their favorite bands

“We want to abolish the limited creativity and loss of the personal touch with social media today. Connecting with fans is the only problem musicians have, and this is a huge opportunity to connect people and musicians in a active, real-time environment. From seeking out left behind items by musicians, to taking their personalized walking tours, to following them across a coast, this app and site allows the fans the most hands on experience in social media.” Hurley said.

ScrewPulp Publishing

ScrewPulp is an exciting startup for Memphis. It was originally pitched at the 48 Hour Launch event in June of 2012, the same 48 Hour launch that attracted nibletz.com to Memphis in the first place.

At the event, founder Richard Billings described the problems with self publishing. Self publishers live off reviews, ratings and recommendations which are impossible to drive in any organized way. Screw Pulp allows authors to give their book away to the first 100 readers, in exchange for a review (good or bad), rating or recommendation. Once the engagement is made the “promo copy” of the book is the readers to keep.

After the first 100 books Screw Pulp goes with a sliding payment scale increasing the cost of the book while it gains popularity. Billings has become a fixture in the local startup scene. Since pitching ScrewPulp in that 48 Hour launch he has been to subsequent launch events where he’s provided feedback and mentorship. They also won the “Risk City” challenge in November as part of Global Entrepreneurship Week in November. That contest involved the startups pitching their idea to Federal Court Judge John Fowlkes in open court.

SodBuster

Sodbuster is the startup that is relocating from Indiana. This startup has a different spin when it comes to founders. The husband and wife team of Tom and Pam Cooper both graduated from college in the early 80’s. They both have had long and prosperous careers in their field. Now they’re going all in on their social entrepreneurship startup.

The team has the benefit of Tom’s 30+ years of experience in programming running the gamut of programming languages from COBOL to C++ and newer languages like HTML 5 and Ruby on Rails.

Sodbuster is reinventing the way local nonprofits connect to their communities to communicate and raise money. They plan on doing this with a new e-newsletter format.

Musistic

Musistic was founded by Justin Olita, Vince Rogers and CTO Brian Wentzloff. This Memphis based startup wants to become the universal place for musicians to connect in a social network type setting. Once the musicians are matched up through an algorithm the platform will offer the tools necessary to collaborate with each other across the internet and even save the recordings.

Basically imagine a guitar player in Memphis, a bass player in New Hampshire, a drummer in Los Angeles and a singer in Texas. All four musicians can meet up through Musistic where their interests, styles and experience will be matched. They can then jump right into performing together from the comfort of their own homes.

“The problem is that there is no universal network for musicians to create, edit and share in real time and all startups for musicians are focusing only on selling and promoting the artist’s work.
Musistic will focus on the creation process” Rogers said.

For more info on Seed Hatchery visit seedhatchery.com here

Seed Hatchery startups will be featured at everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference, do you have your tickets yet? Get them here!

Disclosure: In the interest of journalistic integrity I am compelled to disclose that while I hold no equity interest in any of the startups in the Seed Hatchery program I am a mentor for the program and also on the selection committee.

Greenville’s Iron Yard Expands Into Digital Health & Education

The Iron Yard is a startup accelerator, co-working space, incubator and educational hub in Greenville South Carolina. They’re also a member of the Global Accelerator Network.

We covered their first session at the Iron Yard accelerator extensively as they neared completion of the first cohort this summer. Companies like Trucky Love (now Locally.fm), MoonClerk, Spent, and RidePost were all featured on nibletz.com the voice of startups everywhere else, back in August.

As the Iron Yard prepares for their next cohort they’re also expanding into the world of digital health and education.

While Memphis TN is home to ZeroTo510, the first cohort based medical device accelerator, Iron Yard is taking a new approach and targeting those in the digital health space.

” Companies building everything from wellness apps to enterprise software can apply, and those accepted will settle into Spartanburg for an intensive program that will shape their idea into a company ready to launch.” Iron Yard’s Kate McCarthy told nibletz in an interview.

McCarthy continued:

“Spartanburg teams will benefit from relationships with top pharma distributors, access to major area hospital systems, connections to global medical research firms, and a world-class line-up of mentors. The accelerator and coworking space will be located in downtown Spartanburg one block from RJ Rockers Brewery. While we don’t list proximity to craft beer as an official “perk” of the program, it certainly can’t hurt. We will begin accepting applications for the digital health program this spring, but applications to the Greenville accelerator (consumer web and mobile) are open through February 8th”

On the education front, Iron Yard is looking to develop more coders and developers in the region. They are offering free programming classes to over 70 kids and they’re going to launch an intensive three month coding course for adults in the Spring.

“At a CoderDojo, young people learn how to code, develop websites, apps, programs, games and even robots- all for free. There are currently three after school classes offered per week and a long waiting list to join the program. Students represent a diverse population: roughly half the students are girls and one class is offered in a low income neighborhood so that students without transportation have access to the courses. Teachers Mason Stewart, Wes Whitesell, Anne Mahaffey, and a handful of volunteers all offer their time and talent to keep classes free.”

“One course focuses on teaching Scratch, HTML and CSS. The other exposes kids to electronics basics, from the circuit board, up. The really cool part: those who have completed the Scratch course can build game controllers for their own video games in the electronics course. That’s made possible by the support of Arduino, who donated Arduino Esploras for the kids to learn on.” McCarthy reported.

You can find out more about Iron Yard and these programs at theironyard.com

Join Global Accelerator Managing Director Pat Riley and Global Accelerator program member accelerators from across the country next month at everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference, ticket sales and Startup Village booth sales closing soon.

Norfolk’s Hatch Startup Accelerator Reveals New Class

Back in July we interviewed Zack Miller, the director of the new startup accelerator in Norfolk called Hatch. Miller, a Hampton Roads native, decided to start an accelerator program for the region. He decided to put it in Norfolk which is the epicenter for Hampton Roads. Hampton Roads already has three accelerators in Innovation Research Park, Hampton Roads Technology Center and James City County Incubator.

They’ve just unwrapped the latest class which started a few weeks ago. This new class of startups includes:

RoboCent enables small business, non-profits and political campaigns to easily send call and text notifications to their subscribers, starting at 1.3¢ per message. Through RoboCent’s streamlined and user-friendly platform, clients can receive feedback from their customers, monitor their calls and texts in real-time and send out urgent notifications to subscribers within 5 minutes.

Go Wedding Pro is a tool built by photographers for photographers. GWP will help wedding photographers stay on top of their clients’ needs by organizing wedding day details and client info is easier to maintain and access on the go. Go Wedding Pro will make it easier to stay on top of client info, contracts, invoices and tracking post production . From booking to delivering images GWP is the wedding photographer’s best friend.

CampusWise is a college classified company catering exclusively to college students. Our aim is to provide a safe and friendly environment so that students are able to trade both goods and services strictly amongst each other. Each school will have a customized page that will only be accessible to those students who share the same university email.

uVest is the first personal investment application designed for casual investors who do not have the knowledge, desire, or time to do complex market research and analysis to discover trading opportunities. uVest is designed specifically for mobile users who want to casually browse and enter trading opportunities from verified, high return traders at their convenience.

These four startups are going through Hatch Norfolk’s intense 12 week program which includes mentoring, business development, team building and product building. Their applications were evaluated based on team, product, market, pain point and execution.

To find out more about Hatch Norfolk click here

Is an accelerator right for your startup? Find out in the accelerator track, headed up by the Global Accelerator Network at everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference

Nashville Accelerator Jumpstart Foundry Announces Early Bird Applications Now Open

Here at nibletz.com we continue to provide superior national coverage of the southeast. With that in mind we love covering Nashville’s startup scene and especially their local accelerator program Jumpstart Foundry.

Jumpstart Foundry is a three month cohort based startup accelerator program. Several alumni have received follow on funding. RentStuff, a Jumpstart Foundry graduate from two years ago was acquired back in November..

JSF’s 2012 program accelerated the growth of ten startups and built on the overall Jumpstart Foundry track record of success. Like other national accelerators, JSF rates its success in part on the number of graduate companies that are able to raise capital or boot-strap operations without additional capital. Over the first three years of the program, JSF has achieved a very strong 65% success rate. Thirteen JSF alumni have raised follow- on capital and are building operations. These results combined with a rigorous program refined over multiple years, a deep mentor pool and affiliation with the Global Accelerator Network position Jumpstart Foundry as one of the top accelerators in the United States.

“Each year both the number and quality of applicants has grown,” Marcus Whitney, chief technology officer for Moontoast and one of Jumpstart Foundry’s managing directors said in a statement. “Given the program’s established track record of success for our graduates, I’m excited to see the group this year.”

“Year after year we increase the strength of the Jumpstart Program expectations in terms of Mentors, guest speakers and participating company performance. The tradition continues this year as we open up the application process for 2013” Vic Gatto, Partner at Solidus Company and Managing Director at Jumpstart Foundry told nibletz.com.

Startups interested in applying can head over to jumpstartfoundry.com

Meet Marcus Whitney, and Several Jumpstart Foundry startups at the biggest startup conference in the country.

Big News: Global Accelerator Network Partners For Everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference

Now that the International CES show, and Eureka Park are winding down this weekend, we’ve got a ton of news about the largest startup conference in the country, everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference. As you may have heard the conference has already sold (not forecast, but sold) nearly 2000 attendee tickets. In addition we have over 130 startups in the Startup Village with a very limited amount of spaces left for your startup. For more on Startup Village booths click here.

Well the conference has some big news that they’ll be announcing over the next week or two starting with a great partnership that will really help startups “everywhere else”.

Everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference is pleased to announce that the event has partnered with the Global Accelerator NetworkGAN is an organization of over 50 of the top short-term, mentorship-driven, seed stage accelerators around the globe. Their members include TechStars, Excelerate Labs, TechWildcatters, LaunchPad LA, StartupBootcamp, and more.

Global Accelerator Network’s Pat Riley will be on hand at everywhereelse.co as well as an entire team from GAN.

Everywhereelse.co will feature three accelerator focused panels. The first panel is “what I learned in an accelerator” featuring startup founders that have been through accelerator programs across the country. We’ll have founders from 500 Startups, YC, TechStars, Brandery, Jumpstart Foundry, The Fort, Seed Hatchery and several others. This panel will help give entrepreneurs an insight into the life of the startup accelerator.

The conference will also feature a panel of some of the top accelerator Managing Director’s across the country. While many startup accelerators live to the same principals and road maps some may be different. We’re going to have Managing Directors from startup accelerators across the country.

The third accelerator focused panel will address the reasons why your startup should or should not apply to startup accelerators. This insightful panel will draw from some of the best entrepreneurs who could talk about why your startup should do an accelerator and what vertical accelerators your startup should apply to.

To that end, Global Accelerator Network will be on hand throughout the conference helping entrepreneurs and founders figure out which accelerator may be best for them and then help them apply.

Is your startup in the startup village at “everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference“? It’s not too late to register here!

500Startups Backs Bangalore Startup ZipDial

Dave McClure and his 500startups continue their jaunt across the globe. Just last week we reported that McClure had made his first investment in a German startup. Today we’ve found out that 500startups has backed a company out of Bangalore India called ZipDial.

500startups is no stranger to Indian startups. In fact, an Indian email newsletter startup called TradeBriefs is in the current cohort based 500startups accelerator program, happening right now in Mountain View.

ZipDial founded by Sanjay Swamy, Amiya Pathak and Valerie Rozycki is a mobile marketing engagement platform that works based on a missed call. A call is initiated and then disconnects after one ring and then sends a text message.

“We’ve been impressed at how effective ZipDial has been for us, usually 2-5 times more effective than Facebook or just SMS. We see its value for brand and SME advertiser clients and are excited to see it grow globally,” Satyan Gajwani, CEO, Times Internet (who participated in the funding round along with 500Startups) told SiliconIndia

“500 Startups has proven repeatedly to add value with its global network of mentors helping their portfolio companies grow. Working with the fund is strategic for ZipDial as we invest in our international expansion into other emerging markets,” says Valerie R. Wagoner, CEO and Founder of ZipDial, as reported by Silicon India

Linkage:
ZipDial is on the web here.

More startup news from everywhere else.

everywhereelse.co is the largest startup conference in the U.S.

Miami Getting A Health Tech Startup Accelerator

Health tech is a huge space. It, along with its sibling, “bioscience” is one of the fastest growing segments of startups world wide. Health tech focused accelerators can be wildly successful, especially “everywhere else”.

In startup communities “everywhere else” it can be easier for investors to understand health tech, as opposed to the latest, greatest, social local mobile event discovery app. Presumably, health tech startups have a direct path to helping people, fighting sickness or driving costs down.

Lift1428, an innovation design, strategy and communications firm, the Miami Innovation Center at the University of Miami Life Science & Technology Park and its developer, Wexford Science + Technology, and the UM Miller School of Medicine, have teamed up for Project Lift Miami, a new health tech focused startup accelerator in Miami, reports the Miami Herald.

The new Project Lift Miami accelerator is a 100 day program for new startups and entrepreneurs. They will select between 10-15 startups and entrepreneurs to participate in the program. Each startup will receive between $20,000 and $30,000 in seed funding.

However, like most accelerators, this program is not about the funding. All of the teams will have access to a nationwide network of top level mentors who have committed to the startups well beyond the 100 day program.
“There’s so much regulation and there are privacy issues and other barriers to entry that are different in the healthcare industry. Having the access to the environment we have here to test your idea and prove your concept is a great advance,” said Robert Chavez, Executive Director of Project Lift, who is also executive director of business intelligence at UM’s Miller School, told the Herald “That kind of mentoring you won’t get at a general accelerator.”

Linkage:
Apply now for Project Lift

More startup news is here

See a bunch of Miami Startups at the largest startup conference in the U.S.