BETA
This is a BETA experience. You may opt-out by clicking here

More From Forbes

Edit Story

The 12 Luckiest Startups In Boston

This article is more than 9 years old.

Ah, the relentless cadence of Techstars. All over the world, every year, from London to Seattle, its waves of ambitious startups and inventors seem to rise and surge with the inevitably of the tides. Its entrepreneurs march in step through its bootcamps to the rhythm of the seasons.

It’s an exclusive club – only about 1% of startups that apply wind up making it into the program – and over 90% that complete its courses prove their powers by surviving. The payout is mouthwatering for young firms: $118,000 in seed funding, intensive mentorship, and access to a network of mentors and program alumni. The payment is a 7-10% chunk of equity in the company. After 90 days with Techstars, the organization claims, companies average over $2 million in follow-on investment

Techstars Boston just announced its fall roster of lucky teams, and a few of them don't even call Beantown home. Several of the most recent class hail from overseas, namely Australia, Holland, Croatia, France, Russia, as well as the United States. This is the first go-round for new managing director Semyon Dukach , a successful and relentless entrepreneur and the focus of a recent FORBES profile, looking back on his time as an MIT math wiz, a blackjack card-counter, founder of multiple businesses and his evolution as angel investor.

Here’s a list of the startup teams that will be working their tails off along the Charles this fall, toiling to make their entrepreneurial dreams come true--be they world domination or a quick strategic sale.

Techstars Boston Fall 2014 class:

  • Codeanywhere is a cloud based code-editor, development, and collaboration platform.
  • CoolChip designs next-generation kinetic coolers for electronics enabling quieter, smaller and cooler product experiences.
  • EdTrips makes field trips easy and drives more visitors to educational destinations by consolidating the booking and payment of trips among multiple locations and services.
  • Fairwaves develops disruptive open-source mobile network equipment and software to bring cell phone service to the next billion people.
  • Fortified Bicycle is building an urban cycling brand with MIT-engineered hardware.
  • Headtalk's platform enables a new kind of nonverbal communication with wearable devices.
  • Helloblock‘s  API simplifies accepting online payments through Bitcoin.
  • indico is building the world’s first IDE for machine learning.
  • ROCKI is creating the standard for listening to the music you love on the speakers you already have.
  • Spitfire Athlete is building a brand that stands for strength and badassery among women, starting with a fitness app.
  • Streamroot cuts bandwidth costs for online broadcasters with native peer-to-peer video streaming technology.
  • Splashscore's influencer activation engine helps large consumer brands find and activate their most influential customers on social networks to drive more clicks, likes, leads, and sales.