There’s no rest for the folks at New York City’s Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator (ERA). After graduating its most recent class at the end of May, the firm is today announcing the next round of companies for its Summer 2013 class.

The ten companies were chosen from more than 1,200 applicants — the most competitive class ERA has had so far. This is the fifth class for ERA after kicking off its accelerator program two years ago, and it includes some new territory for the firm, like education technology, as well companies focusing on such New York mainstays as ad technology and retail.

“We always try to look around and see what other industries are relevant for New York … ed-tech is one,” said ERA managing director Jonathan Axelrod in an interview.

As part of the accelerator program, the startups will receive a $40,000 investment from ERA (with potential for follow-on), co-working space at the firm’s spiffy new office, legal advice, and access to a network of more than 200 NYC  technology mentors.

After covering ERA’s graduates for a while now, I’ve been consistently struck by the level of quality from its graduates. The firm doesn’t have the prestige of TechStars or 500 Startups, but for the most parts I’ve always found its accelerator companies more interesting — like MxHero’s attempt to save us from e-mail hell, TheSquareFoot’s play to revamp commercial real estate, and Trendalytics’ use of big data for retailer trends.

“We actively avoid things we see as ‘me too’ clones,” Axelrod said, “We’re less interested in being play No. 4 in a space.” He also notes that ERA isn’t afraid of accepting enterprise-focused companies, even if they don’t seem as sexy up-front as a new mobile app.

Here are the companies taking part in ERA’s Summer 2013 class:

Admitted.ly: A college discovery platform that matches students with universities based on personality and psychometric tests. It shows students their chances of admission through personalized “Admittability Scores” and provides customized recommendations for improvement based on interests, location, budget, and goals.

Agolo: Makes Twitter a powerful, personalized communication service, detecting questions and providing answers derived from what friends and followers tweet and follow. Agolo gives Twitter users a new way to quickly get the info they want through the opinions of the people they care about.

ClosetDash: is the place to shop and swap the fashions women love. It takes the consignment model to the a new level by letting shoppers swap their clothes for credit toward merchandise in ClosetDash’s stylish inventory, making the experience easy, fun, green—and affordable.

Gigzolo: An online marketplace for identifying and booking musicians, photographers and live entertainment for events. Users interact directly with artists through text or video chat, and easily compare pricing, videos and reviews.

Machinio: A search engine for buying and selling new and used industrial equipment and machinery. It is the most comprehensive marketplace of its kind, currently delivering more than half a million listings via its unique platform.

Metropolist: Helps its community of users find places they will love through advice from friends and others sharing their tastes. Members find places to go, store favorite destinations, and then recommend to friends—all from Metropolist. It makes social recommendations easy and useful.

Nutmeg Education: Gives teachers a better way to build tests, quizzes, worksheets and other student assessments through a crowd-sourced question bank. It uses the resulting data to connect students with free online resources to deepen their subject expertise and improve performance.

Piiku: Provides a new alternative in video advertising, allowing users to earn and redeem digital currency by watching video ads on their own time in exchange for one-click access to content. It reduces friction for users to experience content while increasing monetization options for publishers and brands.

Rockerbox: simplifies product discovery for consumers with a mobile-first experience and machine learning technology that adapts to each buyer’s tastes. Rockerbox transforms mobile product browsing into a simple, fun and social experience.

Tapactive: Makes it easy and convenient to find and book private workout instructors based on the client’s schedule, goals and personality. Offices, apartments, parks— virtually any other space large or small, can become a Tapactive fitness studio.

Photo: Devindra Hardawar/VentureBeat

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

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TechStars Chicago announced its summer 2013 class of startups, breaking in the popular accelerator’s new Windy City branch.

Ten companies were chosen from over 900 applicants, more than twice the number of submissions the incubator received last year operating as Excelerate Labs.

In February, Excelerate Labs joined TechStars, merging along with its Midwest alumni and mentor networks to become TechStars Chicago. It is headed by managing director Troy Henikoff, founder of SurePayroll, along with OkCupid founder Sam Yagan, Nick Rosa from Sandbox Industries, and Adam Koopersmith of New World Ventures.

“Getting more [than] twice as many applications as we had last year is a clear signal that this program is continuing to earn respect of entrepreneurs everywhere and that Chicago is becoming a leading destination for developing technology companies,” Henikoff said in a blog post.

The TechStars Chicago summer program will begin May 28, ending with a demo day for future investors Aug. 28.

Check out TechStars Chicago’s inaugural 10 startup companies below:

• CaptureProof: A secure photo and video sharing platform for doctors and their patients.
• HIPOM: Cloud-based parental controls for home Internet access.
• Nexercise: A mobile fitness app the motivates through friendly social competition and earning rewards.
• Pathful: Web analytics that automatically captures every interaction with every element on a website to understand visitor behavior.
• Peoplematics: A cloud-based data sharing and search platform.
• Project Fixup: Online matchmaking service that pairs people for one-on-one dates.
• SimpleRelevance: An analytics-driven email marketing platform.
• SocialCrunch: Marketing data based on social media to help brands and agencies target their audience.
• Sqord, Inc.: A kids fitness and activity program using a wristwatch-like armband to track activity.
• TradingView: A community for investors and traders to discuss and share ideas.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

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Venture capitalist confidence is up for the third straight quarter, even though recent returns haven’t been great, and some venture funds are getting squeezed out at the money-raising phase.

And, while founders are seeing evidence of an A-round crunch, angels and accelerators are picking up the slack.

Mark Cannice, professor of entrepreneurship and innovate at the University of San Francisco, recently completed his 37th consecutive survey of Silicon Valley venture capitalist confidence. And VC confidence is up for each of the last three quarters, hitting 3.73 on a 5-point scale.

This quarter, even the depressed exit market for venture-backed firms typified by Zynga and Groupon was not enough to dampen VCs’ increasingly rose-tinted view of the future.

I talked to Cannice this morning.

VentureBeat: VC confidence is up. Why?

Cannice: It runs a little bit counter to some of the quantitative numbers that have come out recently, however, there’s confidence in the future over the 6-18 months.

Part of the reason is that VCs tend to have a longer-term horizon, they look further down the road, so even though current measures of performance for Q1 aren’t that good, it looks like some of the pressures on the VC model will ease somewhat, and acquisitions from corporations are likely to pick up.

VentureBeat: Which Q1 measures aren’t good?

Cannice: The national VC association measures each quarter for IPOs and fundraising, and they found that for fundraising the amount raised is not that different from a year ago, but the number of funds is down.

What that points to is a concentration in funds which corresponds to a lot of funds closing up over the last year or so.

In addition, acquisitions and IPOs of venture-backed firms and capital raised is down significantly over the last year.

VentureBeat: Which Q1 measures aren’t good?

Cannice: Particularly in life-sciences … some of the regulatory hurdles have tightened up over the last few years. That extends the time for approval, and extends the time for medical device and life science companies to appear to be good investments. And, of course, it requires more money.

When you change the structure … then the finance and metrics may not work. As a result, most of the funds are not able to perform as well; therefore the LP investors are started to draw the purse strings tighter.

The long-term effect is less private capital available for some life science related new ventures, and this will have an impact on the level of innovation in life-sciences.

In clean-tech … some of the headlines like Solyndra have had a negative impact.

But some of the lower venture captial requirement industries like software have been more effective.

VentureBeat: We’ve been hearing in the last few months about an A-round crunch. What’s going on?

Cannice: There’s a few things at work here.

Over the last few years the overall return on funds hasn’t been great. So while there’s more money going into venture capital, it’s tending to concentrate into fewer, name-brand funds.

But that requires some of those funds to make larger investment than if they were smaller, so some of the dynamics are working to necessitate larger investments … which tends to squeeze out some of the earlier, lower capital needs business.

Which has opened up a opportunity for smaller, angel-type funds and accelerators to replace them – angel groups are filling the hole.

VentureBeat: VC confidence has been boomeranging around the last few years. Why?

Cannice: There’s a clear correlation with the macro-economic environment, which has boomeranged too.

And there’s also — from a government point of view — the oversight of the industry is not necessarily as popular as it could be.  When there’s external influences that has a negative impact on any part of the VC business model, that tends to find its way into the confidence levels.

VentureBeat: What’s the take-away for founders and entrepreneurs?

Cannice: What I’ve seen really consistently is while there’s waves of positive and negative sentiment related to macro-economic factors, throughout all that, I’ve always seen confidence in both venture capitalists and entrepreneurs.

That’s never wavered.

And that’s the hope for the future, that Silicon Valley continues to attract many of the best and brightest of the entrepreneurs around the world.

photo credit: dariusmonsef via photopin cc

TechStars NYC just announced its latest class of startups, and it seems to be the most diverse collection of companies we’ve seen for the popular accelerator.

The group of 11 startups was chosen from almost 1,700 applicants, and it includes companies focusing on social outreach for religious communities, collecting customer data for stores, and bringing pet owners together. Eugene Chung, the new managing director for TechStars NYC (replacing David Tisch, who left the role last year) noted that the acceptance rate for this class was just 0.6 percent.

Chung will be co-managing the spring class with TechStars’ Nicole Glaros, who served as interim managing director for TechStars NYC since Tisch’s departure.

“More than ever, our applicant pool reflects the global reach of TechStars and the infusion of technology in the cultural zeitgeist of societies around the world,” Chung wrote in a blog post. “The movie The Social Network has become the Wall Street of our generation. This is true not just for America but for the world at large. Some of the brightest minds of our era are choosing to become entrepreneurs.”

Check out the TechStars NYC spring 2013 companies below:

• AdYapper: Transparency and analytics to cut wasted ad spend.
• Dash Labs: Connected car platform.
• FaithStreet: Social outreach platform for faith communities.
• Jukely: 2-tap concert concierge.
• Klooff: Uniting pet lovers around the world.
• Placemeter: Smart in-store sensors capturing customer data.
• Plated: Redefining the way we eat.
• Sketchfab: Publish, share, and embed interactive 3D models.
• TriggerMail: Intelligent ecommerce emails.
• Validation Board: Quantifying innovation and testing ideas for enterprises.
• weeSpring: Community for new parents built around the people they trust most.

Photo: Devindra Hardawar/VentureBeat

NEW YORK CITY — Have an adult-themed startup idea? Cindy Gallop, the outspoken founder of Make Love Not Porn, wants your number.

“I would like to start the Y Combinator for porn,” Gallop said this morning at the Start conference in New York City. She noted “there is nobody in the world to mentor” startups related to the adult industry.

Given her difficult experience funding Make Love Not Porn — a process that took around two years — she wants to lend a hand to companies that dare tread into adult entertainment. The announcement came during a panel on hype around startups, moderated by TechCrunch’s Alexia Tsotsis and David Tisch, co-founder of TechStars NYC.

“The people whose brilliant brains are in this room have no interest in this [porn-related startups],” Gallop said, while Tisch looked on with a “get me the heck out of here” expression.

The idea seemed more pie-in-the-sky for Gallop, who has been described as “one of New York’s boldest technocultural ringleaders” by Vice. She’s still busy building up Make Love Not Porn, a site dedicated to promoting more realistic portrayals of adult entertainment, so her Y Combinator-esque ambitions are likely a long way off.

Given how squeamish traditional investors are around anything porn-related, the door is certainly wide open for an accelerator that caters to risque startups.

July 9-10, 2013
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Ed-tech entrepreneurs will be spoiled for choice when it comes to picking an accelerator or incubator program.

Education’s old guard Kaplan and Pearson unveiled their new startup programs in a bid to stay relevant. This immediately led to commentators questioning whether these companies are too “corporate” to guide startups in the right direction.

As GigaOm points out, a deluge of new ed-tech accelerators have launched in recent weeks, including Boston’s LearnLaunchX and New York’s Socratic Labs (check out EdSurge’s interactive map of ed-tech startups here). Last year, there was only one: Imagine K-12.

Pearson is channeling behemoths like SAP and Microsoft with their loyalty building startup initiatives. The company won’t take any equity, but the program’s participants will have access to product experts and tools, the opportunity to present at a demo day, and a $10,000 travel stipend.

Meanwhile, Kaplan’s accelerator follows the usual model. The test prep giant is teaming up with TechStars (which is providing $20,000 in funding to each of the founding teams in exchange for equity), and entrepreneurs will spend three months intensively working in New York City with mentors from a lineup that includes Kaplan CEO Andy Rosen, Treehouse CEO Ryan Carson, and Washington Post chairman Don Graham.

For companies like Kaplan and Pearson, this is an opportunity to be part of the future of education-technology, whether it’s developer tools, online learning initiatives, or brain training games.

“Teams aren’t limited to traditional classroom education nor K-12,” TechStars’ CEO David Cohen said in a blog post. “We’re looking for teams that are thinking outside of the box on a big scale.”

However, Dan Carroll, cofounder of ed-tech startup Clever, said he’s seen plenty of ed-tech companies “fizzle out” in recent years because they didn’t communicate well with teachers and schools.

“If education-specific accelerators follow in the path of Imagine K-12 and do a great job connecting startups with savvy pilot schools and teachers, they can add a ton of value,” said Carroll, a former teacher and alumni of elite accelerator Y Combinator. He suggests that Pearson and Kaplan use their “district sales expertise” to benefit the startup ecosystem.

At the very least, these accelerators will generate a good deal of hype around the ed-tech space. But commentators remain unconvinced that it will be generate a slew of high-quality startups led by experienced entrepreneurs. It’s worth noting that these accelerators haven’t invited teachers to come on board in any official capacity.

Faculty associate at Berkman Center for Internet and Society professor Rey Junco made the case that ed-tech founders rarely consult educators when they are designing their products for classrooms. He remarked in a recent post on VentureBeat about the failings of ed-tech startups — many of them venture-backed:

“Startups in other fields don’t behave this way. Imagine a genomics startup that didn’t talk to medical researchers and didn’t base their products on research in the biotech field. Such a company would never exist, let alone be funded by a venture capital firm.”

Likewise ed-tech writer Audrey Watters has already expressed distaste about the new crop of ed-tech accelerator programs.

Kaplan and Pearson incubating edu startups. Gross.

— Audrey Watters (@audreywatters) February 20, 2013

So what are your thoughts? Will these lead to a flooded market of cash flush, poor-quality startups? Or are these new accelerator programs a positive development? Leave a comment below.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

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The Mediterranean is a land filled with sparking blue seas, rolling olive and grape fields, and ancient ruins. It is not, however, a land filled with successful startups.

Mind the Bridge formed a new seed fund to bring startups from Mediterranean countries to Silicon Valley. The money will support entrepreneurs from distressed economies, focusing on Spain, Italy, Greece, Portugal, the Balkans, Lebanon, and Turkey, as they establish headquarters in the U.S.

Marco Marinucci founded Mind the Bridge in 2007 as a side project while he was working at Google. He first conceived it as a non-profit accelerator program dedicated to developing Italy’s startup ecosystem. The organization now encompasses a wider geographical scope and also includes a startup school. With this investment arm, Mind the Bridge is able to financially support its startups so they can succeed.

“There are thousands of talented, well educated engineers and potential entrepreneurs living in countries where starting a company is not a feasible option,” Marinucci said in an email interview. “For these people, finding a partner who can appreciate their value, deeply understand their issues, and function as an effective bridge to Silicon Valley is very hard.”

Mind the Bridge also provides strategic support, assisting international entrepreneurs as they secure visas, incorporate in the U.S., learn English, and seek out mentors. Marinucci advocates a “dual-company model,” whereby development stays in the home country but headquarters are in Silicon Valley where the market and the money is. He said this benefits both the countries of origin and the startup scene here, which can benefit from an influx of skilled workers.

The three-month accelerator program will run twice a year and is expected to make 12 to 15 seed investments a year of between $40,000 and $100,000. Investors in the fund include Marinucci himself, CEO of Enel Green Power Franceso Starace, president of the Inter Milan Soccer Club Massimo Moratti, and Fedele Confalonieri, chairman of the Mediaset Group.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

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Kansas City most recently attracted attention from the startup community because of the test of superfast Google Fiber, but the just-announced startup accelerator SparkLabKC could help solidify the Midwestern city as a genuine startup hub.

While San Francisco, New York, Boulder, Austin, and several other cities around the country are known for their statup scenes, Kansas City hasn’t attracted that reputation. But when Google announced its Fiber project, that mentality changed because the city could now be known as a place for tech. Some lucky startups, such as Leap2, LocalRuckus, and FormZapper, are already using Google Fiber for projects.

SparkLabKC will select 10 early-stage Internet-focused startups and provide them with the following benefits:

• Seed capital up to $18,000
  
• More than 80 mentors
• Free workspace
• Legal, accounting, financial, and human-resources advisory services
• A formal demo day for potential investors at the end of the program

The program is taking applications from Feb. 1 through March 31, and it starts May 29 at the SparkLabKC office, which is across the street from Union Station (pictured) in Kansas City, Mo. Over the course of 90 days, companies learn and develop their products. The demonstration day will be held Aug. 23.

Kevin Fryer, SparkLabKC’s managing director and Kansas City entrepreneur, thinks the program will help create a strong foundation for startups in the city.

“Our accelerator solves the two fundamental problems for early-stage startup companies — the experience gap and the capital gap,” Fryer said in a statement. “We provide a deep pool of mentors who are seasoned entrepreneurs as well as seed capital and access to investors. Startups that have been through this kind of program have a superior track record of generating new companies, new jobs and achieving a significant impact in their communities.”

Unfortunately, SparkLabKC’s building does not currently have access to Google Fiber, which is only available in select residential areas now. But a SparkLabKC spokesperson did confirm to VentureBeat that if Google Fiber becomes available to the program, it will consider adding it as a benefit.

SparkLabKC will join other organizations such as the Kauffman Foundation and the Helzberg Entrepreneurial Mentoring Program in Kansas City to help foster the city’s reputation as a place for startups. The Kauffman Foundation hosts the 1 Million Cups program, which is the biggest weekly startup-focused event in the city. 1 Million Cups is a one-hour event where entrepreneurs connect and pitch ideas to an audience of more than 100 people.

Kansas City, Missouri skyline via Sharon Day/Shutterstock

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

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International investors with an interest in Indian startups are heading en masse to GSF 2012 in Gurgaon this week. The two-day event – supported by Seedcamp and Dave McClure’s 500 Startups – will showcase the first batch of companies from GSF Accelerator, a new incubator in Bangalore, Mumbai, and Delhi.

GSF Accelerator’s seven-week programme launched in October 2012 and seems to be setting itself up as the equivalent to the US’s TechStars or Europe’s Seedcamp. This year’s intake of 15 companies received $30,000 in seed funding each, and the top five presenting at this week’s conference will receive an extra $250,000 each.

That funding will come from the programme’s main backer, the Global Superangels Forum (GSF) – a network of 20 founders and investors in India. Dave McClure’s 500 Startups has signed up as the GSF Accelerator’s Silicon Valley partner (see our earlier story about 500 Startups’ new India focus); Seedcamp and Ruvento are doing the same in Europe and Russia.

Featured image: GSF India 2011, courtesy GSF India

A version of this story was originally published by VentureBeat’s Europe-based syndication partner, VentureVillage.

A while back we asked for your nominations for New York City’s most influential techie. Now we’re, ready to announce a list of finalists — one of whom we’ll name our top Silicon Alley tech influencer later this month.

The group of finalists all embody the energy and passion that we’re finding so remarkable about New York City’s tech community. We’re highlighting the VCs, entrepreneurs, and community leaders (many are an impressive combination of these categories) that have all made a significant impact in the city.

These individuals are especially important now as New York City is cementing itself as a technology hub. We’ve seen major companies rise up over the past few years, and a concerted effort from Mayor Bloomberg’s office to push digital initiatives. And in a few years, we’ll see additional technology schools from Cornell and NYU, which should generate a healthy supply of engineers to the startups that desperately need them (not to mention sparking another wave of entrepreneurs).

But it all starts with amazing people, like these.

Rachel Haot

Chief Digital Officer, City of New York

Formerly Rachel Sterne (before she married Livestream CEO Max Haot), Haot landed the newly created role of NYC’s Chief Digital Officer after proving her tech savvy as founder of the social news site GroundReport. She also ran her own independent digital strategy firm for several years, and has served as an adjunct professor at Columbia Business School (where she taught a course on social media entrepreneurship).

Haot has been a prominent voice in the New York City tech scene for several years now, and these days she’s a constant presence with Mayor Bloomberg whenever he makes a tech-related announcement (most recently at Boxee’s headquarters).  As chief digital officer, she put together a digital road map for NYC and is always working to promote digital initiatives that can help New Yorkers.

Hilary Mason

Chief Scientist, Bitly; Co-founder, HackNY
Bitly is more than just a link shortening service — mostly thanks to the work of one Hilary Mason. As chief data scientist, she dives into the company’s massive trove of data to come up with new products and features. It also wouldn’t be a stretch to call her New York City’s hacker queen. Mason co-founded HackNY, a non-profit that brings together student hackers with startups. And she’s also a member of the hacker collective NYCResistor.

Cyrus Massoumi

Co-founder & CEO, ZocDoc

On paper, ZocDoc sounds like a fairly simple idea: It offers an easy way for you to find and make doctor appointments online. But from that kernel of an idea, Massoumi has built a fast-growing service with more than 1.8 million monthly patients and around $95 million in funding. Now the company is also aiming to rid patients from the chore of filling out paper medical forms. ZocDoc proves that NYC isn’t just a home for media and social startups — even health technology can succeed here.

Nihal Mehta

Co-founder & CEO, LocalResponse
Now on his fifth startup, Mehta may just be the model CEO that every budding NYC entrepreneur aspires to be — and it’s not just because he spends an insane amount of time at work. Mehta’s also dedicated to helping out the community whenever possible: He made a New Year’s resolution to meet a new entrepreneur every day, and failing that he aims to teach classes at NYU, he told the Next Web. Together with some friends, he also co-founded ENIAC Ventures, a seed stage investment firm focusing on mobile.

David Tisch

Co-founder & Former Managing Director, TechStars NYC

When Bloomberg decided to air a reality TV series based on one of TechStars NYC’, it’s not hard to imagine that the energetic (and often foul-mouthed) Tisch was one of the main attractions for the network. Tisch spent two years leading TechStars NYC accelerator program, where helped 36 companies build their businesses. Of those, 34 are still active and have raised more than $50 million.

Tisch is also a managing partner at BoxGroup, an angel investment firm for early stage companies. He’s made investments in more than 40 NYC companies, including Fab, Boxee, and GrouMe. Even though he stepped down from his managing director role at TechStars NYC in August, Tisch remains involved with the group as an investor, mentor, and co-founder.

Nate Westheimer

Entrepreneur, Executive Director, New York Tech Meetup

If there’s one defining gathering for this city’s tech crowd, it’s the more than 28,000 member strong New York Tech Meetup. Since he took over organizing the event in 2008, Westheimer has helped grow its member base from 7,500 members. He’s helped to promote and rally NYC’s techies, while at the same time pursuing his own startups, including AnyClip and PictureLife. He also serves as an advisor to Flybridge Capital Partners.

Fred Wilson

Co-founder/Managing Partner, Union Square Ventures

A longtime venture capitalist and insightful blogger, Wilson has been the most vocal proponents of New York City as a hot spot for building technology companies. At Union Square Ventures he helped to land some notable investments in NYC startups like Tumblr, Foursquare, and Kickstarter (not to mention big West Coast investments in Twitter and Zynga).

He’s also been offering up free advice to entrepreneurs at his personal blog, A VC, since 2003. Though Wilson rarely takes the media spotlight himself, his enduring efforts to help and promote the NYC tech community have made him a legend. (Personal aside: his blog was one of the many forces that drove me to move to New York to cover tech.)

VentureBeat will be hosting a private launch party this week in New York City. Want to snag an invite? If so, follow us on Twitter and Facebook, then send a tweet to the @VentureBeat Twitter account with the hashtag #vblaunch telling us why you should be there. We’ll choose five winners on the morning of October 24.

Who deserves to be the top Silicon Alley influencer? Cast your vote in the poll below, and tell us more in the comments. (VentureBeat will pick the winner, but your votes will be taken into consideration.)

Top photo via Chris Isherwood/Flickr

World leaders gathered in Manhattan today for the United Nations General Assembly. As part of his trip, British Prime Minister David Cameron made a surprise visit to another kind of General Assembly, this one with a “.ly” in its domain name.

The young founders at the New York headquarters of General Assembly, a global network of technology entrepreneurs, were blown away when Cameron arrived and peppered them with questions about their startups.

Seth Bannon, a graduate of tech accelerator Y Combinator told me he spoke at length with the British Prime Minister. ”He was keen to talk about the success of New York’s tech ecosystem and to glean lessons he could apply over the pond,” said Bannon, founder of a startup called Amicus.

“He was particularly interested in the role institutions like General Assembly can play in catalyzing such success,” Bannon said. London’s own startup scene is booming, particularly in a hipster area in the city’s East End known as “Silicon Roundabout.”

As much as he wanted to hear about our individual companies, he was even more interested to learn about the community at General Assembly that supports us,” said Keya Dannenbaum, who had a few minutes of the British politician’s time to pitch her startup, ElectNext.

Cameron’s visit further underscored New York’s role as a technology hub. In recent years, the city has earned the nickname “Silicon Alley.”

Jonathan Hefter, founder and chief executive of Neverware, also had the opportunity to present the world leader with his elevator pitch. ”It was a pleasure being able to pitch the Prime Minister of England,” said Hefter. “He was very interested in hearing about our companies and seeing how we work.”

Top image courtesy of General Assembly

Certainly there are dozens of Bay Area tech accelerators, but few would exclusively fund startups that make the world a better place. Even fewer would handpick entrepreneurs with no concrete notion of how to make money, and train them to become social business leaders.

At the Hub Ventures’ demo day last week, seven companies pitched their ideas to Bay Area investors, with the intent to solve problems around healthcare, education, civic engagement, and the environment. This week, two of the startups — StreetOwl and CheckInOn.Me — received financing from Lakeland Ventures, and DIIME, a medical advice maker for Africa, is also under consideration.

It was refreshing to hear pitch ideas with more substance than a geo-located mobile app, and we’ll keep tabs on the graduating class. CheckInOn.Me is a particular favorite of mine — it’s a personal safety app for the iPhone that alerts friends and colleagues to check in when you’re in a vulnerable situation like a late night walk home or an online date.

Wes Selke, Hub Ventures

I caught up with Hub Ventures’ founder, Wes Selke, also an investor at Good Capital, to chat about the program, what they’re looking for from the next batch of entrepreneurs, and the future of this booming space known as social entrepreneurship.

To read more about mission investment and technology for good, click here.

VentureBeat: Wes, how would you sum up Hub Ventures’ vision?
Wes Selke: Hub Ventures is a startup accelerator that provides funding and support to high caliber entrepreneurs building scalable, for-profit solutions to global challenges ranging from poverty to environmental sustainability.

VB: How does it differ from your typical accelerator?
WS: We take the best of the tech accelerator model (seed funding, mentorship, community, perks, etc.) and apply it to impact startups to help these entrepreneurs build their companies better and faster. We’re filling a gap in the marketplace and catalyzing early stage impact startups that otherwise aren’t getting the funding and support they need to take their companies to the next level.

VB: Can you tell me more about the kind of companies that you’re looking for?
WS: What differentiates us from other accelerator programs is our focus on impact companies – to get into Hub Ventures, you have to be solving a big global challenge rather than a trivial “problem” such as a better way to share photos online.

During the program, we help our entrepreneurs design their companies for maximum impact from day one and help them fully integrate that impact into their business models, so as their companies scale, the impact scales also.

VB: Why did you choose these seven companies?
WS: The seven startups in the current class are the cream of the crop, and they have what we look for:  really strong teams, scalability (most are tech focused), and potential for big world-changing impact.  The teams are impressive and include a serial entrepreneur (Ofer Raz from StreetOwl) who built an industry-leading transportation company that is backed by Benchmark Capital and plenty of entrepreneurs with strong pedigrees – MIT, Berkeley, University of Michigan, and solid skill sets in engineering, computer science, business admin, international development, and mobile banking.

VB: How many applications did you receive? Is this a hot space for entrepreneurs?
WS: This year we received 209 applications for the seven slots in the program, up 300% over last year and only a 3% acceptance rate. So, needless to say, we had our pick!

VB: I enjoyed hearing the pitches and meeting the startups at Investor Day. How do you think it went?
WS: Investor Day was a huge success, with a packed room of over 200 investors and exciting pitches from our seven startups. Since the event, investor interest in our startups has been high – a few already have firm commitments, several have verbal commitments, and all have had numerous investor meetings since last week. I’m optimistic that they will all raise capital in the weeks and months ahead. Additionally, we’ve had good investor interest in our fund — we’re currently fundraising for our next cohort in 2013 — and from experienced folks who are interested in mentoring our next class.  All in all, it was a successful event.

Upon acceptance to the program, each company will receive mentorship, training, and $17,500 to $20,000 in convertible debt note financing. To learn more about the program, click here.

[Top image credit:  Robert Kneschke/Shutterstock]

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

After playing coy and dropping hints for weeks, Microsoft has finally announced its newest incubator, the Bing Fund.

The Bing Fund will invest $50,000-$100,000 in early-stage startups, through standard convertible notes (loans that convert to equity at Microsoft’s option). Additionally, Microsoft will provide its startups with four to eight months of advice, design and development help, discounted access to Microsoft’s Azure Data Marketplace APIs, and introductions to potential partners or customers. The startups will also have the option of using office space on Microsoft’s Bellevue, Wash. campus, in a special section nicknamed the “Bingcubator.”

“Our intent is to roll up our sleeves and help entrepreneurs take their early-stage prototypes to scalable products,” said Rahul Sood, the general manager of the Bing Fund, in an interview with VentureBeat yesterday.

By offering more than just cash, the Bing Fund joins an increasingly large array of incubators and accelerators aimed at helping entrepreneurs get off the ground. The success of accelerators like Y Combinator, 500 Startups, TechStars, and others have given rise to many regional and company-specific spinoffs. Microsoft, with its huge pools of talent and other resources, is in a good position to jump on this trend.

The Bingcubator is separated from the rest of the Microsoft campus and will have separate keycard access, so startups won’t be completely assimilated into the Borg. That’s an important requirement for Sood, who says he wants the startups to maintain their own, independent cultures. However, one of the advantages of Bing Fund investment is that Sood will set up a network of mentors for each startup, drawing from experts across Microsoft, including product experts, marketing experts, or scientists in Microsoft Research.

At the end of the incubation period, Microsoft hopes to help the companies find their first round of venture funding through its venture capital partners — or perhaps acquire them itself.

Sood and his team of about a dozen people are looking for companies in the online space that have a working prototype and a small team in place and that are ready to expand. Many will have completed programs at accelerators like TechStars or Y Combinator, and in fact Sood says he’s currently considering two or three companies in Microsoft’s Kinect accelerator. Despite the name, the Bing Fund doesn’t require its companies to work with the Bing search engine or the technologies associated with Bing, including speech recognition, image processing, video, local/geo/map technologies, and so forth.

“We will invest in startups that we feel are doing disruptive things online,” Sood said. Additionally, he’s looking for companies that have a long-term potential to be Microsoft partners or acquisitions.

“We’re not going to take on someone’s landscaping business or invest in a carwash,” he said.

The Fund is the brainchild of Sood, who joined Microsoft in January, 2011. Earlier, Sood was working for Hewlett-Packard, which had acquired his company VoodooPC, a boutique maker of high-end gaming computers, in 2006.

I asked Sood if it was a little odd that he found himself working for Microsoft after all these years. Voodoo made its reputation with aggressively-styled PCs, emblazoned with tribal tattoo-like designs and bright colors. It was fiercely independent, and was, until its HP acquisition, one of the few PC makers still assembling computers in North America. After being an independent entrepreneur for years, how does he feel going to work for a giant, decidedly un-cool corporation like Microsoft?

“I was completely blown away. This company is unbelievable. There are so many smart people here,” Sood said. “The perception of Microsoft on the outside is completely different from what it’s like on the inside.”

“I think the number one reason I love Microsoft is we have a living founder and chairman who’s dedicated his life to making the world better,” Sood said. “His legacy and energy still walks the halls of this company. Microsoft is really good about letting entrepreneurs find their way in the company — you just have to figure it out. But once you do, this place is amazing.”

It’s graduation day for startup accelerator TechStars NYC’s Spring 2012 cohort — though from the vibe at Webster Hall, it feels more like we’re at a rock concert.

The Spring class kicked off in March with 13 companies chosen from a pool of more than 1,600 applicants. This is TechStars NY’s third demo day, after launching in the city just 18 months ago. The accelerator proudly notes that five of the companies demonstrating today have female cofounders, and two of the companies are also international.

TechStars NY invests $118,000 in all of its cohort  companies: $18,000 in seed funding, and an additional option $100,000 in convertible debt note. The companies get three months at TechStars headquarters, as well as intensive mentorship.

“TechStars was founded on mentorship,” said TechStars NY’s David Tisch. He added that many mentors went on to invest in the companies they helped out, and continued to mentor them throughout their lives.

The Companies

SmallKnot

Aims to give you a way to invest in local businesses. Co-founder and CEO Jay Lee says he wants to give businesses an alternative to the broken lending system. He claims there’s a $22.7 billion market for crowdfunding local businesss.

“SmallKnot is not simply a funding solution, it’s a tool for community and customer engagement,” Lee said.

Funding: $750,000 seed round

MoveLine

Calls itself a “radically different moving company.” MoveLine is bringing technology into the $25 billion a year moving industry, which should ultimately simplify the process for both moving companies and consumers alike. For example, instead of having a pushy salesperson come and inventory your home, you can use MoveLine to take a video of your home or FaceTime with them.

Funding: Raising $1 million, looking for investors

RewindMe

Puts the history of your life in your pocket, by aggregating social data we’re already putting online.With privacy in mind, the service scores you in more than 300 categories, which makes it easy for companies to grant you offers.

“Access to our digital history will change our lives, it changes the way we think about ourselves, the way we think about others,” said CEO Craig Danuloff. He announced that Virgin Mobile, Victoria Secret, Birchbox, and others are working with RewindMe.

Funding: Closed seed round

Bondsy

When Bondsy’s CEO Diego Zambrano was moving from Brazil to New York City a few years ago, he decided to put all of his possessions on Flickr for his friends to buy. That led to a fun and social experience that he wanted to recreate.

So he made Bondsy, a single home for you to share and barter with your friends. On the surface, it looks like a revamped Instagram, but Bondsy can also make it easy for people to make deals with each other. For example, you can say you’re willing to spend a certain amount on your friend’s bike.

“Your social graph can finally offer you liquidity,” Zambrano said.

Marquee

“We’re rewiring the way content gets distributed on the web,” said Marquee’s co-founder. The company is offering a simple and intuitive publishing tool that lets you write and drop media right on the page. But it’s not just another WYSIWYG tool — Marquee is future proofing your content by making it available on practically any platform and device.

“We’re structuring content in a way that enables it to be consumed by anything that has access to the web,” the co-founder said. “We’re laying the groundwork for a syndication platform that can reach every connected device on the web.”

Funding: Raising seed round

Classtivity

“Finding a class shouldn’t be harder than taking it,” said CEO Payal Kadakia. The site gives you one place to find recreational classes like yoga or biking. It has all of the important information, like when and where the class is happening, and lets you easily sign up for it.

Funding: Raised $750,000 so far, looking for more investors.

Wander

“Life happens at places,” said CEO Jeremy Fisher. Wander is his attempt to let anyone create their own travelogue, and start a global conversation around locations. Just like how Twitter has “@ mentions,” Wander has created a microsyntax for location using asterisks. For example, *Webster Hall* would denote the concert hall the demo day is currently taking place in.

Funding: $1.2 million in seed investment

ConditionOne

This company wants to create a new form of interactive video by letting you simply move your devices around. CEO Danfung Dennis has spent time as a war photographer, but moved into video to better capture that experience.

ConditionOne, or C1 for short, aims to be the next step in how we experience events. It will allow sports fans to feel as if they’re right in the action, and Mercedes is already using the platform to put consumers right into their high-end cars. And of course, it could do wonders for news coverage.

Funding: Raising $2.5 million ($1M already committed), Marc Cuban led the seed round.

Poptip

“With Poptip, feedback has finally come of age,” said CEO Kelsey Falter. Poptip is a native social feedback platform that lets companies better communicate with consumers over Twitter.

Funding: Seed round led by SoftBank Capital

10Sheet

“We’ve taught a computer to do a bookkeeper’s job,” said CEO Ian Crosby. He claims that 10Sheet can do 95 percent of the work that a typical number cruncher can, and at a fraction of the price. The company’s technology can take your financial records and deliver daily interactive reports — no more waiting several weeks for your bookkeeper to turn things around.

Current customers include PWC, Showboxed, and Etsy, which wants to offer it to sellers so they don’t have to worry about keeping their own books.

Funding: Raising $2 million

Pickie

A personalized online shopping magazine, the company takes a massive amount of data to create a shopping experience that’s similar to going to the mall with your friends. Pickie’s platform also takes into account notable bloggers that mesh with your own tastes.

“At Pickie we’re moving beyond the interest graph — what  we’re building is the product graph,” said CEO Sonia Sahney Nagar.

Funding: Raising a $1 million seed round

Lua

Wants to be the future of mobile workforce collaboration. “We built Lua because that computer in your pocket is the single most powerful tool in your business life,” said CEO Michael DeFranco. The company has signed American Idol, the crew working on the Dark Knight Rises, and the Mets, to help manage their workforces.

DeFranco says Lua could apply to practically any industry, as its current customers show. The app keeps everyone on the same page by making it easy to message or conference call others, coordinate on tasks, and stay updated with a company-wide calendar.

DeFranco announced today that the company is partnering with YouTube to cover the Olympics this Summer.

Funding: Oversubscribed on a $2.5 million seed round.

Karma

“We believe in totally different things, like simple design, simple technology, honest pricing, and honest service,” said CEO Robert Gaal. He says the company is the world’s first-ever software-focused mobile provider. He showed off a 4G hotspot that will retail for just $69, and will operate on ClearWire’s 4G network.

A single gigabyte of service will cost you $14, and there are no contacts to deal with. You can also easily share your Karma hotspot with any other Karma user — both of you will get 100 megabytes of data as a referral bonus.

Gaal announced today that Uber and America Airlines are partnering with the company at launch. Uber will offer Wi-Fi in its cabs, and America Airlines will offer the hotspots to its customers.

Funding: Raised close to $1 million in seed funding.

Developing, refresh for updates.

Sept. 9 - 10, 2013 San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Microsoft has launched its second accelerator for cloud-related startups, the company announced today. This one is located in emerging tech startup hotbed Bangalore, India.

Ten startups will be selected and will start Sept. 3, 2012. For four months, they will get resources and have their shot to build a smart cloud product.

The new location comes just two months after Microsoft’s first-ever startup accelerator at Israel. Just like its Israeli endeavor, Microsoft’s Indian outpost will not offer straight up cash to its startups. Instead, they will get $60,000 in Windows Azure credit, space to work in, and access to mentors.

“Through this unique initiative, Microsoft is partnering with leading industry mentors to provide startups with the much-needed support they need to innovate and become successful businesses,” said Amit Chatterjee, Managing Director of Microsoft India R&D, in a statement. “We are not only providing them technical and business guidance and mentoring, but also connecting them to prospective VCs and investors. The success of this program will be measured by the success of these startups. Microsoft will have no stake in these companies.”

Any India-based startup that wants to take part in the accelerator can apply here.

Photo credit: Microsoft

ERA2 members pose in Times Square

Today’s a big day for ten of New York City’s most interesting startups. Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator is having its demo day today, and for the ten companies in its second cohort, it means they’ll have to show just how much they’ve learned in their three months at ERA.

Charlie Kemper, co-founder and partner at ERA, said that all of the companies demonstrating today have users and are actively in the market with products. Even more impressive, 60 percent already have revenue coming in.

ERA provides companies with $25,000 in seed financing, three months of free co-working space in its Times Square office, and access to an impressive network of advisors in New York City. Entrepreneurs Roundtable initially started out as an educational organization for New York startups in 2007, but after seeing how much the city’s tech scene grew, it launched the accelerator last year.

Here are the ten companies that demonstrated today:

Appy Couple

It seems there’s an app for everything these days, even weddings. Appy Couple offers newlyweds their own personal wedding apps, which guests can use to take pictures, find directions, and otherwise socialize at the wedding.

After sending out 200 private beta invites last month, Appy Couple ended up being used for 150 weddings. Since then, the app has seen viral growth, powering 3,000 weddings so far. The company makes money by charging a 4 to 11 percent commission for purchases within the app, which can include things like hotel bookings.

Funding: Raising $1.5 million, $500,000 committed so far

Wizpert

Wizpert has created a platform to connect experts with advice seekers (check out our coverage from earlier today). Basically, you can think of it like a help desk for life. The company announced today that it has signed up over 1,000 experts, or “Wizperts,” after several weeks in private beta testing.

Funding: Raising $800,000, with $220,000 committed so far

LetsWombat

LetsWombat helps brands connect to consumers with targeted, traceable, and scalable product sampling. The company has 10 brands signed up so far, and it says that 90 percent of the companies it talked to jumped aboard. VitaCoco, one of its current customers, is a big fan of the company’s analytics reporting. LetsWombat charges companies a base fee, plus additional fees based on audience targeting and geographic targeting.

Stray Boots

What if you could create your own Amazing Race? Stray Boots lets you do just that by turning urban exploration into a game. The company lets you buy fun and interactive guided tours of cities. The company already has over 40,000 customers, who’ve paid between $6 and $12 for its tours — and that was just with a text-message based platform.

With the Stray Boots 2.0 app, the company will ramp up the media in tours and offer a better exploration experience. The company’s iPhone app is in private beta testing right now, and it will hit the iTunes store later this Spring. Stray Boots is now in 15 cities in the U.S. and UK, and it expects to reach 30 cities by next year. Setup for a game costs around $2,000, and for an entire city it can cost between $50,000 and $100,000. The company says typical cities can earn over $1 million in revenue annual

Funding: Raising $1.2 million, with $200,000 already committed. The company expects to make over $1 million in revenue this year.

TapFame

TapFame helps developers drive mobile engagement and increase user retention. The company’s platform enables devs to reach inactive users, giving them a second or third chance with consumers, through flash contests within their apps. With just three apps using its platform so far, TapFame now reaches 100,000 users, and its customers are seeing a 50% lift in engagement.

Funding: Raising $500,000

Stylyt

Stylyt lets consumers create their own custom products for big-name fashion brands, in the process making them more engaged and committed to those brands. Based on partnerships with two brands and over 1,000 signups, the company has seen 21 percent of users submit content, while 62 percent voted and shared entries.

Stylyt says it helps with demand forecasting, so brands aren’t left with unused inventory. The company announced today that it has partnered with popular fashion brands Nicole Miller and Rebecca Minkoff.

Funding: Raising $800,000

LocalBonus

LocalBonus lets consumers use their existing credit cards for retailer loyalty programs, and it uses game mechanics to encourage consumers to buy more. The company works in conjunction with existing card rewards programs, and it promises “bank grade” security.

In its New York City pilot program, over half of LocalBonus users made purchases at its 70 participating retailers. The company announced yesterday that it has expanded to five cities, with the addition of Denver, Seattle, Portland, and Sacramento. It now has over 800 merchants on-board, and it’s on pace for over 1,500 merchants this year across 12 cities. The company has over 200,000 customers so far.

Dibsie

Taking social shopping to new heights, Dibsie has launched a platform to let your friends curate your shopping experience (check out our existing coverage). The company users activity from your friends to increase product awareness and drive engagement. So far, its users spend around 15 minutes on the site daily and have driven over 1 million product impressions.

Impressively, Dibsie has managed to grow purchases from 4 percent to 16 percent simply by making friend curation visible. The company’s platform can also be integrated on other sites, and it’s working to partner directly with brands and retailers. Licensing the Dibsie platform is one of the companies biggest goals right now.

Funding: Raising $500,000, after already receiving $275,000 in seed funding

Pictorious

Pictorious crosses social gaming with photo sharing by letting users create fun photo-based challenges. It’s not just about sharing photos with filters like Instagram — instead, you can create photo contests for your friends to participate and vote on. The company says its platform is a great way for brands to increase engagement.

In a beta test with more than 1,000 users, 33 percent of Pictorious users created photo challenges, and overall they generated 2,000 photos and 30,000 views.

Funding: Raising $500,000

Triple Lift

Founded by ad technology veterans, Triple Lift offers an enterprise marketing platform for Pinterest. The company’s platform focuses on helping brands increase user engagement, track Pinterest analytics, and help with media buying. Triple Lift can also power more interactive ads, allowing consumers to pin specific items and fashions from brand ads.

Funding: Raising $1.25 million

Photo via ERA/Flickr

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

This spring alone, over 100 companies will graduate from startup boot camps, accelerators, incubators, or other similarly named programs. As my own company Dibsie prepares for demo day with Entrepreneur Roundtable Accelerator (ERA) in NYC, I want to share some thoughts with the founders thinking about applying. Do your diligence, and make sure you’re an educated buyer. Here’s what you need to know…

First of all, these programs are venture funds at the core. They can help you develop as an entrepreneur, but ultimately they’re designed to make money for their investors. No doubt the mentors, advisors, and VCs involved enjoy working with entrepreneurs and early-stage companies. But the truth is, like any investor, they require a return on their investment of time, money, and connections. This point should go without saying, and it actually helps align your incentives to build a successful company. But, don’t be surprised if you experience “tough love” in the program—it may be personal, but it’s definitely business. Think boot camp, not band camp, and be prepared for rigorous feedback over an intense few months.

This brings me to my second point, which is: haters are going to hate, and advisors are going to advise. One of the common pain points I’ve heard from friends in all the top accelerators is that they get tons of feedback, much of which is confusing and even conflicting. If you ask for a critique, you get criticized—and knowing what to filter is on you. Have conviction in your decision-making, or risk paralysis by analysis. Never have I taken so many meetings in such a condensed timeframe or chatted so much about Dibsie and social commerce. And some folks just don’t get it (which has sometimes made me wonder if I do). But what I’ve learned is to seek out the folks that really understand our space and our goals, and to elevate their feedback above the noise.

Accelerator programs tend to do exactly what they advertise—they accelerate your business. The downside is that they don’t promise which direction that acceleration will work in. Accelerators are in the business of picking strong entrepreneurs and strong ideas that (hopefully) can become strong companies. But as I said, this is business—and I’ve had plenty of advisors tell us what won’t work, and when we’re wasting our time. If your concept holds water, you should emerge a stronger company than when you entered. If your model is weak, try to fail quickly and pivot.

I’m not sure who decided that three months was a magic number for accelerator programs. In my opinion, the number seems arbitrary, and it presents challenges. Three months is not much time to grow your fledgling user base, close huge deals, or in some cases raise money—especially if you’re still iterating on the product development side. Your time in the incubator can provide a good window to hone your pitch and stress-test your hypothesis, but it’s helpful to go in to the program with your idea as well-formed as possible. Move as fast as you can, and start gathering metrics early so you have the building blocks to demonstrate progress. Blink, and your three months can be over.

Whether you’re ready or not, “Demo Day” waits for no one. All programs culminate in a one to two-day pitch event (ahem, looking at you 500 Startups and Y-Combinator) with graduating companies announcing all of the great progress they’ve made in the previous three months. Demo Day typically draws a phenomenal lineup of professional investors who want to review multiple companies and founders in one efficient presentation. It’s a great opportunity for companies like Dibsie to kick-off discussions with a number of potential investors—but there are drawbacks to keep in mind.

For one thing, Demo Day builds transparency into the market, which can be both a good and bad thing. Investors get a look at who’s attending, who’s interested—and who’s not. Companies can showcase their product and business to a large audience, but give up the option of working in stealth. Demo Days also dictate timing in ways that can prove challenging. In most cases, they build in a free time-option, since investors have low incentive to commit ahead of Demo Day presentations. On the upside, they can provide a useful catalyst for your investment round. The challenge and the goal should be to make the schedule work for you.

Net-net, accelerators are an amazing addition to the startup landscape. They provide some timely capital, and amazing access to top investors, advisors and industry professionals. It’s tough to downplay one-on-one access to figures like Fred Wilson, Peter Stern, and Chris Dixon—all of which I’ve had the pleasure of pitching at ERA. But remember these folks also regularly attend meetups, conferences, and post blogs and videos online—and therefore, should not be the sole reason you apply. Programs are not about idea validation, personal recognition, group dinners, or speakers. Accelerators are about building a successful business. Or as Ronnie Coleman so eloquently puts it: if you want to be a bodybuilder, “you gotta lift that heavy-ass weight”.

Garren Givens is co-founder and CEO of Dibsie (http://dibsie.com), a social shopping site you browse and curate with friends.  He previously co-founded CampusDibs, the first daily deal site focused on students.  You can check out his writing here (http://garren.me).

Brooklyn Beta, a conference in New York focused on the intersection of design and development, is launching a new incubator today to connect those two classes of software creators.

The program, called Brooklyn Beta SummerCamp, has some big names behind it, including Fred Wilson, Tim O’Reilly, and Betaworks (CEO John Borthwick pictured), with sponsorship from Etsy, EngineYard, and MailChimp.

“The process of building software is getting cheaper and cheaper,” said Borthwick, who pointed us to a letter he wrote to shareholders on the topic, (embedded below.) “The production buzzwords of our era — ‘betas,’ ‘agile development,’ and ‘pivots’ — are all an outgrowth of micro-development, which makes it less expensive to build more. As the cost of building and operating software-based businesses decreases, increasing value will accrue to design.”

Brooklyn Beta’s SummerCamp is recruiting a class of designer-developer teams that can build new companies from the ground up with that focus.

Each startup will get $25,000 in exchange for 6 percent equity. The teams will also have access to a group of mentors who will help them build their business. Advisors like Joe Gebbia from Airbnb and Charles Adler from Kickstarter highlight designers who worked alongside developers as co-founders at a startup. Other advisors include Liz Danzico, who created the department of Interaction Design at SVA; Ben Pieratt, the co-founder of Svpply; Michael Galpert, co-founder of Aviary; Randy Hunt, creative director at Etsy; and Wilson Miner, head of design at Rdio.

“I have been a fan of the Brooklyn Beta community for several years,” said Wilson. “It represents a design-centric view of building software and companies, and its base in Brooklyn speaks to the emergence of that borough as a leader in this movement.”

While the program will be based in Brooklyn, the incubator is unique in that it doesn’t insist startups move from their hometowns to participate. “We find that a lot of designers are older and more risk-averse than developers,” said Cameron Koczon, one of the founders of Brooklyn Beta. “So we wanted to create a program they could participate in without having to leave their families behind.”

Koczon hopes Brooklyn Beta will do for designers what Y-Combinator did for hackers. “The reality is, developers get paid better than designers, and they are more likely to create startups. How do you change that? It used to be you could pitch a company with just a business idea. Now you can’t get investors without producing a strong CTO or development team. Our goal is to make sure that people put the same emphasis on having a great designer as part of the founding team.”

Applications for the first class are due on May 31, 2012. Interested startups can apply here.

“In a world of plentiful options for hardware and software, a product that is just good enough will not suffice,” said Brothwick in his letter to shareholders. “Technical barriers to entry are so low and the number of providers is so high that users expect more than just functionality. They are drawn to and demand excellent product design.

“Design drives the optimization of experiences for specific devices/mediums/interactions. Different types of media (web app, SMS, email, PC, tablet, phone) demand targeted design experiences, not generic reprints. End-to-end, human centered design is a discipline, a process, and a function that this new world demands.”

Sept. 9 - 10, 2013 San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Microsoft has launched its first-ever startup accelerator at its Israel R&D Center, with an expressed purpose of helping young cloud-focused companies.

The Windows Azure Accelerator, which was first reported by TechCrunch, will provide space and mentoring like a normal accelerator, but there’s a catch. Instead of seed funds, Microsoft will give the selected companies free access to the Windows Azure cloud platform.

The accelerator acts as part of the Think Next and Microsoft BizSpark programs, which also help startups. Like Microsoft’s BizSpark Plus offering, startups in this new accelerator will get two free years of Azure access worth up to $60,000.

The Azure cloud platform is used by many companies to host and build web applications through Microsoft’s own data centers. In this situation, Microsoft is hoping to encourage Azure use with young companies.

Azure was recently hammered in the press for a wide outage on Feb. 29 that has been labeled as a “leap year bug.” However, Microsoft has since apologized for the outage and offered a nice 33 percent credit for the entire month of February to those using the Azure Compute, Access Control, Service Bus and Caching programs.

Microsoft plans to announce the first class from the Windows Azure Accelerator on April 22nd at Think Next 2012.

Microsoft Israel R&D center photo: Microsoft

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

As my co-founders and I investigated the idea of creating Founders Den, we frequently heard the questions: “What is the difference between an incubator, accelerator, and co-working space?” and “Is there a need for another one?”

The incubator concept was largely defined in the dot-com era by Bill Gross’ IdeaLabs and Guy Kawasaki’s Garage.com, both of which turned out to be expensive endeavors providing office space, legal, financial, and other shared services to start-ups in exchange for equity. More recently, accelerators have emerged as a sort of ‘incubator light’ with an emphasis on education, coaching, limited services, and in many cases no shared office space. Accelerators including TechStars, Y Combinator, and others across the US and globally, bring experienced business leaders and first-time entrepreneurs together in hopes of helping startups avoid costly mistakes.

In stark contrast are co-working spaces which typically provide no services other than a desk, chair, and Internet access. This latter category interested us as we looked to create a place where we would work on our latest startups under a shared-roof with other experienced entrepreneurs.

With an estimated 400 startups in the SoMa neighborhood of San Francisco, we discovered a variety of co-working spaces including Next Space, Citizen Space, SOMA Central, The Hub, and others equally noteworthy. Likewise in New York City there are General Assembly, Dogpatch Labs (also in SF), Wix Lounge, and many more.

According to Elizabeth Hart of Cornish & Carey, more than 100,000 square feet of co-working facilities have opened up in San Francisco in the last six months. As a direct response to companies doing more with less, she notes that this is a successful growing trend where commercial building owners are rethinking their business models and some are moving into the co-working/smaller tenant hosting model. San Francisco is largely following New York City in this trend with Chicago, Los Angeles, and other cities jumping on as well.

As we investigated whether San Francisco needed another co-working space, we learned that not all co-working spaces are created equally. Some, such as i/o Ventures or AngelPad, are more of an accelerator program, others such as parisoma, Rocket Space, and The Hub will rent by the month or in some cases, by the day, to anyone willing to pay the fee.

Most co-working spaces lack a curation process which we saw as important to creating a dynamic, iron-sharpens-iron community, similar to the traditional private clubs which appealed to the entrepreneurs of prior innovation eras (steel, railroad, oil, etc.). In New York, SoHo House and The Core (while less of a co-working space and more of a lounge) appeal to entrepreneurs. With Founders Den, we sought a unique, differentiated model of one-half private club and one-half co-working space.

It remains to be seen whether ‘the Den’ will create a long-term community of Silicon Valley/San Francisco entrepreneurs, but we have a growing list of industry leaders, advisors, and serial entrepreneurs who are using the clubhouse for social or business purposes.

Like any other real-estate trend, expansion and contraction is likely. Some co-working spaces will succeed and others will struggle.

However, one thing is sure: The traditional model of startups leasing their own office, buying their own copy-machines, hiring receptionists, office managers, cleaning services, etc., may best serve those companies which have validated their business models, closed a large funding round, and are flush with cash. For all others, we can expect the market to meet the demand for this new style of working, with a variety of options that appeal to all types of entrepreneurs.

Jason Johnson (second from right in the photo) is an entrepreneur, as well as managing partner & co-founder of Founders Den.

[images via Flickr/Founders Den]

The organization is currently accepting applications for ER Accelerator’s three-month summer season, which will begin in June. Ten lucky startups will be selected to receive a $25,000 seed investment and three months of free office space in NYC. They’ll also have access to over 140 New York-based mentors, including Fred Wilson, Esther Dyson, and Anil Dash, as well as other notable entrepreneurs, technologists and investors. The mentors will directly assist the startups through hands-on coaching and group discussions.

In addition to the wide variety of mentors, ER Accelerator startups will also be paired with one of ten operating partners who have experience in the startup world. Participants will also have access to free legal service from firms like Gunderson Dettmer, as well as other professional services from partners and sponsors like Microsoft and Silicon Valley Bank.

ER Accelerator joins other notable New York accelerators like Tech Stars NY, but Entrepreneurs Roundtable founder Murat Aktihanoglu tells VentureBeat that it hopes to offer a more active engagement model for startups than other programs. The four-year-old organization has been working with New York-based mentors for several years, which is how it managed to wrangle such big names.

A new accelerator is a good sign for New York’s burgeoning startup scene, and it may just be enough to compel innovative local startups from jumping to Silicon Valley.