StartX Accelerator gets big donation from Kauffman Foundation

The Kauffman Foundation yesterday announced an $800,000 grant to StartX, a non-profit startup accelerator targeting university students, to support StartX's expansion and national scaling of the program. StartX was initially launched as SSE Labs in 2010 by Stanford students whose goal was to accelerate the development of the best Stanford student entrepreneurs. Kauffman's grant will help StartX scale its current services and build a model for replication.

"StartX has taken important initial steps to develop an experiential education-based program for founders at the university level," said Wendy Torrance, Kauffman director of entrepreneurship who leads the Foundation's curriculum development. "Our grant will help StartX further develop its curriculum and program and identify a model for replication, while bolstering its capacity to gather and analyze data on its work and crucial outcomes."

StartX, which is affiliated with Stanford University, takes no equity from its portfolio companies. It claims to have received applications from more than 6 percent of the Stanford student population each year and has supported more than 240 founders and 90 companies. StartX companies have raised more than $70 million in funding. 85 percent of StartX companies attract institutional and/or angel funding within three months of joining the program. Its staff of 20 is made up of students and recent graduates.

"We're building a scalable, education-focused organization to serve as a trusted resource for the world's best entrepreneurs," said Cameron Teitelman, founder and senior managing director of StartX. "The Kauffman Foundation's support will help us take a big step toward our goal of building a truly disruptive platform for entrepreneurial education."

for more information: http://www.kauffman.org/newsroom/kauffman-foundation-announces-grant-to-...