Latest News

The West Des Moines Business Incubator (WDMBI) celebrated its 2^nd anniversary Tuesday afternoon (November 20th) with an open house at their headquarters (2829 Westown Parkway, Suite 220).

Guests included WDMBI President Anita Messerschmidt, Des Moines Mayor Steve Gaer, West Des Moines WDMBI Board Member and Past President Kurt Pearson, West Bank Vice President Brad Winterbottom, and incubator clients David Gion (Canvas) and Joe Soto (One Social Media).

With a new era of health care on the doorstep and more than three out of four consumers unaware of the role of the 2012 tax return on their health care coverage next fall, H&R Block and early-stage business incubator and startup accelerator Think Big Partners announce the creation of Hackovate Health 2013. The competition is designed to identify innovative mobile, online, social and other applications that help consumers navigate the new healthcare landscape.

Communitech's Hyperdrive accelerator, based in Waterloo, Canada, has named  Doug Cooper as its new Managing Director. He takes on this new role after 18 months as an Executive in Residence for Communitech's Venture Services Team. I know Doug personally; he's an excellent choice for this important role.

Ryerson University, based in Toronto Canada, has launched the Innovation Centre for Urban Energy (i-CUE). Located at Ryerson's Centre for Urban Energy, i-CUE is Canada’s first business incubator and accelerator devoted solely to urban energy. Its goal is to help energy start-ups turn their ideas into commercial products and services. There are currently four companies at i-CUE: Energy Savers, Plug’n Drive Ontario, DanTeb Enterprises and Grid Resources.

Big news for Lemnos Labs.

The San Francisco-based hardware incubator just secured $1.85 million in funding from angel investors Ash Patel (Yahoo), Matt Mullenweg (WordPress), Alex Lloyd (Accelerator Ventures), Alex Vikati, Daniel Abrams, Don Hutchison, Edwin Ong, Jack Herrick (wikiHow.com), Naval Ravikant, Othman Laraki, Paul Sethi and Seraph Group.

The money will be used to expand resources within the incubator, benefiting existing and future startups.

Betaspring is accepting applications for its Spring 2013 program.

The Providence, Rhode Island incubator offers $16-$20K in seed capital, workspace and access to its alumni and mentor network in exchange for 6-10% equity.

As a bonus, Betaspring is giving startups an extra 10 weeks of free office space at the end of the program.

Betaspring’s 12-week program has three main “tracks”: web/mobile, physical technology and gaming.

A new co-working space has opened its doors on Australia’s Gold Coast.

Southport-based Gold Coast Coworking has been set up as a hub for IT professionals to work and collaborate. But it isn’t just for entrepreneurs. This creative space is also meant for designers, programmers, engineers and more.

They've set up shop at 21 Nind Street, with new partner Gold Coast TechSpace (a Hackerspace-styled organization).

SURGE Accelerator has announced that more than half of the energy software startups that completed its first program have received subsequent funding. In total, SURGE companies have raised more than $6 million.

The slow death of the Clallam Business Incubator in Port Angeles, Washington, is almost over according to a report in The Peninsula Daily. The private non-profit incubator was also known at The Incub@tor Lincoln Center and hasn't been operational since  2009. It's remained on technical life-support since then because of complications related to a state loan. That should come to an end this week because of an agreement reached by local government officials.

Startup Village, India’s first telecom incubator, is about to get a bit bigger.

The Kochi-based program says they want to incubate 2,000 IT startups within the next three years. Since launching in April, Startup Village has worked with 68 companies. But to meet their goal, they’ll need more than the 5,000 sq. ft. space they’ve been working out of.

Last week Startup Village CEO Sijo Kuruvila announced a new 10,000 sq. ft. campus at the Kinfra Hi-Tech Park which can accommodate another 250 to 300 companies.

AZ Furnace Accelerator has announced the ten startups participating in its inaugural program.

From biomarkers for disease diagnosis, to new methods for massive data storage, to repurposing discarded tires for new concrete and construction materials, the startups represent a wide range of technologies and innovative solutions.

Bytelion (pronounced Byte-Lion), a MD-based software design firm, is helping change the way small companies and medium-sized enterprises approach web development, while staying "Lean." Working with Select 6, the two companies have teamed up to create a new crowdfunding platform and startup accelerator for Minority, Women and Veteran-led (MWV) startups and projects.

Twenty startups from the SAP Startup Focus program have signed commercial agreements to go productive with the SAP® HANA One platform on Amazon Web Services (AWS).

Since the launch of the program six months ago, more than 800 startups from 17 countries were evaluated and 153 were selected for participation. More than 60 percent of the startups are from non-traditional markets.

Another incubator bites the dust after facing legal problems. floridatoday.com reported yesterday that the board of directors of the 25-year-old Florida-based Technological Research and Development Authority (TRDA) had voted to dissolve the organization. US Department of Justice lawyers had alleged that TRDA had improperly applied for millions of dollars of grants and then knowingly misused some of that funding to build its Melbourne Florida headquarters and business incubator which opened in 2007.