Comcast’s LIFT Labs accelerator is back again, with one Philadelphia-area company making the cut this year.
The Comcast NBCUniversal LIFT Labs Accelerator, powered by seed accelerator TechStars, is now in its fourth year. The 2021 cohort begins the 12-week program on Monday in a hybrid virtual and in-person format, either from Comcast’s offices in Philadelphia or in their own location.
Hundreds of startups applied, with many more international applications than past years, and 11 startups were chosen. Accepted companies get access to mentors from Comcast and Techstars' networks, guidance on refining their pitches and opportunities to network and fundraise.
This year’s class includes three New York companies, two from Paris, one from Los Angeles, one from Israel, one from London, one from Switzerland, and one from Sweden. Employee Cycle is the only Philadelphia startup chosen this year, compared to three local companies in 2020.
Employee Cycle is a human resources startup that takes HR data, analyzes it and presents it on a dashboard. The LIFT Labs/Techstars program isn’t the company’s first accelerator. It was part of this year’s Bucks Built Startup Fund, a startup accelerator for companies looking to build their presence in Bucks County.
The LIFT Labs accelerator helps lend credibility to startups like Employee Cycle, as well as helping startups to network, fundraise and get access to mentors, investors and potential customers, Co-founder and CEO Bruce Marable said. Partnering with Comcast during the accelerator could also help Employee Cycle build its capabilities to take on enterprise customers, as it focuses on small and medium businesses now, he said.
Marable likened the accelerator to working out in a gym — while one can work out hard on their own, it’s being with other people that pushes him further.
“Being around other startups at the same stage as you, everybody’s super focused, everybody's looking to be the biggest company in their space,” Marable said. “It's contagious, and it's this good competitive thing where we’re not competing for the same resources. We're all pushing each other to be better.”
Selected companies were chosen because of their focus on four core areas: connected living, next generation entertainment, future of work and personalized experiences. Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA) determined those focus areas by looking internally and asking sector leaders what they’re looking for and where innovation should happen, said Danielle Cohn, Comcast’s vice president of startup engagement.
“It's really our business leaders helping us to determine what are the areas of focus for the year and what are the gaps in our product roadmap for the edge types of technology that could help transform or make our products and services even more innovative for our customers and employees,” Cohn said.
More than one-third of the 11 startups are led by at least one founder who self-identifies as a person of color or racial/ethnic minority in their home country, and more than one-third of the selected companies are led by a woman or gender diverse founder, Comcast said.
Here is the 2021 class of Comcast NBCUniversal LIFT Labs Accelerator:
Employee Cycle - Philadelphia
Employee Cycle automates the HR reporting and analytics process by transforming disconnected employee data from multiple HR systems into one centralized, real-time, actionable and shareable HR dashboard.
Hollo - Paris, France
Hollo is an AI enabled talent experience platform that helps HR teams pre-qualify candidates for roles and helps resurface past applicants for future jobs that are a better match while making the communication more efficient.
HOLOFIT - Zurich
Holodia’s platform HOLOFIT is an immersive, hardware agnostic, connected FitTech platform that merges gaming and fitness leading to increased user engagement and physical activity.
HUSSLUP - Los Angeles
HUSSLUP is a networked marketplace of individuals in the creative industry making discovery easier via personal profiles, verified credits and encrypted creative samples to increase diverse hiring.
LootLocker - Stockholm
LootLocker is a game backend-as-a-service that unlocks cross-platform services for development teams.
Nagish - New York
Nagish’s mobile app allows people who are deaf or hard of hearing to communicate via phone by converting speech-to-text and text-to-speech.
Paco - New York
Paco is an intelligent workflow assistant that helps teams eliminate distractions, capture to-dos and tasks from multiple communication channels allowing employees to focus on their work.
Peek - London
Peek is a social reading app that creates a multiplayer reading experience, allowing users to purchase books, discuss in text, engage with authors, and interact with other readers in real time.
Sidewalk - New York
Sidewalk connects communities of business operators to give them access to modern property and liability insurance at a significantly lower cost than other insurance providers.
Think Confluent - Paris
Think Confluent is an AI assistant that analyzes free form text feedback from employees to provide individualized action plans for employees and actionable insights for managers to increase team satisfaction.
Zoog - Tel Aviv
Zoog is an asynchronous communication platform that allows users to take any children's book and bring it to life using modern augmented reality, machine learning and advanced animation capabilities.
