TechStars NYC is the Harvard of accelerators. As the #1 startup accelerator in the world, it’s selection rate makes winning the lottery look like a walk in the park. But, in a way, getting accepted is like winning the lottery.
The accelerator, who has locations in Boston, Boulder, NYC, Seattle and San Antonio, invests $118K in each company, mentors the freshman startups for three intensive months, hooks the them up with some awesome perks, and gives them a chance to pitch their ideas to top venture capitalists and angel investors.
And, the average VC funding after graduation? A cool $1M. Sounds like an Ivy League startup school I’d like be graduating from.
So, what does the TechStars Spring 2012 attendance sheet look like? Out of the 13 companies selected from over 1,600 applicants, you may want to keep an eye on:
- Smallknot – (Jay Lee)-Invest in Your Neighborhood
- Wander – (Jeremy Fisher)- A Beautiful Way to Share and Experience the World
- 10Sheet – (Ian Crosby)- Reinventing the Bookkeeper
- Bondsy -(Diego Zambrano)-The Easiest Way to Put Things Back Into the World
- Classtivity – (Payal Kadakia)- Centralized Source for Recreational and Fitness Classes
- Marquee – (Katrina Brickner)- Rewiring the Way Content is Delivered on the Web
- Karma -(Robert Gaal)- Simple and Honest 4G Provider
- Lua -(Michael DeFranco)- Communication and Project Management for Mobile Workforces
- Poptip -(Kelsey Falter)- Socially Integrated Realtime Feedback
- Moveline -(Frederick Cook)- A Radically Different Way to Move
- Pickie -(Sonia Sahney Nagar)- Personalized Shopping Magazine
- Rewind.Me -(Craig Danuloff)- Unlocking The Value In Your Past
- ConditionOne -(Danfung Dennis)- Powerful Immersive Experiences
And, what about the shining stars from last year’s grad class?
Crowdtwist.com
Crowdtwist is a TechStars Senior that wants you to reward your customers for their engagement. All you have to do is:
- Incentivize
- Recognize
- Reward
Crowdtwist believes that if it can be measured, it can be rewarded. You’re your customer purchases, likes, checks-in, views content or shares, you can now calculate the value of those actions and reward the people who are driving your business and building your brand for their engagement, their social influence and how much they spend.
Do this, and Crowdtwist guarantees increases across critical measures of:
- Awareness
- Acquisition
- Retention
- Loyalty
- Advocacy
Onswipe.com
Organize your content on your touch web browsers and make it look all very pretty in just 3 minutes. Features include:
- The ability to bring in content from any CMS and social media accounts
- Highly customizable
- Designed for publishers of all sizes
Lore.com (formerly Coursekit)
Lore wants to make your course come alive and engage your students using simple and elegant tools. Each students gets a personal profile and are able to interact and share in your course through Lore.
Contently.com
Contently believes that quality is king, freelance is the future, and now anyone can be a publisher. So, they want to make sure quality writers are being connected to the right companies to produce content magic. Read the contently manifesto and be inspired.
ThinkNear.com
This is another one of those big-brother (I know exactly where you are, what you’re doing, and what you’re looking at) apps. But, if you’re trying to target mobile display ads to consumers in the most effective way, this will be very useful. ThinkNear has access to billions of mobile impressions and uses cutting-edge location technology to help you sell to consumers who are ready to buy.
The TechStars of Spring 2012 started on March 14th and will be presenting their companies on June 14th to an audience of 700+ VCs, angels and tech all-stars.
The roster of guest speakers is pretty impressive:
Only time will tell who will be voted “most successful” at the 10-year reunion. For now, I’m going to see who I need to bribe to be a part of the next grad class. I may just have a valedictorian idea up my sleeve.
Photo and Video Credits
TechStars.com / YouTube.com / Crowdtwist.com
Onswipe.com / Lore.com / Contently.com