Techstars Boston announced its newest cohort of startups Tuesday even as the accelerator program is enjoying a series of recent wins.
A dozen companies will take part in the Summer 2015 session, which runs through Sept. 1. Program executive director Semyon Dukach said in a blog post:
The companies in the class span across diverse spaces, including travel, mobile, edtech, enterprise software, SaaS, retail, 3-D printing, and food distribution tech. They are all trying to solve big problems, but many of them are also joining our program with substantial existing momentum.
Here's the list of participants for the Summer 2015 session (with descriptions from Techstars):
| AdmitHub optimizes the admissions process for students, counselors and colleges. @admithub | |
| doDOC automates regulatory documentation for the enterprise. | |
| GVMachines is a white-label grocery delivery service. @gvmachines | |
| SmackHigh is the place for teens to express themselves and be heard. @smackhighteam | |
| Hot offers last minute hotel bookings for global markets. @hot_app | |
| Cuseum is the museum engagement platform. @cuseum | |
| LovePop creates intricate paper art that pops. @lovepopcards | |
| Netra makes machine vision and deep learning for multi-camera video intelligence. @netraSystems | |
| Provender is a marketplace for growers and buyers of fresh food. @provender | |
| Shearwater keeps international students enrolled and engaged. @shearwaterintl | |
| ThriveHive offers guided marketing for small businesses. @thrive_hive | |
| Kwambio is a platform for creating unique, personalized products on 3D printers. @kwamb_io |
Participants that should be familiar to BostInno readers include ThriveHive (which raised funding in February), Cuseum (also raised funding in February), SmackHigh (which we covered in March) and LovePop (we covered in October).
Along with those local startups, companies in the new class have come from "as far away as Portugal, Spain, Ukraine, and Canada," Dukach said in the blog post.
"This year we have amplified our recruiting efforts by working more closely with mentors in our community to identify the most promising startups in the region," he said in the post. "We have also gone on a road show in Europe and the Middle East, and have been in touch with many of the most vibrant startup ecosystems globally."
Background
The participating startups get $118,000 in funding, mentorship and office space—in theory, everything they need to launch a legit company—in exchange for an equity stake of 7 percent to 10 percent.
It’s the ninth session for Techstars Boston, which debuted in 2009, and the second class under the direction of Dukach, a well-known local angel investor and entrepreneur. (The program’s previous session ended in November.)
The debut of the new accelerator session comes on the heels of one of the biggest bits of news yet for a Techstars Boston alum: a $50 million round for next-gen online pharmacy PillPack of Boston, a Techstars Boston 2013 grad, announced last week.
Other recent wins for Techstars Boston alums—and by extension, the program overall—have included a big Series D round for Localytics ($35 million) in March and the $100 million acquisition of GrabCAD last year.
Photo by Yoav Shapira, used via Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0).
