See, you really can launch a startup outside Silicon Valley.
Tech incubator TechStars has been demonstrating this with its Boulder, Colo., program for three years now, but this year it expanded into Boston with nine companies that launched today. (Y Combinator, the best-known of the incubators, previously alternated between Boston and Mountain View, Calif., but recently decided to just stay put in Silicon Valley.) The Boston startups were chosen from more than 600 applicants, more than the Boulder program received.
As part of the TechStars program, these companies attended more than 40 mentorship sessions and received seed funding of up to $18,000. They're also being introduced to venture capitalists at today's Investor Day in Boston, and will fly out to Silicon Valley to give similar presentations later this month.
Here are the companies:
AccelGolf -- Builds mobile and web applications to help golfers improve their playing with personalized content and analysis. AccelGolf says it has more than 30,000 users already.
Amp Idea -- Developing a web-enabled baby monitor, though it isn't sharing many details yet about what services will be included.
Baydin -- Collaboration startup that wants to eliminate the need to search for files while sending emails. Its Outlook plug-in identifies relevant files on your network and your computer based on the content of an email.
HaveMyShift -- An online marketplace for workers to trade shifts, so they can create the best work schedule.
LangoLAB -- A site for learning foreign languages that uses captioned videos and other tools.
Localytics -- "Deep analytics" for iPhone, BlackBerry and Android application developers.
Oneforty -- Building applications to improve your experience on Twitter, presumably aimed at corporate marketers. The company describes itself as the "Twitter outfitter."
Sensobi -- Helps manage contacts on your mobile phone, such as ranking them by importance and showing past activity.
TempMine -- Online marketplace for temp workers.