Techstars London’s 10 new companies were presented at the St James Theatre to an audience of Europe’s top investors as well as Lord Young, the Prime Minister’s adviser on small business and enterprise.
Lauding “the strongest accelerator class ever to present in Europe”, Techstars London’s first class of companies had already attracted more than £3.5m of investment – mostly from angel investors – even before the demo day last week.
Techstars was founded in 2006, but only opened its first international location in London earlier this year. Companies that have taken part in the accelerator have been backed by more than 75 different VC firms, after taking part in the intensive 90-day, mentorship-driven programme.
Early traction
Nine of the 10 teams had already achieved some early traction before starting the programme, including one tea, that will have more than $1m of revenue during 2013.
A key trend that emerges from the participating companies is that the majority of teams have a mobile-first or mobile-only approach. This is in addition to a significant proportion of the teams having a strong financial technology focus – this makes sense, given London’s established FinTech industries.
As with previous Techstars programmes, the teams and founders come from around the world. This year, in addition to British participants, teams hail from countries including Colombia, Ireland, the Netherlands, Serbia, Slovenia and Spain.
Older founders
The average age of founders being accepted in the Techstars London programme is 33 years old, significantly more than the general perception that accelerators are populated by young graduates straight out of university.
In the current Techstars cohort, four of the founders have already successfully exited other businesses, and two former mentors have brought their new startups to the programme.
“As Techstars’ first international location, we are very focused on making London an excellent programme,” comments David Cohen, Techstars London’s founder.
“Many of the extended Techstars team have spent time in London, including myself who was there for the entirety of the first month. It was great to get to know the startup community and we’re excited to be a part of its future.”
The companies presented at the event are:
- Iptvbeat: empowers TV broadcasters and advertisers to follow, analyze and monetize their content wherever and whenever its consumed
- Modabound: an online marketplace that connects women to buy and sell clothes locally with people in their area
- Moni: a person-to-person mobile money transfer platform designed to simplify how people send money to their families and friends abroad
- OP3Nvoice: makes what was said searchable. Developers and entrepreneurs can use the technology to find data and knowledge in their recordings
- Osper: teaches young people to manage money responsibly
- PayMins: provides an easy way to accept mobile phone payments
- Peerby: allows people to borrow the things they need from others in their neighborhood in 30 minutes or less
- PlayCanvas: provides a cloud-hosted, collaborative and highly social platform for building the next generation of videogames
- QuanTemplate: taking the reinsurance market online
- VetCloud: veterinary SaaS and CRM that uses animal healthcare data in new ways to keep pets healthy and happy, and help vets grow their business