TinySeed, an accelerator for self-funded software startups, recently selected just over a dozen companies to participate in its second annual program.
"We were blown away by the sheer number and quality of the applications we received for TinySeed's second batch," the accelerator said in a statement.
TinySeed launched last year and was created by local serial entrepreneur Rob Walling. Walling has built and exited several successful SaaS startups with minimal outside funding. Most recently, he sold his marketing startup Drip to Leadpages in 2016.
Like many other accelerators, TinySeed takes a small amount of equity in a company in exchange for mentorship and funding. In this case, participating companies receive between $120,000 to $160,000, depending on the size of their team.
But TinySeed also shakes up the standard accelerator format in several ways. Most notably, it goes for one year (rather than the typical three months), and the participating companies aren’t required to relocate for the duration of the accelerator. TinySeed just asks that they are located somewhere in the Western Hemisphere.
Because TinySeed is built for bootstrappers, the accelerator helps companies by focusing on growth through revenue rather than raising venture capital.
“When it comes to venture capital, you need to know what you’re getting into,” Walling previously told Minne Inno. “The media glorifies raising funding so much that it seems like the end goal to some people. But it’s not. It’s the start of the journey. And it only gets more difficult from there.”
Here are the 13 companies participating in this year's accelerator, with descriptions provided by TinySeed:
BlueRithm, founded by Andrew Martin, helps building and property engineers streamline their mission-critical and commercial commissioning projects.
BuilderPrime, founded by Jonathan Weinberg, helps home improvement and solar contractors manage and grow their business with industry-specific CRM and Production Management software.
CodeSubmit, founded by Dominic Phillips and Tracy Schmorleitz, is a code assessment platform providing companies with real engineering tasks for their candidates instead of brain teasers or puzzles.
DealForma, founded by Chris Dokomajilar, is a biotech deals database that helps healthcare business developers and investors make better informed strategic decisions with deep industry research and analytics.
DocSketch, founded by Ruben Gamez, is a free electronic signature tool for legally binding esignatures and faster document signing.
Reftab, founded by Michael Caslowitz and Robert Hoyt, helps schools and businesses track assets such as laptops, camera gear, cables, tools, and any other equipment a company owns.
Scatterspoke, founded by Colleen Johnson and John Samuelson, is a tool for Agile development teams to run smarter retrospectives based on data, feedback and analytics.
ScrapingBee, founded by Pierre de Wulf and Kevin Sahin, is a web scraping API that handles proxies and Javascript rendering for end-users.
ScoutDNS, founded by Tim Adams, is content filtering and malware protection that operates at the DNS layer.
SeekWell, founded by Michael Ritchie and Thabo Fisher, adds SQL to the apps your team already uses including Google Sheets, Slack, and email.
SegMetrics, founded by Keith Perhac, helps marketers discover insights to optimize their campaigns through advanced cohort reporting and lead source attribution.
SquadCast, founded by Zach Moreno and Rock Felder, helps podcasters connect with co-hosts or guests to record studio-quality audio inside a web browser.
Userlist, founded by Jane Portman and Benedikt Deicke, is a tool that sends behavior-based campaigns (email and in-app messages) to your SaaS users.
