Category: Techstars
TechStars Boulder Demo Day was today and all I can say is WOW! This is the sixth TechStars program in Boulder and I’m just blown away by the entrepreneurs, their companies, the mentors, the investors, and the Boulder community. Clare Tischer put up a TechStars Demo Day 2012 post with descriptions of the companies and links – rather than repeat that here, I’d encourage you to go take a look. There are already a handful of posts from various teams up – my favorite so far is a tribute to Nicole Glaros from the RollSale gang.
If you are an investor and missed demo day but find any of the companies interesting, it’s easy to connect with them via the TechStars Demo Day Email Intro App (ok – that’s not the official name for it, but it just reinforces that you shouldn’t let me name things.)
And – if you are interested in following the story of these teams, the Founders series is back in the fall that tracks a number of them through the program. Here’s the trailer.
I just got out of a meeting with one of the TechStars Boulder teams from the first program. They are going strong, have grown a sizable company, and are amazing people. It makes me so incredibly happy to get to hang out with and work with everything around TechStars. David – thanks so much for showing up for random day in 2006 – it continues to be an awesome journey.
On August 9th, TechStars in Boulder will wrap up with their annual Demo Day investment event. If you’re an active investor and are interested in attending, send me an email and I’ll get you an invitation.
It’s always amazing to witness how the teams transform in three short months and this program has been no different. This year, we have everything from internet-of-things companies to travel, enterprise software to consumer devices, and platforms to crowdsource plays. There’s a strong showing out of Boulder this year and its yet another reason why my partners and I at Foundry Group continues to support the program.
I’ll be there all day so I’d love to see you.
TechStars is running an event called the Patriot Boot Camp in Washington D.C. from July 18-20. About 75 veterans who are active or aspiring entrepreneurs have already been accepted and will be attending.
During this three day event, they’ll get a mini TechStars-like experience. The number of people who have stepped up to offer to mentor these veteran-formed companies is just awesome. Todd Park (US CTO) and Aneesh Chopra (Former US CTO) are delivering a keynotes, along with Paul Bucha (Medal of Honor Recipient) and many others. LivingSocial will be welcoming these veterans to their office for a tour and to meet the team and hear their inspiring story. And there will be a ton of one-on-one mentoring during the event by some fantastic mentors. I’ve included the full list of mentors as a thank you to them for “giving first” at the bottom of this post. But of course the biggest thanks are due to these entrepreneurs themselves, for their service to our country.
While the entrepreneurs who are participating have already been selected, there is still a chance to show up and support these veterans in D.C. and see their mini “demo-day” next Friday, July 20th. Perhaps you are an investor or maybe you just want to try and help these companies in some way. Whatever the case, there are seats remaining at this finale of the Patriot Boot Camp which is open to the public.
You can learn more and register here.
The TechStars Patriot Boot Camp is made possible by sponsors: Kauffman Foundation, Kauffman FastTrac, SoftLayer, Silicon Valley Bank, Georgetown University, and Prediculous. And Taylor McLemore of Prediculous has also put in an incredible amount of work on this event on a volunteer basis.
Finally – thank you, thank you, thank you to all the mentors helping out next week:
Aneesh Chopra, Former US Chief Technology Officer
Donna Harris, Startup America
David Cohen, TechStars
Jared Polis, TechStars
Jason Seats, TechStars
Kwasi Asare, Moodlerooms
Nicole Glaros, TechStars
Al Doan, Missouri Star Quilt Co.
Allen Gannett, EmployInsight
Austin Evarts, GoChime
Brad Harrison, BHV
Brian DeWitt, SocialThing
Bobby Ocampo, Grotech
Charles Kelly, Silicon Valley Bank
Chris Ennis, Function Interactive
Chuck Cullen, Grotech
Chris Onan, Galvanize
David Mandell, Pivot Desk
David Sandrowitz, The Fort
Don Rainey, Grotech
Edward Barrientos, Brazen Careerist
Eric Koester, Zaarly
Evan Morgan, Revolution Growth
George Solomon, George Washington University
Glen Hellman, Driven Forward
Hannibal Bray, Infraredx
James Chung, George Washington University
Jeff Reid, Georgetown
Jeremy Gocke, Fliptu.com
Jerry Johnson, RLJ Equity
Jim Booth, Orbotix
Jim Brinksma, Visible Arbitrage
John Casey, George Mason
Josh Emert, GoChime
Justin Fishkin, Local Motors
Katie Rae, TechStars
Katya Vasilaky, TroopSwap
Kelley Hilborn, SoftLayer
Larry Broughton, Broughton Advisory Group
Lawson DeVries, Grotech
Leslie Jump, Sawari Ventures
Mark Drapeau, Microsoft
Mark Spoto, Razor’s Edge Ventures
Matt Talbot, GoSpotCheck
Matt Thompson, TroopSwap
Michael Kelley, Arc Angel Fund
Michael Mayernick, Spinnakr
Nathan Day, SoftLayer
Nick Wichert, VETransfer
Nola N. Miyasaki, Oklahoma State University
Patrick Riley, Global Accelerator Network
Paul Berberian, Orbotix
Paul Ford, SoftLayer
Paul Laurence, Cooley
Phillip Dyer, Broughton Advisory Group
Porter Montgomery, Category One
Rami Essaid, Distil
Ray Jefferson, Leadership Consultant
Richard Moxley, Razor’s Edge Ventures
Rob Painter, Razor’s Edge Ventures
Sean Stone, Silicon Valley Bank
Shai Goldman, Silicon Valley Bank
Shaun Johnson, Boston Startup School
Smith Wood, Seneca Corporation
Timothy Ericson, Zagster
Tony Huynh, TroopSwap
Tuan Pham, Silicon Valley Bank
Vivek Malhotra, VMD Systems
Will Kern, TroopSwap
Zack Nies, Rally Software
TechStars Patriot Boot Camp is an intense three-day program that will educate and mentor Veterans and Service Members to innovate, build technology companies, and create jobs. TechStars hopes that participation in the Patriot Boot Camp will be the catalyst for Veterans and Service Members to kickstart a company, find co-founders, and advance as entrepreneurs. Veterans, spouses of Veterans, or companies comprised of 50% or more Veterans are encouraged to apply to the July event in D.C. and 75 qualified applications will be accepted.
The deadline to apply is June 24th, this Sunday at midnight Eastern time. Apply now!
If you have questions or want to help out as a mentor, drop TechStars a note.
The Microsoft Accelerator (Powered By TechStars) Is A Hit And It’s Expanding
The first cycle of The Microsoft Accelerator, powered by TechStars, is in its final run up to demo day. The first program has focused on Kinect applications and has some super teams, such as Gestsure (they control operating rooms with motion control) and Ubi (they turn any surface into a touch screen.)
Demo Day is in Seattle on June 28th. If you are an investor (angel or VC), send me an email and I’ll get you an invitation.
TechStars and Microsoft have been so pleased with the program that a second cycle of the Microsoft Accelerator in Seattle has been added focusing on cloud-based applications. The applications are open now through July 13. Each company gets $20k in funding, mentorship from top entrepreneurs, investors and Microsoft executives, $60K in Azure credit, office space, training and support, and demo day to pitch to investors, media, and industry influentials.
As you may know Microsoft has really made some awesome improvements to Windows Azure. Most notably it’s much more open source focused. Want to run Linux? No problem. Python? No problem as Microsoft has embraced open source with this update of Windows Azure. While you need not be using Azure to apply to the Microsoft Accelerator, if you’re playing in the Microsoft ecosystem at all I’d really encourage you to take a look at the latest news about Windows Azure.
If you are an entrepreneur working on something cloud computing related, especially in the Microsoft ecosystem, consider applying to the Microsoft Accelerator today.
I love software wrapped in plastic. So it warmed my heart when I heard that Cyril Ebersweiler and my long time friend Sean O’Sullivan were starting an accelerator in Shenzhen, China called HAXLR8R as part of their Chinaccelerator initiative, both which are part of the Global Accelerator Network.
Following is a guest post from Cyril about the program along with a link to their Demo Day event in San Francisco on June 18th.
Three months ago, what seemed to be a crazy idea became reality: HAXLR8R gathered 9 startups from the US, Europe and Asia in the electronics mecca – Shenzhen, helping entrepreneurs to kickstart their ventures based on physical devices.
Coming from various background (hackers, makers, academics, business) this new breed of pioneers took advantage of the convergence of several factors which have been playing in their favor across the last few years. To name a few: the ever growing computing power (and corollaries in the fields of vision, audio, and sensors), the cost drop for parts and prototyping, the higher quality in mass manufacturing, the increasing effectiveness of the logistics involved as well as the other benefits coming from the digital space such as crowdfunding (e.g. Kickstarter), communities (e.g. Thingiverse), collaboration (e.g. Upverter) and the natural viral effects of the social web. This fostered a new wave of entrepreneurs building products which were unthinkable a few years back.
But building and selling a complete hardware product is still hard. Really hard. The team needs to be composed of superstars who have a remarkable sense of market timing and vision in terms of product. The first iteration of a hardware product and its final version will have few in common, as new constrains (quality, costs, and time) are discovered by just witnessing the magic of ‘how it’s made’. Getting things done in China ensures that those needs are taken care of very early in the process, while providing a relative peace of mind to entrepreneurs after leaving the country as they now have a perfect understanding of their product but also a long-lasting relationships with their local partner.
The remaining traps to avoid are in the fields of logistics, distribution, financing and fundraising, among others. The HAXLR8R program aims at answering those very practical questions which – for the most part – have been dealt with hundreds of times by previous entrepreneurs, now turned into mentors. And they were many to come across the HAXLR8R office: the founders of MakerBot, Pebble and Sphero, an entire team from IDEO, Bunnie Huang and plenty others who have nurtured a group of people working in robotics, toys, connected devices, IOT, energy, appliances, self-quantified and medical.
The HAXLR8R team will hit San Francisco on June 18th for their Demo Day, which will be hosted at Autodesk on Embarcadero. If you are an investor and interested in witnessing a new leap in technology, I’d suggest you take a look and drop an e-mail to makeit [at] haxlr8r.com in order to register.
It dawned on me last night that as of tomorrow TechStars will have three programs running at same time with about 40 companies actively engaged in programs in Boston, New York, and San Antonio. Last week David Cohen, the co-founder and CEO of TechStars announced that he had raised a new $28 million seed fund called Bullet Time Ventures II. The final companies are being selected for The Kinect Accelerator. The TechStars Boulder applications for this summer’s program close on Friday March 16th.
Not including the active programs, 126 companies have gone through TechStars since we ran our first program in Boulder in the Summer of 2007. We publish all of the results – as of now 110 are still active, 8 have been acquired, and 8 have failed. 772 people are employed by these companies. The percentage of companies getting funded at the end of a class has increased from 70% in 2007 to 90%. When we started, companies received $12,000 to $18,000 depending on number of founders. Today, they receive that, plus $100,000 in the form of a convertible note.
I’m most proud of the mentor network that has been created, the engagement from TechStars alumni in new companies, and the community involvement of local angels and VC investors in each geography where the programs occur. Whenever I visit one of the programs, the energy level is off the charts, whether it’s the first day or the 73rd day of the program.
In 2007, the idea of an accelerator was a new concept. Today it’s mainstream, as evidenced by the proliferation of accelerators around the goal and exemplified by the Global Accelerator Network.
The number of things in play at TechStars in 2012 is awesome. I’m incredibly proud of the entire team for what they’ve created, and where they are going with it.
If you are an entrepreneur, don’t miss out. Apply for TechStars Boulder now. And be part of the awesomeness being created in 2012 by TechStars.
Now that it’s winter time, I’m spending more time on my treadmill. While I run naked when I’m outside (no headphones, no music), I find running on a treadmill to be mindnumbingly dull. Pluck my eyeballs out, swallow them, then poke my fingers in my ears and pull out my cochlea, and then punch myself over and over again in the face until FAKEGRIMLOCK comes and rescues me from myself kind of dull.
My TV show this winter is Entourage. Amy won’t watch it, so I’m watching it on my iPad while running. I finished Season 1 yesterday and am loving it. Today, when I went downstairs to pound out 70 boring, excruciating, nose hair pulling, sweat all over my iPad minutes, I realized I had not yet downloaded Season 2. And, when I looked in my video folder on my iPad, I realized I didn’t have anything in it I hadn’t seen since Pan Am, which I’d started downloading on my laptop, somehow hadn’t synced over WiFi (grrrrrr).
So – I started running. My iPad was in front of me and I started poking around. I noticed the Shelby.tv app. The Shelby team was one of my favorites from the first TechStars NY program. I ran with Reece Pacheco every time I was in NY (he was always very kind to me), loved their spirt, and thought they did a great job of pivoting away from something they were interested in, but not in love with, to something they were super passionate about. While Shelby.tv isn’t the kind of thing we invest in, several of my good friends in the VC world do and I was psyched when Rich Levandov from Avalon led their round.
I hadn’t played with Shelby.tv for a while since I don’t ever just browse video on my iPad. I clicked the Shelby.tv icon. 65 minutes later my run was over and I was still watching amazing video. Shelby.tv picks up any video link in your Twitter stream or on your Facebook news feed. It then just plays them in reverse chron order. You can interact with the individual videos, skip them, tweet or like them, or just do what I did and watch them. There was only one in the stream of about 15 that I watched that I wasn’t interested in and one I had already seen. The rest were fascinating, both in what I saw, what people where curating for me, and how quickly they made the time pass on the treadmill.
Reece et. al. – nice job. I think you just solved my “I’m bored, on my treadmill, and shit I forgot to download the latest season of that thing” problem.
As someone obsessed with human computer interaction, the Kinect is an important piece of hardware. Of all the various things Microsoft is working on these days, I find it the most interesting. I’ve seen some awesome things done with it by my friends at Oblong and Organic Motion and saw a ton of neat hacks at last year’s Blur Conference.
Recently, Microsoft announced the Kinect Accelerator, a program created to incubate startups building the next generation of innovative experiences for the Kinect. Microsoft’s Kinect Accelerator is powered by TechStars and applications for the Kinect Accelerator are now being accepted through January 25, 2012. If accepted, each company will receive an equity investment of $20,000 in exchange for six percent of the company in common stock, which will be held by TechStars. While Microsoft is putting significant effort into the accelerator program, Microsoft will not retain intellectual property or equity in any of the participating companies.
From March to June 2012, the companies will co-locate in space provided by Microsoft in Seattle where they will be provisioned Xbox development kits, Kinect hardware, the Kinect for Windows SDK and space for testing and developing Kinect based applications. Microsoft BizSpark will also supply each of the companies with a full complement of Microsoft development tools and support.
The companies will interact with and have access to mentors during the course of the program including Microsoft executives, entrepreneurs, and investors. The goal is to help new startups develop both the technology around their Kinect experience as well as the business model so the resulting company can prosper as an independent entity after the program.
Some of the mentors, in addition to me, include:
- Jeff Powers, Founder, Occipital,
- Andrew Tschesnok, Founder, Organic Motion
- Manu Kumar, Investor, K-9 Ventures
- Eran Egozy, Founder and CTO Harmonix
- David Cohen, Founder/CEO, TechStars
- Eric Norlin, Organizer, Blur, Defrag, and Glue conferences
- Jason Mendelson, Managing Director, Foundry Group
Some of the Microsoft mentors include:
- Dan’l Lewin, Corporate VP, Strategic and Emerging Business Development
- Craig Eisler, General Manager, Kinect for Windows
- Phil Spencer, VP, Microsoft Games Studios
- Anoop Gupta, Distinguished Scientist, Microsoft Research
- Michael Mott, General Manager, Microsoft Games Studios
- Rick Martinez, Executive Producer, Microsoft Studios
- Dave Drach, Managing Director, Emerging Business Team
- Adam Isgreen, Creative Director, Microsoft Studios
- Jeff Matsushita, Executive Producer, Microsoft Studios,
- Rhys Dekle, Director, Business Development, Microsoft Studios
David Malcolm, a former Microsoft executive and current TechStars mentor, will be the Managing Director of the Kinect Accelerator. Since the program is powered by TechStars, it’ll follow the standard TechStars timeline finishing up with a demo day at the end of the program.
If you are an entrepreneur working on something related to Kinect, I can’t imagine a better place to spend three months of your life accelerating your business. Apply now.