Wednesday, July 14th, 2010...4:15 PM
MassChallenge Striving To Select 100 Start Ups
People continue to question Boston’s viability as a start-up town.
Are you kidding?
If you feel this way you should join in on the fun this week at MassChallenge where over 300 start up ventures are pitching to be selected to participate in the incubator’s program this Summer. Let me enunciate this once more OVER 300 START UP VENTURES! WOW!
What is also great to see is the outpouring of support from the Boston community to support the program. Yesterday I joined in on the fun as a Judge for eight pitches. Over the course of this week over 100 entrepreneurs, investors, lawyers and mentors will join forces to judge the 300 finalists. This process will winnow the list of ventures down to 100 who will be selected to participate in MassChallenge over the next several months.
The 100 finalist companies will be offered several months of free office space at the One Marina Park high-rise on Fan Pier. A few lucky winners will receive either $100,000 or $50,000 at the competition’s conclusion this fall. All of the prize money comes from private sponsors like Microsoft, Xerox, and the law firm Foley Hoag.
Running a start up competition with this kind of participation would cause even the biggest of Boston cheerleaders some concern over quality. I am happy to report that I saw several excellent candidates over the few hours I volunteered.
Looking forward to see which of the 100 ventures get selected.
3 Comments
July 14th, 2010 at 5:57 PM
Great post! The people that think that Boston is not a start-up city are clearly not involved. The amount of investors located in the Greater Boston area should be a big enough hint. I still think that there aren’t enough avenues to receive seed funding quickly. After the companies are selected for the MassChallenge, how are the supposed to support themselves? Free office space is great, but it’s not enough to get young (poor) entrepreneurs off the ground.
July 14th, 2010 at 6:17 PM
Jason – part of this is the ecosystem that is forming. funding follows great ideas… successful incubation… great launches. it all has to work together. i see big changes in this landscape over the last couple of years. i see more people participating as angels…this is very healthy. big sign to the world … you were probably educated here … come back and invest some of your capital in this emerging ecosystem. point well taken … we need more!
July 17th, 2010 at 4:25 AM
Many of you know PMCer Jothy Rosenberg. And those who don’t know him personally, you’ve seen him along the Sturbridge to Provincetown route the last seven years.
Leave a Reply