The Latest Buzz
The ten companies participating in Chicago-based tech accelerator Excelerate Labs get to make their formal pitches to investors next Wednesday. That hasn’t stopped one of the participating companies, parking-reservations startup SpotHero, from securing an initial round of funding beforehand from Silicon Valley venture-capital firm 500 Startups. SpotHero met with 500…
Parking startup SpotHero launching new partnership SpotHero, a parking-reservations startup that’s one of the participants in this summer’s Excelerate Labs tech-business incubator, is partnering with another local tech business, Chicago.com, in an effort to attract Internet search traffic. The idea is that the new SpotHero-sponsored site parking.chicago.com will rank high…
The first month of Excelerate is “mentor dating month”- a chance for startups to meet as many mentors as possible with the goal of forming meaningful long term relationships. With only two weeks left in mentor dating month, we took time to catch up with some of the company founders…
71lbs helps small businesses easily recover the billions left unclaimed in shipping ‘late’ delivery refunds. They have shipped thous ands of packages, negotiated many shipping contracts, and also worked for the major parcel shipping carriers. After many years in the industry, they have become all too familiar with the differences…
During the first week of Excelerate, the alumni gather to share their sage words of wisdom to new companies. This year’s wisdom sharing was exceptional, with about twelve alumni from the last two classes sharing their successes and shortcomings frankly. Here’s what they advised (and what you can incorporate in…
When you put a lot of smart people in a room together, something awesome is bound to happen. I’d like to take this moment to mark one of many awesome occurrences at Excelerate Labs this summer: IDEO visit number 1. Top designers from IDEO are here for the 2nd year…
How Your Start-Up Stacks Up Systematic data analysis has changed the business of scouting for baseball talent, “Moneyball” style, and has altered Wall Street trading, now ruled by algorithms crafted by so-called quants. Can analytical rigor also help entrepreneurs such as Sharon Schneider, of suburban Chicago, make better decisions about…
Here is what TechCrunch said about our incoming class this year – by the time Demo Day comes around, they will not only understand what Lasso does, but they will be loving it! Full Article
Tech incubator Excelerate names class of 2012 By Wailin WongTribune reporter5:00 a.m. CDT, April 25, 2012 Chicago-based business incubator Excelerate Labs unveiled its third class of startups on Wednesday, announcing a slate of 10 companies that includes international participants. The incubator also said it is moving its three-month program to…
Who knew that the Wall Street Journal was so on top of things? The day we announce the new companies for our class of 2012, they ran a great article that included both BabbaCo (class of 2011) and WhimseyBox (class of 2012) – Awesome.