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• StartX Staff 4:22 pm on April 3, 2013 Permalink
  Tags: entrepreneurship ( 2 ), imagine cup, Microsoft ( 2 ), startups ( 3 ), startx   

  Microsoft brings CEO Steve Ballmer and university innovators to meet StartX founders 

  PALO ALTO — StartX loves to bring together great technologists and entrepreneurs.

  Recently, we welcomed several noteworthy guests from Microsoft to meet with our founder community for tactical discussions around entrepreneurship, including Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and the U.S. finalists for the Imagine Cup, Microsoft’s student technology competition.

  StartX was Steve Ballmer’s first stop on a Silicon Valley tour he made in mid-November. After an energetic talk and in-depth Q&A with the founders, Steve spent almost an hour meeting with the teams and individually giving them feedback on their product and strategies for go-to-market
  and distribution.

  “Getting Steve’s feedback on our product was terrific” said Hai Nguyen, co-founder of StartX-backed Appfluence. “It was great to see his passion for early-stage tech and to pick his brain about our strategic direction and the state of enterprise software.”

  Steve’s aides were a little on edge as he keep a group of 100 VCs waiting at his next event so he could spend more time meeting the teams at StartX. Our founders didn’t seem to mind.

  

  Appfluence user testing with Steve Ballmer. Left to right: Hai Nyugen, Pablo Diaz-Gutierrez, Steve Ballmer. Photo courtesy of John Melas-Kyriazi.

  While it was a treat for the founders to chat with Steve, they also enjoyed the raw enthusiasm, intellect, and passion of the Microsoft Imagine Cup U.S. finalists who visited StartX in March.

  Out of hundreds of teams who applied from universities from all over the country for the annual software development and social entrepreneurship competition, 15 teams were picked as finalists and flown to Silicon Valley for a week-long boot camp.

  After a day of intense coding, the finalists came over to StartX to chat with our founders over dinner and exchange ideas (and, as often happens when talking with scrappy entrepreneurs, to get recruited).

  

  Imagine Cup finalists and StartX founders catching up over dinner. Photo courtesy of Brooke Lloyd.

  The conversations at dinner ranged from coding suggestions to discussions around vision and impact. “It was inspiring to learn about all the exciting projects the Imagine Cup teams were working on — from interactive physical therapy via the Xbox Kinect to electronic medical records for the developing world” said Andrew Lockhart, founder of StartX-backed Meet Mikey.

  Clearly, the Imagine Cup teams felt the same way, and ended their visit by asking the StartX staff when we would bring StartX to their home universities.

  Having great guests visit us is one of the many benefits of partnering with a company like Microsoft that is committed to innovation and supporting entrepreneurs. We’re excited to see who comes next.

   

• Alexa Lee 9:03 am on February 11, 2013 Permalink
  Tags: AOL, AT&T, Blackstone, Cisco, entrepreneurship ( 2 ), Founders Fund, Funding ( 2 ), Greylock, Groupon, Kauffman, Microsoft ( 2 ), startups ( 3 ), startx   

  

  StartX Raises $400,000 To Accelerate Entrepreneurial Education
  Funding Includes $100,000 Grant from Blackstone Charitable Foundation

  (Palo Alto, CA and New York, NY) StartX, a Stanford-affiliated nonprofit which runs one of Silicon Valley’s top startup accelerator programs, is announcing $400,000 in new funding. This includes a $100,000 grant unveiled today by the Blackstone Charitable Foundation.

  The combination of grants and partnerships, secured over the past few months, will be used to support the development and expansion of StartX’s startup accelerator program, which launched in 2010 at Stanford University.

  The annual Blackstone Organizational Grants Program backs innovative organizations to pilot, expand or replicate projects or programs that will catalyze the growth of successful businesses, industries, and communities. For this funding cycle, Blackstone joins other distinguished entities such as Cisco, AT&T, Founders Fund, Groupon, and Founder.org as new partners in support of StartX’s year-round, entrepreneurial education program.

  “The future of the global economy depends upon a pipeline of creative, talented, and inspired entrepreneurs,” said Amy Stursberg, Executive Director of the Blackstone Charitable Foundation. “Through this program, we are able to direct the Foundation’s resources towards connecting the best non-profit partners with entrepreneurs to help them on a path toward innovation and discovery.”

  StartX, which recently completed its 8th session, is exceptionally well-positioned to leverage this additional funding. The fast growing organization, primarily run by Stanford alumni and students, launched StartX Med in May 2012, a division of StartX focused on medical and biotechnology entrepreneurship. Six months later, StartX kicked off Motwani Labs, a pre-accelerator program focused on mentorship for Stanford entrepreneurs. StartX staff has tripled since last year to a team of 30, which manages hundreds of educational events, learning opportunities, and networking channels for its portfolio companies throughout the year.

  “We’ve made significant progress in scaling StartX over the last year. As we continue to grow, we are looking forward to working with our new partners to realize our shared vision of empowering entrepreneurs,” said John Melas-Kyriazi, Partnerships Director for StartX.

  StartX companies work on a broad range of challenges across consumer internet, enterprise, mobile, edtech, medtech, biotech, social enterprise, cleantech, gaming, and hardware industries. Cumulatively, StartX entrepreneurs have founded more than 90 technology startups and raised more than $100 million. StartX charges no fees or equity to participate in its accelerator program.

  This most recent funding event brings the total raised by StartX to $1.5 million. StartX’s existing partners include the Kauffman Foundation, Microsoft, Greylock Ventures, and AOL, among others.

  About StartX
  StartX is a Stanford-affiliated nonprofit that runs one of Silicon Valley’s top startup accelerator programs. Our mission is to accelerate the development of the best entrepreneurs through experiential education and collective intelligence. Since launching in 2010, StartX has supported more than 90 companies and 250 entrepreneurs in biotechnology, medtech, cleantech, consumer internet, enterprise IT, hardware, and mobile. StartX provides community engagement, mentorship, on-the-job education, office space and other resources. We are supported by the Kauffman Foundation, Cisco, Blackstone Charitable Foundation, Microsoft, AOL, Greylock Partners, Founders Fund, and many others. For more information, visit startx.stanford.edu.
  

  About the Blackstone Charitable Foundation’s Entrepreneurship Initiative

  Funding for this program is made possible through The Blackstone Charitable Foundation’s $50 million, five-year Entrepreneurship Initiative announced in April 2010. Influenced by the urgent need for job growth in the United States, The Blackstone Charitable Foundation seeks to support innovative projects and catalytic ideas that can accelerate start-ups, job growth, and economic activity. The Foundation focuses its resources on producing large-scale results in geographies hardest hit by the global economic crisis.

  About The Blackstone Charitable Foundation

  The Blackstone Charitable Foundation was founded at the time of The Blackstone Group’s Initial Public Offering in 2007 with substantial commitments from the Firm’s employees. Influenced by the enterprising heritage of the firm and its founders, The Blackstone Charitable Foundation is directing its resources and applying the intellectual capital of the firm to foster entrepreneurship in areas hardest hit by the global economic crisis. Through its investment expertise across several asset classes and geographies, Blackstone has a unique perspective on the global economy and a heightened understanding of how entrepreneurial activity is often the crucial catalyst in the growth of successful businesses, industries and communities. (For more information, see http://www.blackstone.com/CharitableFoundation.htm)

  StartX
  Alexa Lee
  650-417-5184
  alexa@startx.stanford.edu

  Blackstone
  Oriane Schwartzman
  212-390-2250
  oriane.schwarzman@blackstone.com