In what will go down as Austin TechStars’ largest Demo Day event yet, over 700 people gathered at Austin Music Hall on Wednesday to hear young entrepreneurs tell them all about their bold new business concepts.
Colorado-based TechStars, which has numerous city-anchored programs, holds these events for audiences of business mentors, investors, and entrepreneurs to celebrate and elevate their latest graduate companies. To have the honor of presenting a company at one of TechStars’ Demo Days, ambitious entrepreneurs must first make their way through an intensive three-month program. So far, 21 companies have made it through, presenting at three Demo Days thus far.
“This is the third accelerator program in Austin,” Jason Seats (pictured), managing director of Austin TechStars, told the crowd. “Just the [21] Austin TechStars companies, in the last nine months, have raised about $23 million in capital.”
Two of the companies Seats focused on as examples of TechStars success stories — LawnStarter and Atlas — were covered by Austin.com. LawnStarter is an app that lets users subscribe and automate payments for landscaping services, and Atlas is an Austin-made fitness tracker that can automatically keep track of its user’s activities.
With that sort of a track record, we’re sure the latest round of TechStars graduates will be making an impact on their industries very soon. Companies presenting on Wednesday were about as diverse as can be, but they all revolve around innovative ways to use big data or emergent applications made possible by the Internet and smartphones.
Some of the best ideas that illustrate these themes include Hunting Locator, a company that’s essentially doing for outdoor sports what AirBnB did for unconventional lodging; StyleSage, which helps the fashion industry analyze their supply and demand metrics to maximize profits; and MetricStory, which takes a holistic approach to business data in order to answer basic questions managers may have about their company’s sales process.
With such brilliant ideas, driven entrepreneurs, and an amazing program like Austin TechStars, it’s no wonder Austin was recently crowned the best U.S. city for technology startups. Check out the full rundown of this year’s featured companies below, courtesy of the Austin TechStars blog:
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FantasyHub is the only daily fantasy sports website that gives fans the opportunity to play daily games, win cash, and support their favorite charity. We have worked with over 30 professional athletes hosting online fantasy contests for their charities. |
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Hunting Locator is the marketplace connecting hunters to the people with available hunting opportunities. |
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MetricStory helps marketers drive conversions and lift revenue by automating the entire process of setting up high value custom analytics which removes the guesswork and errors in capturing and organizing their data. |
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One Model is a talent analytics accelerator for human resources departments. We take the work out of managing and positioning data from all of a company’s data sources and show them how to effectively measure the workforce. |
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Pushmote allows companies to be close their customers via iBeacons by providing needed cloud software infrastructure and tools. |
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Red Fox Clan provides game publishers with quantified community feedback to make better product and marketing decisions. |
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Self Lender helps people establish and build credit history for the first time. Anyone can get a small, secured loan to demonstrate ability to pay back debt. This impacts what they can do, where they can live, and sometimes even work. |
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StopLight helps developers document, validate, and collaborate on the APIs that they are building. |
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StyleSage helps fashion brands and retailers boost growth with data-driven market insights. |
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Wonders is a visual narratives app for the most amazing hand-picked stories about travel and outdoor culture. |
