Over the past couple of months, Raiz Capital’s first accelerator cohort has been toiling away out of the spotlight. Most accelerators typically announce cohorts when the program kicks off. But Greg Raiz waited until his cohort had finished the program and completed what he calls “anti-demo days” before announcing the startups. That decision, like other choices Raiz made when creating and running his accelerator, was based on data.
Raiz decided to take a new approach to supporting startups after stepping down as managing director of Techstars Boston last year. Raiz then launched his own venture fund, Raiz Capital, and an accelerator called XLR8.
Seven companies were selected for the first cohort. Raiz said the startups were chosen based on an AI algorithm his team built that predicts founder success based on a dataset of successful — and not successful — exits. Raiz said he gathered data from about 80 founders to determine attributes that made them more successful. Raiz says it's still early to know if this approach is working, but one thing he highlighted was the importance of timing. That's why XLR8 looked for startups that were applying artificial intelligence to different industries in unique ways.
The accelerator’s programming component focused on building successful culture, cash flow and capital for startups.
Data also led Raiz to take a different approach to demo days.
“Demo days are kind of like the hallmark of many accelerator programs. And when I started to look at the data, the effectiveness of demo days is somewhat questionable,” Raiz said.
Founders are often looking to raise funding once an accelerator ends, which is also when demo days are typically held. But raising a round based on conversations at a demo day can take months, Raiz said. So XLR8 held its “anti-demo days” in the middle of the program. The startups went on a tour through Boston, New York and San Francisco and had social events and private investor events in each city.
Raiz said they also waited to announce the XLR8 cohort so investors wouldn’t reach out before the companies felt ready. Now, as XLR8 wraps up, Raiz is announcing the startups in its first class. The below bios were provided by Raiz Capital:
- AIS: Centralized management of security cameras giving building owners security and peace of mind in one place, powered by AI.
- Groops: Helping virtual teams across the globe deepen connection so they feel and perform their best.
- Homwel: Streamlining the messy real estate transaction and improving the way people buy and sell homes.
- Kible: AI is fundamentally changing the way we all interact with computers, but modern web browsers really haven’t kept up - we are building the AI-first modern browser of tomorrow.
- Knomee: Building the first financial identity. Helping consumers unearth their own financial story & aspirations, bridging the personalization gap for financial services so they can offer tailored solutions based on a person’s assets, values, and goals.
- Lineup: Using AI to research & prioritize leads, saving time and keeping salespeople focused on the leads that matter.
- Tangify: Enabling companies to generate patents using AI to fully understand IP.
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