Techstars

Techstars is a mentorship-driven startup accelerator founded by David Cohen, Brad Feld, David Brown, and Jared Polis that holds 13 week programs for startups in Boulder, New York City, Boston, Seattle, San Antonio, Austin, Chicago and London. It is considered one of the best startup accelerators in the world. Fewer than 1% of the companies that apply to Techstars are accepted.

As of mid-2015, Techstars has accepted 526 companies into its program. Collectively, these companies have raised over $1,300,000,000 USD. Program mentors include Foursquare CEO Dennis Crowley, tumblr CEO David Karp, HubSpot co-founder and CTO Dharmesh Shah, and Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures.

A notable competing accelerator is Y Combinator, to which it is often compared.

History

In 2006, Techstars was founded in Boulder, Colorado by David Cohen, Brad Feld, David Brown, and Jared Polis. Techstars held its first program in 2007 with ten companies. Of the ten, two were acquired that same year, three achieved positive exits by 2012, and two currently generate millions in annual revenue.