It’s about Results
When you’re betting your future on a seed accelerator, what really matters to you?
Results.
Inspired by a similar study by Awesome Zombie, we have collected and released the information below about all of the past TechStars companies. This data is current as of May 20, 2010. We plan to update it periodically.
TechStars Overview
| Status | Number of Companies | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| Active | 27 | 69.24% |
| Acquired > $2M | 5 | 12.82% |
| Acquired <= $2M | 1 | 2.56% |
| Failed | 5 | 12.82% |
| Other | 1 | 2.56% |
Summary by City/Year
| Class | # cmpys | Funded | # employees | Active | Failed | Acq.>$2M | Acq.<=$2M | Other | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Boulder, Summer 2007 | 10 | 8 (80%) | 35 | 2 (20%) | 2 (20%) | 4 (40%) | 1 (10%) | 1 (10%) | ||
| Boulder, Summer 2008 | 10 | 5 (50%) | 44 | 7 (80%) | 2 (20%) | 1 (0%) | 0 (0%) | 0 (0%) | ||
| Boston, Summer 2009 | 9 | 3 (33%) | 33 | 9 (100%) | 0 (0%) | 0 (0%) | 0 (0%) | 0 (0%) | ||
| Boulder, Summer 2009 | 10 | 6 (60%) | 44 | 9 (90%) | 1 (10%) | 0 (0%) | 0 (0%) | 0 (0%) | ||
| -TOTAL- | 39 | 22 (56.41%) | 156 | 28 (71.79%) | 5 (12.82%) | 4 (10.26%) | 1 (2.56%) | 1 (2.56%) |
About 6 of 10 companies have historically gone on to receive outside (non-friends/family) angel or venture funding. When you add to this the 5 other companies that have reported that they are now profitable without outside funding, this amounts to 27 of 39 (69.23%). That’s about 7 out of 10 TechStars companies that raise outside funding after the program or bootstrap to profitability.
Full Breakdown
Boulder, Summer 2007
| Company | Funding | FTEs1 | Status | Nexus |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brightkite | ~$1M | 4 | Acquired by Limbo, 4/09 | SF, Denver |
| EventVue | ~400K | – | Failed, 2/10 | Boulder |
| Filtrbox | $1.4M | 9 | Acquired by Jive Software, 1/10 | Boulder |
| Intense Debate | ~$400K | 4 | Acquired by Automattic (WordPress), 9/08 | Boulder |
| J-Squared Media | 7 | Active | Philadelphia | |
| KB Labs | – | Failed | Philadelphia | |
| MadKast | $300K | 2 | Acquired by ShareThis, 9/08 | LA, DC |
| Search To Phone | ~$250K | 1 | Active | NY |
| Socialthing | $300K | 5 | Acquired by AOL, 8/08 | Boulder |
| Villij | ~$250K | 3 | Other – spun out DandyID | Providence |
|
~$4.3M |
35 |
Boulder, Summer 2008
| Company | Funding | FTEs1 | Status | Nexus |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| App-X | 9 | Active | CO, Boston | |
| BuyPlayWin | 2 | Active | SF | |
| DailyBurn | $525K | 5 | Acquired by IAC, 5/10 | Huntsville |
| Devver | $500K | 3 | Failed | Boulder |
| Foodzie | $1M+ | 7 | Active | SF |
| Ignighter | $1.2M | 6 | Active | NYC |
| Occipital | 4 | Active | Boulder | |
| People’s Software Company | – | Failed | SF | |
| The Highway Girl | 3 | Active | Atlanta | |
| Travelfli | ~$250K | 5 | Active | Boulder |
|
~$3.5M |
44 |
Boston, Summer 2009
| Company | Funding | FTEs1 | Status | Nexus |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AccelGolf | $600K | 7 | Active | ME, MA |
| AmpIdea | 4 | Active | Cambridge | |
| Baydin | 1 | Active | Boston | |
| HaveMyShift | 2 | Active | Chicago | |
| LangoLab | 1 | Active | Cambridge | |
| Localytics | ~$700K | 5 | Active | Cambridge |
| oneforty | $2.35M | 9 | Active | Cambridge |
| Sensobi | 2 | Active | Cambridge | |
| TempMine | 2 | Active | Cambridge | |
|
~$3.7M |
33 |
Boulder, Summer 2009
| Company | Funding | FTEs1 | Status | Nexus |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Everlater | <$1M | 4 | Active | Boulder |
| Graphic.ly | $1.2M | 14 | Active | UK, CO |
| Mailana | 2 | Active | Boulder | |
| Next Big Sound | ~$1M | 6 | Active | Boulder |
| Retel Technologies | $1M | 4 | Active | SF |
| Rezora | 3 | Active | CO, Atlanta | |
| SendGrid | $5.75M | 6 | Active | Boulder |
| Spry Planner | – | Failed | Boulder | |
| SnapABug | 2 | Active | Huntsville | |
| Vanilla | $500K | 3 | Active | Montreal |
|
~$10.25M |
44 |
We’d like to thank all the past founders and companies who helped us compile this data.
We believe the reason for our high funding and acquisition success rate is our mentorship driven approach – our mentors work closely with your company from day one of the program, working with you to help grow your business, acquire customers and partners, and to raise money if needed. Many past founders wind up being great friends with their mentors for life.
We’re often asked why we only fund 10 companies per batch. The answer is simple, and you can see it in these sorts of studies. Quality trumps quantity. This is why we’ll continue to fund just 10 companies per “batch” with the quality-oriented goal of making them all successful instead of a quantity-oriented goal of finding a few good ones in a much larger group. That means TechStars companies get more attention and focus from our mentors given the smaller size of each batch.
Applications for TechStars are now open!
1Full Time Equivalents at present. For acquired companies, we use FTEs at time of acquisition.
