Boomtown debuts new graduates, new partnership at its Demo Day

BOULDER — As one of the final events of Boulder Startup Week, Boomtown’s Demo Day straddled the line between startup pitch event and rock concert, with founders that drank their beer onstage and a rowdy audience that cheered wildly when startups announced they had patents pending or an app available for download.

The Friday night event at the Boulder Theater, which featured 10 companies giving their pitches to the public, wasn’t the only big occurrence for Boomtown.

Earlier, the Boulder-based accelerator, which focuses on early-stage high-tech companies, announced that it was partnering with late-stage accelerator UpRamp and its parent CableLabs to create a track for startups in telecom and connectivity.

The three-year agreement will have about three startups per biannual Boomtown cohort for a total of 20 startups over the three years that are all focused on solutions for the telecommunications industry.

The partnership, said co-director Toby Krout, is one of several Boomtown plans to make in the future.

“We spent a greater portion of last year studying corporate accelerators,” Krout said. “We were looking for the most optimal model, and this is what we believe to be it. It’s going to allow corporate leaders to work with us in Boulder. And by having three or four verticals all in one cohort, they all benefit from cross-pollination.”  

Krout said the idea stemmed from Boomtown focusing less on its startups raking in lots of venture capital, and more on its founders being successful.

“You can’t scale entrepreneurship,” Krout said. “We see every startup as unique. But to scale is the VC model. For every 100 startups they invest in, one will be a success. But what happens to the other 99 percent? We think this will be a better investment in helping them.”

Through the partnership, the startups have access not only to the 12-week Boomtown accelerator, but also a direct connection to the corporate partners that work with UpRamp and CableLabs.

The partnership will be available for the next cohort, which is taking applications now.

Those companies will join the ranks of the more than 70 Boomtown has invested and helped grown, including the 10 most-recent graduates.

• Heads Up, a weather data and analysis platform now geared toward helping restaurants use weather data to predict what items they should sell, what moods their customers will be in and how many sales they should expect.
• ShadowBid, an extension and app that uses price history to help consumers find the best price for goods on Amazon and automatically place an order when an item hits a desired price.
• Good Buy Gear, a service that helps moms sell used children’s goods by automatically setting up a price point and picking up the item and delivering as part of the service.
• Nicolette, a patient-empowerment platform that aims to help parents with neo-natal infants engage and be part of the decision-making process by tracking their baby’s medical history and creating easy-to-interpret visualizations.
• Casting.AI, a machine-learning platform that automates the casting process for ads, commercials, TV and movies to make it easier, more affordable and more accessible.
• SensientHR, an employee-satisfaction tool that does short and simple weekly employee surveys to improve productivity and happiness in the workplace.
• RecruitSumo, a hiring tool to help non-tech people hire Web developers by providing a scorecard for potential hires.
• Read Dog Books, a service that creates subscription boxes for any store, retailer or brand to engage and increase customers, starting with local bookstores.
• JayWalk, an app to engage people in walking by partnering with merchants and retailers to get them off of the couch and onto Main Street.
• Donate Your Change, a round-up service that lets people round up the change on their purchases to donate to a nonprofit of their choice.

on Facebook on LinkedIn