Vancouver’s GrowLab reveals inaugural cohort
This morning Vancouver startup accelerator GrowLab announced the five startups that will take part in their inaugural four month accelerator program this Fall.
GrowLab portfolio companies receive up to $25,000 in seed funding, four months of mentorship, free office space and the opportunity to pitch investors at the end of the program for follow-on funding. Portfolio companies will be based in Vancouver for the first three months and spend the fourth month in San Francisco.
Over 300 companies from around the world applied for consideration making the final decision difficult according to GrowLab co-founder Jason Bailey: “We were overwhelmed by the response to our call for applicants. We received applications ranging from gaming and social commerce to education, and we’re very excited by the group of founders we’ve chosen.”
The following five will take part in GrowLab’s Fall program:
- Matygo (Vancouver) is a cloud-based learning management system with a global network of educators, learners and resources across multiple campuses.
- Ecquire (Philadelphia) is an email plug in that helps you sell more and work less.
- Shape Collage (Toronto) allows you to automatically create photo collages from your existing photo library in seconds.
- SunnyTrail (Bucharest) is an analytics platform for your SaaS-based subscriptions.
- Placeling (Vancouver) lets you to share the places you love and explore the world based on the trusted experience of others.
GrowLab is hosting an Open House tomorrow night to introduce these startups to their new Gastown office space and in the case of the three relocating startups, to the Vancouver tech community at large.
GrowLab is located on the 2nd floor of 116 West Hastings and the open house runs from 4:00pm to 7:00pm. It is now sold-out but they are taking names for a waitlist online.
This week is shaping up to be a very busy one in Vancouver with the 2nd annual GROW Conference in town and related events stacking the calendar.
GrowLab’s four founders are Boris Wertz of W Media Ventures (formerly with AbeBooks.com which was acquired by Amazon), Debbie Landa of Dealmaker Media (creator of the GROW Conference and Silicon Valley’s Under the Radar), Jason Bailey of AdKnowledge (which acquired his SuperRewards) and Leonard Brody of Clarity Digital (which acquired his co-founded NowPublic). GrowLab’s Executive Director will be Michael Tippett, also a co-founder of NowPublic.
GrowLab has raised money from angel and venture investors including lead partner’s BDC, iNovia Capital and the Blackberry Partners Fund, along with Rho Canada, Mohr Davidow Ventures, Growthworks, Yaletown Venture Partners, Chris Albinson, and Mike Edwards.
Disclosure: Boris Wertz and W Media Ventures is an investor in Techvibes Media Inc.
