SYRACUSE — StartFast Venture Accelerator’s second Demo Day, set for Thursday, Aug. 22 at the Landmark Theater in Syracuse, promises to be bigger and better than last year’s inaugural event. The gathering, which features technology companies pitching themselves to investors after spending the summer participating in StartFast, sold out the Everson Museum auditorium last […]
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SYRACUSE — StartFast Venture Accelerator’s second Demo Day, set for Thursday, Aug. 22 at the Landmark Theater in Syracuse, promises to be bigger and better than last year’s inaugural event.
The gathering, which features technology companies pitching themselves to investors after spending the summer participating in StartFast, sold out the Everson Museum auditorium last year.
This year, the event, which keeps the same format, moves to the Landmark in order to accommodate more people. All the more room to facilitate the growing excitement that Demo Day generates, says Chuck Stormon, a managing director at StartFast.
Demo Day is the culmination of StartFast, a 100-day mentorship-driven startup accelerator that provides an opportunity for up to 10 startup companies to spend the summer in Syracuse working on their business.
On Demo Day, each team has seven minutes to pitch their business to the collective pool of investors in attendance. The day begins with a networking breakfast, features an investors-only lunch where teams can talk in more depth with potential investors, and wraps up with an after party at Al’s Wine & Whiskey Lounge on Clinton Street.
Along with the five StartFast teams — Glyphr of Syracuse (ww.glyphr.cc); WedWu of Fort Lauderdale, Fla. (www.wedwu.com); Falcon of Los Angeles (www.thefalconapp.com); Symcircle of San Francisco (www.symcircle.com); and Calester of Hamilton, Ontario (calester.com) — this year’s Demo Day also features five additional companies that have participated in other upstate New York accelerator programs including StartUp Labs in Syracuse, HTR Launchpad in Rochester, Z80 Labs in Buffalo, and the 2013 Syracuse Student Sandbox.
“We’re really celebrating entrepreneurship across the region and presenting 10 great investment opportunities,” Stormon says.
Glyphr has already seen benefits from just being involved in StartFast, says Michael Quigley, Glyphr’s COO and president.
“Leveraging StartFast's world-class network of technology thought leaders, Glyphr has been able to increase awareness of its brand, grow its user base, and refine its product offering in a short period of time,” he says. Glyphr offers a 3D visualization plugin for tablet magazines and ecommerce websites to increase engagement levels and sales rates.
“They are revolutionizing how 3D models are created,” Stormon says of Glyphr, for whom he and Nasir Ali, also managing director at StartFast, have high hopes on Demo Day.
Demo Day spotlights another of the teams, Falcon, by using its mobile app, designed to drive customers to vendors and sponsors, within the Demo Day app available in the iTunes store for use on Demo Day.
Last year, eight companies participated in StartFast and Demo Day, with three of those companies now “seeing quite a bit of success,” Stormon says. He declined to name the businesses, but says when they are ready to share their stories, he hopes it helps generate more interest in StartFast and the Syracuse region.
“Graduates are our best ambassadors,” he says.
StartFast, a private, investor-backed program modeled on the TechStars program started in Boulder, Colo., is a program of Upstate Venture Connect, located at 235 Harrison St. in Syracuse, a nonprofit group that encourages the development of small, innovative companies in upstate New York.
Along with offering access to mentors, StartFast also provides participating companies with seed money — $6,000 cash per founder up to $18,000 per company — co-working space, free and discounted services from places like Amazon Web Services, and post-program support. In return, StartFast receives 6 percent of the company’s equity in the form of common stock.
StartFast (startfast.net) investors include members of the Seed Capital Fund of CNY, Cayuga Venture Fund, and angel investors across the region. StartFast is a member of the Global Accelerator Network, a global consortium of mentor-driven, independently owned and operated startup accelerator programs.
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