Austin startup accelerator Sputnik ATX has whittled 300 applicants and 22 finalists down to six startups that will join its summer cohort -- its fourth since launching in 2017.
And all six startups are led by women or minority founders.
“We start this process by looking for the best companies with the greatest potential, and I am thrilled that this cohort ended up being either female or minority-led,” Oksana Malysheva, CEO and managing partner of Sputnik ATX, said in a statement.
They'll all be part of the three-month program, which includes mentoring, office space and $100,000 of seed funding. The program is limited to startups within 300 miles of Austin -- or those that were willing to relocate.
Here's a look at the startups, with descriptions provided by Sputnik ATX.
- Elite Sweets – Elite Sweets makes delicious, high quality donuts that are gluten-free, low carb, and baked with 15g of protein per donut. They offer a healthier alternative to traditional sweets. The mission of Elite Sweets is to promote an active and healthy lifestyle while redefining the way people think about sweets.
- Datum – Datum is a mobile advertising platform that allows small businesses to micro target messaging to the audiences they’re trying to serve. Their proprietary mobile data warehouse aggregates billions of data points into easily understood and defined audiences to solve real world communication and transportation challenges.
- OpenTeams - OpenTeams connects open source developers and projects with organizations that use that code in everyday life. Currently, 96 percent of proprietary apps contain open source components, which creates a management and maintenance time bomb. Open Teams fixes this problem by making it easy for organizations to connect and transact with the people that write and lead open source projects. Open source contributors showcase their contributions, get recognition and compensation for their work; organizations find and fund open source projects they depend on.
- Signum City - Signum City is a fantasy stock market gaming app designed to help every young adult beat his or her parents in stock market investing. The game allows users to play with fake money to win real prizes while gaining stock market know-how and strategies of accumulating wealth. Signum City is bringing financial literacy to future generations.
- Tradiies – TRADiiES is a B2B mobile marketplace, LinkedIn-style platform built for modern day beauty professionals. TRADiiES is the first professional beauty network. For beauty pros, it's a place to build a digital portfolio, apply to jobs and find hands-on education. For salon owners, it's a tool to post jobs, find quality candidates and manage their hiring process.
- Uconnect Esports – The competitive gaming, or esports, industry is the biggest thing you’ve never heard of, despite the fact that it has already gripped the attention of half a billion young adults around the world. The $1 billion industry is exploding at 26 percent YOY revenue growth, with brand sponsorships accounting for almost half of that growth. The Uconnect platform is the first to provide the infrastructure to allow brands to sponsor the previously unreachable massive ecosystem of esports communities.
The organization also added an entrepreneur in residence program that sits in on classes. That distinction goes to POP, a mobile software startup combating loneliness and isolation with real-time and scheduled meetups.
