Tuesday, February 5, 2013

LaunchpadLA Application Deadline Nears, As Class Graduates

Interested in getting some help in getting your startup off the ground and funded? Launchpad LA, the Los Angeles startup accelerator program which is run by Sam Teller, and was founded by venture capitalist Mark Suster, is gearing up for another class, to start next month. The deadline for applying for the next class, which runs from March through July, is February 17th.

LaunchpadLA, which is among a number of startup accelerators which have emerged over the past few years and turned Los Angeles into one of the hottest startup markets in the nation, offers up $100,000 in an investment, free office space for four months, and access to mentors.

The group says that so far, from 2009 to 2011, it accepted 23 companies, of which 19 received funding worth a total of $80M; the accelerator said that the nine companies acquired exceeds $60M in proceeds.

LaunchpadLA started initially as a mentoring group, but expanded into accelerating and investing in companies in the last few years. The accelerator recently graduated its fourth class, which includes such firms as Connectifier (connecting recruits to job candidates), YieldMetrics (online advertising); Milk & Honey (shoes), Atlas Powered (mobile calendar and task management); Tuition.io (student loan management); Divshot (web design tool); Less Neglect (customer analytics); and Swing by Swing (golf app).

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