The downturn certainly hasn’t made getting a term sheet an easy endeavor. Many early-stage companies have chosen to forgo traditional investment in favor of participating in incubator programs . This trend is exactly why the TechStars mentorship program is expanding to yet another city. The program just announced plans to launch a Seattle program in the fall of 2010.
Under the direction of entrepreneur and partner in Seattle’s Founders Co-op Andy Sack, 10 lucky startups will receive seed funding and sage advice from a team of established mentors. Based in Boulder, Boston and soon Seattle, TechStars teams receive $6000 dollars per founder for a maximum of 3 founders. From here, the program claims a 6% equity stake in your company and trains you to run a sustainable startup. Some well known program graduates include location-based network Brightkite, Twitter app store oneforty and surveillance service ReTel Technologies.
Seattle program participants will benefit from the successes of past graduates as well as hear from entrepreneurs and investors including Managing Director of Voyager Capital Erik Benson, CEO of Redfin Glenn Kelman and CEO of The Cheezburger Network Ben Huh.
The program currently welcomes 10 teams per cycle with cycles in March in Boston, May in Boulder and now Fall of 2010 in Seattle. The Seattle program will begin taking applications in May 2010. For more info on application deadlines for each program visit the TechStars site.
For more on the program, check out Jolie O’Dell’s interview with founder David Cohen.
Video Interview with TechStars Co-Founder & Exec. Director David Cohen from ReadWriteWeb on Vimeo.
