In Boston, PayPal's Start Tank provides a space for the next generation of entrepreneurs to work alongside the PayPal team, as well as tap into the company's network of connections. Nineteenth Amendment, a local fashion startup that's gained traction as an e-commerce platform for up-and-coming designers, was accepted to use PayPal's Start Tank facilities here in Boston during the spring/summer 2014 term; in August of this year, the company landed Kayak's Paul English as an investor.
Now, Nineteenth Amendment is making new moves in New York City, where, as a fashion company, they already conduct plenty of business and have office space in Manhattan. This time, they'll be heading into the Friends of eBay NYC startup incubator as one of six of the accepted startups for the fall session. The company is the first-ever to be accepted into both Pay Pal's Start Tank and the Friends of eBay incubators in Boston and New York City, respectively.
Friends of eBay provides similar benefits to startups as the Start Tank but this time around, the team at Nineteenth Amendment will have access to eBay's network of entrepreneurs, business leaders and investors as they build out their product. The company will remain in the incubator for six months.
This news comes on the heels of a corporate shift: eBay, Inc. announced Tuesday morning that it would part ways with PayPal, which the company acquired in 2002. In 2015, the two will split into separately traded public companies in order to "give eBay and PayPal focused strategic flexibility and an ability to move quickly and decisively in this changing environment," as current eBay CEO John Donahoe told CNBC in an interview. It's not yet clear what the change will mean for eBay's and PayPal's incubators.
Earlier this year, Nineteenth Amendment made headlines as they also participated in New York Fashion Tech Lab's first-ever Demo Day, during which they demonstrated how they planned to improve the fashion industry using technology. The company's goal is to operate a temporary home for new designers to sell and test their items, helping them build up a revenue background before going to market. Nineteenth Amendment facilitates the manufacturing of the items, on demand, in the United States before they're sold and shipped to customers.
Image via Nineteenth Amendment
