Formation | 2009 |
---|---|
Type | 501(c)(3) |
Headquarters | Boston, Massachusetts |
Location | |
Website | masschallenge |
MassChallenge is a global, zero-equity startup accelerator, founded in Boston, Massachusetts in 2009.[ citation needed ]
MassChallenge is headquartered in Boston's Seaport District in the MassMutual Building, and has additional U.S. locations in Texas and Rhode Island, as well international locations in Israel, Mexico, and Switzerland. [1]
MassChallenge co-founders John Harthorne and Akhil Nigam were working as strategy consultants at Bain & Company during the global financial crisis in 2008 when they developed MassChallenge. [2] MassChallenge secured early support from successful entrepreneurs like Desh Deshpande and Joe Fallon, the public sector including Thomas Menino the then-Mayor of Boston and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and large organizations like The Blackstone Charitable Foundation and Microsoft. [3]
During its first Boston-based cohort in 2010, MassChallenge accelerated 111 startups. [4]
Y Combinator Management, LLC (YC) is an American technology startup accelerator launched in March 2005. It has been used to launch more than 4,000 companies, including Airbnb, Coinbase, Cruise, DoorDash, Dropbox, Instacart, Quora, PagerDuty, Reddit, Stripe and Twitch. The combined valuation of the top YC companies was more than $600 billion by January 2023. The company's accelerator program started in Boston and Mountain View, expanded to San Francisco in 2019, and was entirely online during the COVID-19 pandemic. Forbes characterized the company in 2012 as one of the most successful startup accelerators in Silicon Valley.
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500 Global is an early-stage venture fund and seed accelerator founded in 2010 by Dave McClure and Christine Tsai. The fund admitted a first "class" of twelve startups to its incubator office in Mountain View, California in February 2011. They expanded to a second class of 21 in June 2011 and a third class of 34 in October 2011.
Zagster was a venture-funded startup company based in Boston, Massachusetts that designed, built and operated bike sharing programs for cities, universities, corporate campuses, hotels, and residential communities across the United States. As of July 2019, it operated over 200 bike sharing programs. The bicycle program was suspended in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and then the company terminated all operations in June 2020.
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Wanderu Inc. is a ground and air travel metasearch engine that operates throughout North America and Europe. It provides a one-stop search and booking platform for buses, trains and flights through its website and mobile app. Founded in 2012, Wanderu is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts.
Guardly is a Canadian-based security company with headquarters in Toronto. In July 2022, SmartLocksGuide.com acquired Guardly. The company designs and provides mobile safety and security solutions for enterprise organizations, campuses, and municipalities. It is best known for its mobile safety application that allows users to connect to security, public authorities and a list of emergency contacts when the safety app is activated. Guardly is also attributed as the first company to offer an indoor positioning system to locate users who are within a building during an emergency, and the first to offer a mass notification system that integrates with indoor positioning data to locate people in need of help. The company's technology was featured on the Discovery Channel’s Future Tech TV series.
Ministry of Supply is an American men's and women's business wear fashion brand based in Boston. It was launched in 2012 and founded by former Massachusetts Institute of Technology students using some of the same temperature regulating material as NASA astronauts in their clothing.
Jonathan Lacoste is an American internet entrepreneur, co founder of Jebbit Inc currently living in Boston, Massachusetts. In 2011, Lacoste along with classmate and friend Tom Coburn, co-founded Jebbit, an enterprise software company in the mobile marketing and consumer data space. Lacoste currently serves as the company's President and sits on the Board of Directors.
Handy is an online two-sided marketplace for residential cleaning, installation, and other home services. Founded in 2012 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the now New York-based company operates services in United States, United Kingdom, and Canada. The company was acquired by ANGI Homeservices in October 2018.
Yottaa is a web and mobile optimization services company based in Waltham, Massachusetts. Its main product is a platform that helps with website conversions, as well as performance and security.
David Tisch is a businessman and angel investor based in New York City. He is managing partner of BoxGroup, a seed-stage capital firm, and a co-founder of TechStars New York City. He is the grandson of American businessman Laurence Tisch, co-owner of Loews Corporation. His great-uncle, Preston Robert Tisch purchased the New York Giants, now co-owned by Steve Tisch, who produced the films Forrest Gump and Risky Business.
Crashlytics was a Boston, Massachusetts-based software company founded in May 2011 by entrepreneurs Wayne Chang and Jeff Seibert. Crashlytics helps collecting, analyzing and organizing app crash reports.
Deep technology or hard tech is a classification of organization, or more typically startup company, with the expressed objective of providing technology solutions based on substantial scientific or engineering challenges. They present challenges requiring lengthy research and development, and large capital investment before successful commercialization. Their primary risk is technical risk, while market risk is often significantly lower due to the clear potential value of the solution to society. The underlying scientific or engineering problems being solved by deep tech and hard tech companies generate valuable intellectual property and are hard to reproduce.
Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator is an American seed accelerator launched in January 2011.