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Pictured above: Techstars founder, managing partner, and CEO David Cohen
Boulder-based accelerator Techstars has just launched a new program called Techstars++ that will match program participants after graduation with corporate partners for “hands-on mentorship and business development opportunities.” Mayo Clinic is the first corporate partner in the program, with others to follow soon.
“After completing Techstars, healthcare-oriented companies can spend two weeks at the Mayo Clinic exploring business development opportunities and other synergies,” said Techstars' founder, managing partner, and CEO David Cohen in a blog post. “A full-time Techstars Program Director will reside on-site and work closely with the startups and the corporation to help maximize the opportunity.”
Techstars companies will not be charged to participate in Techstars++ and additional corporate partners are to be announced later. The program will build “the connective tissue that ties together the local startup community with the larger global Techstars network,” said Cohen.
And Techstars already has quite a lot of connective tissue. In addition to the original accelerator in Boulder, Colorado Techstars’ seven accelerator programs are spread across the United States and the United Kingdom. It also has seven corporate partnership accelerators, like the Disney Accelerator, Nike Plus Accelerator and Qaulcomm Robotics Accelerator. Though, there are now lots of different accelerators claiming to do work similar to Techstars, none can match the breath of its network.
The size of Techstars network is one of the reasons in September 2014 the organization issued an equity-back guarantee for program participants who are unsatisfied.
“The reason for this is quite simple. We firmly believe in the value of the Techstars accelerator program and in the long-term value of our network. This makes it easy to take this step to ‘put our equity where our mouth is,” said Cohen then.
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