Comments Off on Portland Opens Up Applications For Startup PDX: Challenge0LikeLike 3,440
Portland Oregon’s Portland Development Commission has kicked off a new initiative to lure startups to the Central Eastside part of town. The new program called the Startup PDX Challenge is a non-equity based grant program that will give up to six startups $10,000 grants and free office space for a year in what once served as Mayor Charlie Hale’s campaign office.
The office space is located in what most people in Portland know as “Produce Row”. It’s for the most part, an industrial area that the city is trying to revitalize with new types of restaurants, businesses and now technology startups.
There are several equity based tech incubators in the Portland area. This program is the first of it’s kind where the money comes with no strings attached (other than working in the office space). The PDC has a budget of $150,000 for the project which includes the grant money as well as money to make improvements to the building where the startups will be housed. In consideration for the improvements the landlord is not charging the tenant startups rent this year.
In addition to the cash and office space, startups selected for the program will also have access to services donated by Portland area law firms, accountants and human resources services according to Oregon Live.
The Startup PDX challenge has already lined up several sponsors including; Perkins Coie; Davis Wright Tremaine LLP; Perkins & Co; Trupp HR; Xenium; Lewis & Clark Bank; Business Accelerator at Portland State University; Pie; Portland Seed Fund; Technology Association of Oregon; Portland Development Commission; Oregon Entrepreneur Network and Transfer Online.
Comments Off on Despite Layoffs New York Times Announces Incubator Program0LikeLike 2,153
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.
Comments Off on Cincinnati’s The Brandery Announces 2012 Startup Class, And It Starts Young0LikeLike 1,868
Earlier we reported on Louisville Kentucky startup Impulcity and the fact that they would be headed up to Cincinnati for this years class at the Brandery. The Brandery is a marketing focused Cincinnati incubator. All of the companies selected to participate in the 2012 session receive $20,000 in seed capital and will participate in a 14 week program that includes free office space, mentoring, working with some of the top marketing and advertising people in the country and access to venture capitalists.
To date the Brandery has graduated 14 startups since 2010. This year’s class is 11 startups deep and the ages of these entrepreneurs range from 17 years old to 45. It’s a mix of Cincinnati based startups, to startups from across the US. However the Brandery received applications from over 40 different countries and received twice as many applications as the previous two years combined.
Enterchange reports that Rujul Zaparde is the youngest in the class at 17. His co-founders in their New Jersey based startup FlazCar are Shri Ganeshram and Kevin Petrovic, both of whom are just 18 themselves. Details were stealthily as to what they would be working on however Laura Baverman of Enterchange reports that these three high school buddies started a non profit that’s built 50 wells in India serving 80,000 residents. One word: Impressive.
At 45, Vinay Murthy is the oldest member of the class. Murthy left a position at Google where he helped develop Adsense, Adwords and also worked on YouTube among other things. His startup, with co-founder Vikram Venkataraghavan is called 360pager, and again there’s word on exactly what they are doing.
Brooklyn, NY: Off Track Planet, Freddie Pikovsky, 29, and Anna Starostinetskaya, 29.
Chicago: Ontract, Julian Miller, 31, and Matt Duch, 26.
Cincinnati: Modulus, Charlie Key, 28, Brandon Cannaday, 28, and Richard Key, 24, (moving back home from Tucson).
Cincinnati: VouchedFor, Michael Bergman, 33, David Volker, 31, Bree Bergman, 31, Stephen Hartz, 34.
Cleveland: Flock’d, Greg Svitak, 37, and Kurt Pettit, 34. According to its website, Flock’d is a mobile application that lets groups check-in at bars and request rewards from the bars’ owners or managers.
Louisville:Impulcity, Hunter Hammonds, 21, and Austin Cameron, 22. They’ve already received some press in Louisville for a plan to use data from a person’s social media presence to recommend events and venues that fit his or her interests.
New York:Socstock, Jay Finch, 26, and Angelo Stracquatanio, 25. Its website describes an online platform that helps small businesses raise capital from their community of supporters, in return for future goods and services at the business.
New Jersey: FlazCar, Rujul Zaparde, 17, Shri Ganeshram, 18, and Kevin Petrovic, 18.
Salt Lake City: CrowdHall, Austin Hackett, 27, Jordan Menzel, 27, and Nick Wientge, 34, of San Diego (and Cincinnati native). A website for the company calls it a free online platform that lets high-profile people respond to public discourse and lets crowds more effectively communicate with those high-profile people.
San Francisco: 360Pager, Vinay Murthy, 45, and Vikram Venkataraghavan, 36.
Seattle:FlyDutch, Andy Zhang, 26, George Lin, 26, and Sean Wen, 27. According to a profile on AngelList, a site that matches startups and investors, FlyDutch helps online daters meet in person faster, safer and more casually.
The Brandery has a team of over 55 mentors with top notch business and startup experience. The list includes Mike Bott, the General Manager of The Brandery; Lucas Watson, Vice President of Sales and Marketing at YouTube; and Tim O’Shaughnessy, CEO of Living Social.
Powerhouse VC firms including Union Square Ventures, First Round Capital and Polaris also have mentors participating. This is actually one of the strongest teams of mentors we’ve seen at an incubator “everywhere else”.
The program officially starts July 2 and will end with a Demo Day set for October 3rd when all 11 teams will show off their startups.
Nibletz is the voice of startups “everywhere else” here are more stories from “everywhere else”
The next leg of our road trip actually includes Cincinnati (In addition to Chicago, St.Louis & more) please check this link out and watch the video below:
MWW is one of the largest PR firms in the country with a global presence. Their client list includes some of the top tier companies in their industries. Nikon and Samsung Mobile are both represented by MWW among a long list of familiar brands.
MWW just announced a new venture capital project spearheaded by their global head of technology and digital content, Ephraim Cohen. MWW ventures is incubating startups that advance media, marketing and public relations industries by investing firm resources in exchange for equity.
Cohen told Nibletz.com that MWW Ventures was developed by he and MWW Group CEO Michael Kempner who is a serial entrepreneur. With the verticals that the MWW Group is involved with Cohen says they come across great startups all the time. With MWW Ventures, the MWW Group will invest and incubate companies that will help them stay on “…the cutting edge of technology”.
Buzzmob, a Los Angeles startup was announced as MWW Ventures first portfolio company last week. Buzzmob is a mobile app for live events that forms location based social networks in real time and on the fly.
Kyle
Portland Oregon’s Portland Development Commission has kicked off a new initiative to lure startups to the Central Eastside part of town. The new program called the Startup PDX Challenge is a non-equity based grant program that will give up to six startups $10,000 grants and free office space for a year in what once served as Mayor Charlie Hale’s campaign office.
