First year of StartFast program wraps with Demo Day

SYRACUSE — The first session of Syracuse’s StartFast Venture Accelerator wrapped up Aug. 16 with the program’s Demo Day.

Eight teams pitched their businesses to an audience of venture capitalists, investors, and entrepreneurs at the Everson Museum of Art in downtown Syracuse. It was the culmination of work the startups have been doing since May 14.

StartFast’s focus is on helping the young companies develop and validate a prototype product and secure enough funding for them to move forward with their work. Organizers chose the teams from a group of more than 300 applicants around the world.

StartFast is a private capital-backed accelerator for software, Internet, and mobile startups.

Participants in the program’s first year included Mozzo Analytics, which has developed a service to extract all links, documents, and media from users’ Gmail accounts. It provides an organized summary, searchable by topic, people, and time, according to the company.

The firm has identified $300,000 of the $750,000 in initial funding it is seeking, CEO Michael D’Eredita said during his pitch at Demo Day. D’Eredita is also a professor at the Syracuse University School of Information Studies.

He noted that the Mozzo Analytics team didn’t want to build yet another collaboration tool. Most people use email for that now and that’s not likely to change. The idea was to complement what’s already happening.

BitePal, which got its start in Ithaca, is developing a new deal service for bars and restaurants. It gives users one place to search and advertisers one place to post, CEO Paul Faguet said during his Demo Day presentation.

The service sends deals for purchase to users’ mobile phones. Users then simply show their phones to the restaurant when they get there and the deal is applied.

The service has 30 restaurants on board in Ithaca and Syracuse and is aiming to add new locations in Rochester and Tucson, Ariz., Faguet said. The company is seeking $300,000 in startup funds.

Organizers were pleased with StartFast’s first year, says Nasir Ali, one of the program’s managing directors. Investors and company mentors came to Demo Day from as far away as Silicon Valley, he notes.

“There is this community out there,” Ali says. “They are eager to contribute and support these companies.”

Half the businesses in StartFast already have strong ties to upstate New York, he adds. The others are open to considering relocating here. Much will depend on where their eventual investors are located, Ali says.

Ali and StartFast’s other managing director, Chuck Stormon, will be watching this year’s companies closely and helping them make decisions so they can close their initial funding rounds quickly.

StartFast is part of the Global Accelerator Network. The network grew from the TechStars program that began in Boulder, Colo. in 2007. TechStars has since expanded to Boston, Seattle, and New York City and includes a separate program for companies working on cloud computing and infrastructure.

The network includes 45 accelerators around the world.

Each company chosen for the program receives $18,000 in seed funding. StartFast investors receive a 6 percent stake in exchange. The businesses also get access to a number of in-kind contributions from national sponsors like Google and Rackspace through the Global Accelerator Network.

Teams receive regular coaching with mentors from around the country and from Stormon and Ali.

The Seed Capital Fund of CNY (SCF) is providing 40 percent of StartFast’s $2 million in funding. The rest is coming from private investors. The initial funding round will allow StartFast to run for four years.

Planning for next year has already started, Ali says. He and Stormon have told StartFast mentors to be on the lookout for promising companies. The formal application process for 2013 will probably begin in September.       

Contact Tampone at 

ktampone@cnybj.com