Roux Institute kicks off Techstars Accelerator with 10 startups
File Photo / Jim Neuger
The Roux Institute is headquartered at 100 Fore St. on Portland’s East End, in space leased from WEX Inc.
Northeastern University's Roux Institute in Portland on Tuesday announced the names of 10 startups participating in a 13-week accelerator program in partnership with Techstars, a Boulder, Colo.-based seed investment firm.
The 10 companies include one Maine firm, Harpswell-based Omnic Data, which supports Esports organizations with data and advanced statistical analysis. Other startups are from throughout New England, as well as New York, the West Coast and as far as Chile.
Over the course of 13 weeks, the Roux Institute Techstars Accelerator aims to help participating entrepreneurs build their businesses and talent pipeline.
This week's kickoff comes as the institute starts its second academic year in its expanded waterfront headquarters on Portland's East End. In the longer term, the Roux Institute will build a home campus on a 13-acre site in Portland where the B&M Baked Beans factory has stood for 150 years.
Chris Wolfel, director of entrepreneurship at the Roux Institute, noted that the Roux Institute Techstars Accelerator program will put 10 participating startups 20 feet from their classrooms.
"We're integrating entrepreneurship, learning and research in an experiential way that will have a massive impact on companies building scalable technology businesses and people studying for their master's degrees by putting them all in one space," he said.
The 10 participating startups will go through a three-step process applied by Techstars to help scale more than 2,000 businesses since 2006. The vast majority, 84%, of those companies are still in business or have been acquired, according to Tuesday's announcement.
In the first month, participants will get feedback from a wide variety of mentors, then work closely with two or three mentors in the second months to identify obstacles and areas of potential growth.
The final month will wrap up with Demo Day presentations, when the startups will showcase their ability to tell and sell their stories while unveiling areas of improvement.
Lars Perkins, a former Google executive who serves as managing director of the Roux Institute Techstars Accelerator, said that while participants won't be saturated with programming as they run their businesses, "there are a lot of workshops about various aspects of fundraising, storytelling, press interactions and how investors think about companies when they're making investments."
Full list of participants and where they're based
Companies participating in the Techstars Accelerator are:
Attention Exchange, Weston, Mass., a research platform that elicits reliable feedback from users to help brands grow.
Breathing.ai, Leona, N.Y., a patented browser extension that offers simple break reminders and other benefits to improve users’ well-being.
Circa, Bridgeport, Conn., a monthly rent-payment platform that improves a resident’s ability to pay and stay in a home.
Eskuad Inc.. Concepcion, Chile, a platform with offline capability that streamlines data collection and other easy-to-use services.
Group B Labs, Seattle, creator of a portable baby bottle that stores and instantly warms milk or formula to a perfect feeding temperature.
ListedB, North Amityville, N.Y., personalized booking agent for beauty and wellness services that is customized to each user’s preferences.
MCSquared Health, Oakland, Calif., a streamlined billing process that increases collections, reduces staff work, and improves patient satisfaction.
Omnic Data, Harpswell, which supports Esports organizations by using Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and proprietary Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) to extract data and provide advanced statistical analysis.
Phase Zero, Boston, which enables clinical research to be collected from a single interface with a focus on collaboration.
Wishroute, Boston, messaging platform that enables companies to communicate with users to increase engagement, free-trial conversion and retention.
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