9Mile Labs sets up new accelerator at SURF Incubator

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This is a new one. It’s an accelerator inside an incubator. 9Mile Labs, the newly-formed startup accelerator that’s focusing on hatching new B2B companies, has picked SURF Incubator in downtown Seattle as its new home. “We believe it’s significant that our two organizations, both deeply committed to energizing the startup ecosystem, are coming together to… Read More…

Fledge: A startup incubator for socially-conscious startups takes flight with new cash

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Fledge, which is taking a TechStars-like approach to incubating startups that make the world a better place, has landed $307,000 in financing that it will use to bankroll its next group of companies. Fledge is kicking off its second class on February 18th, accepting seven new companies into the incubator at the HUB Seattle in Pioneer… Read More…

HootSuite’s Ryan Holmes, angel Geoff Entress launch new BC startup incubator Invoke Labs

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Geoff Entress has the BC bug. The Seattle angel investor is partnering with HootSuite founder Ryan Holmes and others to create a new startup incubator in Vancouver, B.C. dubbed Invoke Labs. The incubator is the latest step for Invoke Media, the development and design firm that spun out social media management startup HootSuite in 2008…. Read More…

Bring out your dead: Startup offers $1M to ‘acqui-hire’ alums of TechStars, Y Combinator and 500 Startups

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The hiring crunch for developers in the tech industry is a pain point we hear about nearly every day. Now, a San Francisco startup called Twice — that specializes in selling secondhand clothes of all things — is taking one of the more unusual approaches we’ve encountered to get developers in the door. Today, the year-old… Read More…

McKinstry to expand clean tech incubator in Northwest

McKinstry's new innovation center in Spokane

McKinstry is expanding its clean tech incubator program, adding an additional 18,000 square feet of space and a conference center at its facility in Seattle’s Georgetown neighborhood and opening a new 38,000-square-foot center at a historic electric railcar station in Spokane. “Our vision was to create a springboard for the green economy – from clean tech… Read More…

Meet Fledge: The first incubator for ‘conscious’ companies

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Michael “Luni” Libes has spent the past 20 years building software companies, creating new upstarts such as Ground Truth, Medio Systems, 2Way and Nimble Corp. But Libes is now switching gears with the formation of Fledge, a new Seattle incubator which he says modeled on TechStars but is specifically designed for non-tech companies. “There is… Read More…

Y Combinator for high-school kids? It’s students only at this new startup incubator

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StudentRND has been gathering geeky and entrepreneurial high school and college kids for weekend hackathons for three years now. Now, co-founder Edward Jiang is looking to expand his growing empire, launching a new 8-week tech incubator this summer that’s modeled on successful programs like TechStars and Y Combinator. “It makes sense: Students they want to… Read More…

An inside look at SURF: How an entrepreneur’s dream became Seattle’s latest startup experiment

Seaton Gras at the SURF incubator space in downtown Seattle

It’s 45 degrees outside, and a cold rain pounds against Seattle’s Exchange Building. But on the 8th floor of this historic 22-story art deco office — a concrete edifice that once housed industry titans such as GE and Standard Oil — Seaton Gras wants to talk about surfing. Why surfing? Well, for one Gras — a… Read More…

Startup incubator takes to the seas with wild idea to house foreign entrepreneurs

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Now, we’ve heard some wild concepts over the years. But the latest idea getting some buzz in Silicon Valley (not to mention cash from well known angel investor Peter Thiel) goes a bit off the deep end. An organization by the name of Blueseed Co. is proposing a “visa-free offshore incubator” — housed in renovated… Read More…

TechStars shines with $24M, looks to support grads with $100,000 checks

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Future graduates of TechStars will have the option to walk away with a little more cash in the bank as part of a new program being announced today. The high-tech incubator, which started in Boulder in 2006 and expanded to Seattle last year, has raised $24 million that it will use to bankroll entrepreneurs who… Read More…