As a fourth generation venture investor, Adam Draper was pretty much predestined to work with startups. The son of Tim Draper, the founder of global VC firm Draper Fisher Jurveston, Adam has made it his mission to do everything in his power to help entrepreneurs bring their ideas to life — without relying on his family name to do so. After taking the plunge as an entrepreneur himself, co-founding… → Read More
According to Y Combinator’s estimates, today, there are more than 100 startup accelerators in the U.S., which is almost awe-inspiring considering that there were only four as recently as 2007. While the number of accelerators and incubators continues to rise, popping up in nearly every vertical, Education has been slower to get the memo. → Read More
Compared to the glut of young tech startups that have popped up in the financial services space over the last several years, Yodlee is a veteran. Founded in 1999, the company got its start by developing technology to make the back-end aggregation of banking data more efficient and secure, leading to the birth of companies like Mint.com, which went on to be acquired by Intuit. Now, with more than… → Read More
In January of last year, Gil Ben-Artzy and Shuly Galili launched a startup accelerator with the intent to expose Silicon Valley to the next generation of hot Israeli tech companies — and vice versa. While Israel has long been a hotbed for innovation and is home to the R&D labs of many of the world’s biggest tech companies, the founders saw an opportunity to create a more fluid connection… → Read More
After five months of testing, iterating, spit balling and pavement pounding, today Rock Health’s fourth class of HealthTech startups took the stage at Demo Day to pitch their fledgling businesses to investors. More than anything, these fourteen startups confirmed that digital health is not just alive and well, but beginning to gain some real traction. (More on that here.)
Like education, the… → Read More
With early-stage capital front-loading the EdTech investment spectrum, it’s a good time to start an education business. (Even if investors are still wary about doling out larger rounds, but ssshhh on that bit.) Of course, when it comes to education, many entrepreneurs are still green. It’s not as easy as it may seem to learn the landscape and understand how best to maneuver lengthy sales cycles… → Read More
New Jersey’s nascent startup scene is wedged between more established communities in Philadelphia and New York, but that hasn’t stopped some ambitious teams like those at Princeton’s TigerLabs and TechLaunch from trying to give the state a kick in the entrepreneurial pants. After putting on quite a show last November, TechLaunch is now looking for another 10-12 early-stage ventures to mentor… → Read More
Y Combinator founder Paul Graham tweeted today that the accelerator’s 464 startup graduates (prior to its current batch) have raised an average of $3.18 million in funding each, which means YC’s companies have landed a total of just under $1.5 billion. → Read More
MuckerLab, the up-and-coming L.A.-based accelerator program is hosting its demo day for the 10 portfolio companies in its winter class today. In addition, the accelerator just announced that its last class, which graduated almost exactly a year ago, has raised over $15 million so far and that it has partnered with AngelList to accept applications for its future classes. → Read More
If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it one bajillion times. If you’re going to start a business accelerator, don’t clone Y Combinator or TechStars, find a niche. With the glut of new accelerators today, the most successful are building vertical-specific approaches that bring together seed capital with meaningful industry partnerships to create real business (and learning) opportunities for their… → Read More
While accelerators may be in a bubble, they’re also beginning to have a measurable, positive impact on the ecosystem. The real opportunity, though, is not in creating another Y Combinator, but in building vertical-specific accelerators that bring together industry partnerships to create learning and business opportunities for their startups. In healthtech, there’s Rock Health, Blueprint, … → Read More
Accelerators and incubators have been popping up left and right over the last few years, becoming, as Peter Relan recently put it, “an industry segment in their own right.” And while that industry segment has become more and more crowded, the family of accelerators focused exclusively on healthtech and digital health has remained small — in spite of huge opportunity.
But for early-stage… → Read More
These days, it seems like every city and township in North America has its own startup accelerator and is on its way to creating a thriving entrepreneurial ecosystem. While these apparent symptoms of an “accelerator bubble” are sure to make a few eyes roll, if cities and firms lay the foundations with the right goals in mind, these ecosystems can become important engines of job creation — and… → Read More
Back in June, Silicon Valley’s health-focused startup accelerator, Rock Health, kicked off its third program. What was notable about this third batch — other than the encouraging fact that a health-only accelerator has made it to its third batch (props also to Blueprint Health in NYC, now on its second) — was the promise of its future academic pedigree. That is to say, Rock Health co-founder… → Read More
Tandem Capital, the Silicon Valley startup accelerator that focuses exclusively on early-stage mobile businesses, is today revealing the six companies that are participating in its most recent batch. The seed fund and accelerator raised its second, $32 million fund in June, which it uses to offer $200K convertible notes (in exchange for 10 percent equity) to the startups participating in its… → Read More
As you may recall, Microsoft recently got into the startup accelerator game, launching its first self-directed and self-run accelerator in Israel. The program is different from Microsoft’s Kinect Accelerator, for example, because Microsoft is the owner and operator of these new programs, which are now rolling out elsewhere in the world, including India and China. Unlike your typical YC clone… → Read More
Impact Engine is a newly launched venture accelerator in Chicago designed to attract both environmentally and socially-minded businesses that want to – well, you know — make an impact on today’s world. The belief is that you don’t have to be a non-profit business to make this happen, but that it’s possible to create self-sustaining businesses that are working to improve the human… → Read More
Late last week, San Francisco and Boston-based healthtech accelerator Rock Health held demo day for its second batch of startups at Practice Fusion’s headquarters. The thirteen companies pitched their ideas for making healthcare cheaper, more social, intuitive, and just generally less of a pain in the ass. Even though these companies have a hard road ahead, there are ideas here that, with some… → Read More
Tandem Capital, which claims to be Silicon Valley’s first startup accelerator to focus exclusively on early-stage mobile businesses, is announcing today that it has raised $32 million for its second fund, Tandem Fund II.
The capital comes from a host of executives, entrepreneurs, and organizations, including notable industry veterans (and LPs) like Verifone CEO Doug Bergeron, former Apple and… → Read More
Startup accelerator DreamIt Ventures is extending its minority-focused entrepreneur program DreamIt Access, thanks to a renewed commitment from previous investor Comcast Ventures. Today, DreamIt announced that Comcast Ventures will invest in two more cycles of DreamIt Access, which will be a part of the Philly 2012 program and the NY 2013 program. Through the additional investment, DreamIt… → Read More
Startup accelerators have been taking off in Canada of late, with FounderFuel and Year One Labs opening their doors in Montreal, Extreme Startups off and running in Toronto, and last year, Vancouver got its very own accelerator in GrowLab.
GrowLab, which officially launched last May, has been off to a good start in Vancouver, launching 5 companies since its program began. And, today, the… → Read More
Launch Pad Ignition, the first tech incubator to make its home in the Big Easy, today officially unveiled the seven companies that participated in its second annual session.
The accelerator’s 12-week program began the second week of February and culminated yesterday with its own New Orleans rendition of the patented “Demo Day,” appropriately called “Launch Fest,” which we’ve been told is “Jazz… → Read More
As research from the Startup Genome is beginning to show, the world has become a global entrepreneurial playing field, as cities from Tel Aviv to Santiago evolve into thriving startup ecosystems, becoming both regional and global engines of job creation. With such a large, increasingly Internet-connected population, China, too, has become an important part of this conversation for web startups. (… → Read More
Today, Microsoft is launching the first startup accelerator* in the company’s history in an effort to encourage more entrepreneurs to build their cloud-based applications using Windows Azure. The program will take place at the Microsoft Israel Research and Development Center, and is a part of the Israel R&D Center’s outreach program Think Next as well as the Microsoft BizSpark program for… → Read More
DreamIt Ventures is after more eCommerce-focused startups, the company is announcing today, and is preparing to support them with the launch of a new advisory board featuring top execs from across the eCommerce industry. The board, which includes members from Walmart, Amazon/Quidsi, QVC, Bononos, Kate Spade and others, will be available to support the DreamIt NYC Summer 2012 program partipants… → Read More
Hot, new Washington D.C. tech accelerator known as The Fort is debuting its inaugural class of startups today. The organization grew out the efforts from early stage VC firm Fortify Ventures LLC, also known as Fortify.vc (that’s its URL, too), which had previously invested in nearly dozen D.C.-area tech companies.
Over the past 9 months, The Fort’s co-founders, Jonathon Perrelli and Carla… → Read More
Women Innovate Mobile (WIM), the new accelerator aimed to help promote companies started by female entrepreneurs, is ready to debut its first class. Like other incubators, WIM provides mentoring, support, free office space, and seed funding. Participants in the program receive $18,000 to help get their companies get off the ground.
Except unlike the majority of other programs, WIM requires not… → Read More
Today, serial entrepreneurs and mentors Chris Heivly and Dave Neal are kicking off the re-launch of their North Carolina-based startup accelerator, Triangle Startup Factory, in the hopes of providing entrepreneurs with a founder-friendly option for accelerating their early-stage tech businesses. To make Triangle Startup Factory an appealing alternative, the accelerator will run two… → Read More
Founders and entrepreneurs are likely familiar with some of the more well-established startup incubators and accelerators out there, like Y Combinator, TechStars, 500 Startups, Founder Institute, DreamIt — to name a few — all of which provide terrific opportunities and resources for their founding teams. Of course, many of these come with a price, requiring founders to hand over five to ten… → Read More
Flashpoint, a startup accelerator program based at Georgia Tech in Atlanta, Georgia, just had its first Demo Day at the Georgia Tech Research Institute. The newly launched incubator follows the typical format for programs like this, offering seed funding, mentorship, support, shared workspace and more, in return for a 6% share of the startup.
This accelerator is especially interested in… → Read More
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