{"id":640906,"date":"2013-02-01T08:46:43","date_gmt":"2013-02-01T13:46:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gigaom.com\/?p=606540"},"modified":"2013-02-01T08:46:43","modified_gmt":"2013-02-01T13:46:43","slug":"techstars-takes-chicago-merges-with-excelerate-labs-incubator-program","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/640906","title":{"rendered":"TechStars takes Chicago, merges with Excelerate Labs incubator program"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s been a big week for Boulder, Colo.-based\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.techstars.com\/\">TechStars<\/a>. Just yesterday, the accelerator program said that it had <a href=\"http:\/\/gigaom.com\/2013\/01\/31\/techstars-taps-former-nea-venture-capitalist-eugene-chung-to-lead-nyc-program\/\">chosen a new managing director<\/a> for its New York City program. And on Friday, founder and CEO David Cohen announced that the company is setting up TechStars Chicago, by partnering with the local incubator <a href=\"http:\/\/www.exceleratelabs.com\/\">Excelerate Labs<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Led by a group of entrepreneurs and venture capitalists, including SurePayroll founder Troy Henikoff, OkCupid founder Sam Yagan, Sandbox Industries\u2019 Nick Rosa and New World Ventures\u2019 Adam Koopersmith, Excelerator Labs launched three years ago and has established itself as a prominent part of Chicago&#8217;s growing startup community. In the past three years, the program said its 30 companies have raised a total of $30 million.\u00a0But by becoming part of the national TechStars program, it could help elevate the local community and give founders access to TechStars&#8217; larger network of mentors and entrepreneurs.<\/p>\n<p>In a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.techstars.com\/announcing-techstars-in-chicago\/\">blog post<\/a>, Cohen said he and TechStars cofounder Brad Feld had advised Henikoff and Yagan and had mentored companies in Excelerate Labs&#8217; classes. He also said that he had personally invested in three Excelerate startups.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;As TechStars has expanded into new cities, we\u2019ve always started our programs from scratch. But Excelerate made us think differently,&#8221; Cohen wrote. &#8220;We were so impressed with what they\u2019ve built that we asked them to join forces with us and turn Excelerate Labs into TechStars Chicago. TechStars and Excelerate have always been kindred spirits: we both put entrepreneurs first and believe in the power of mentorship.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/stats.wordpress.com\/b.gif?host=gigaom.com&#038;blog=14960843&#038;%23038;post=606540&#038;%23038;subd=gigaom2&#038;%23038;ref=&#038;%23038;feed=1\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" \/><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/pubads.g.doubleclick.net\/gampad\/jump?iu=\/1008864\/GigaOM_RSS_300x250&#038;sz=300x250&#038;%23038;c=645129\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/pubads.g.doubleclick.net\/gampad\/ad?iu=\/1008864\/GigaOM_RSS_300x250&#038;sz=300x250&#038;%23038;c=645129\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:<\/strong><br \/>Subscriber content. <a href=\"http:\/\/pro.gigaom.com\/?utm_source=tech&#038;utm_medium=editorial&#038;utm_campaign=auto3&#038;utm_term=606540+techstars-takes-chicago-merges-with-excelerate-labs-incubator-program&#038;utm_content=kimaeheussner\">Sign up for a free trial<\/a>.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/pro.gigaom.com\/2012\/02\/facebooks-ipo-filing-the-opening-shot-heard-round-the-world\/?utm_source=tech&#038;utm_medium=editorial&#038;utm_campaign=auto3&#038;utm_term=606540+techstars-takes-chicago-merges-with-excelerate-labs-incubator-program&#038;utm_content=kimaeheussner\">Facebook&#8217;s IPO filing: ideas and implications<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/pro.gigaom.com\/2012\/08\/crowdfundings-rapid-growth-and-future-opportunities\/?utm_source=tech&#038;utm_medium=editorial&#038;utm_campaign=auto3&#038;utm_term=606540+techstars-takes-chicago-merges-with-excelerate-labs-incubator-program&#038;utm_content=kimaeheussner\">Crowdfunding\u2019s rapid growth and future opportunity<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/pro.gigaom.com\/2010\/03\/did-we-really-learn-anything-from-the-dotcom-crash\/?utm_source=tech&#038;utm_medium=editorial&#038;utm_campaign=auto3&#038;utm_term=606540+techstars-takes-chicago-merges-with-excelerate-labs-incubator-program&#038;utm_content=kimaeheussner\">Did We Really Learn Anything From the Dotcom Crash?<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><img width='1' height='1' src='http:\/\/gigaom.feedsportal.com\/c\/34996\/f\/646446\/s\/2822b15e\/mf.gif' border='0'\/><\/p>\n<div class='mf-viral'>\n<table border='0'>\n<tr>\n<td valign='middle'><a href=\"http:\/\/share.feedsportal.com\/viral\/sendEmail.cfm?lang=en&#038;title=TechStars+takes+Chicago%2C+merges+with+Excelerate+Labs+incubator+program&#038;link=http%3A%2F%2Fgigaom.com%2F2013%2F02%2F01%2Ftechstars-takes-chicago-merges-with-excelerate-labs-incubator-program%2F\" ><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/res3.feedsportal.com\/images\/emailthis2.gif\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/td>\n<td valign='middle'><a href=\"http:\/\/res.feedsportal.com\/viral\/bookmark.cfm?title=TechStars+takes+Chicago%2C+merges+with+Excelerate+Labs+incubator+program&#038;link=http%3A%2F%2Fgigaom.com%2F2013%2F02%2F01%2Ftechstars-takes-chicago-merges-with-excelerate-labs-incubator-program%2F\" ><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/res3.feedsportal.com\/images\/bookmark.gif\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/da.feedsportal.com\/r\/151885351671\/u\/49\/f\/646446\/c\/34996\/s\/2822b15e\/a2.htm\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/da.feedsportal.com\/r\/151885351671\/u\/49\/f\/646446\/c\/34996\/s\/2822b15e\/a2.img\" border=\"0\"\/><\/a><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" src=\"http:\/\/pi.feedsportal.com\/r\/151885351671\/u\/49\/f\/646446\/c\/34996\/s\/2822b15e\/a2t.img\" border=\"0\"\/><\/p>\n<div class=\"feedflare\">\n<a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/OmMalik?a=MZTnHbixTH4:L513ghpVFUQ:yIl2AUoC8zA\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/OmMalik?d=yIl2AUoC8zA\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a>\n<\/div>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~r\/OmMalik\/~4\/MZTnHbixTH4\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\"\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s been a big week for Boulder, Colo.-based\u00a0TechStars. Just yesterday, the accelerator program said that it had chosen a new managing director for its New York City program. And on Friday, founder and CEO David Cohen announced that the company is setting up TechStars Chicago, by partnering with the local incubator Excelerate Labs. Led by [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7417,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-640906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7417"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=640906"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640906\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=640906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=640906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=640906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}