Tips On How To Plan For Your Start-up Accelerator – The Refiners

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BROOKLYN, N.Y.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–URBAN-X, the leading accelerator for startups reimagining city life backed by MINI and Urban Us, today graduated its seventh cohort of companies in its first-ever virtual Demo Day. From cities across the globe, seven founders presented their solutions online to an audience of investors, customers and public-sector leaders, showcasing hardware and software solutions to combat the world’s climate emergency and other emerging challenges impacting cities.
URBAN-X, launched by MINI in 2016 as part of the brand’s innovation practice and in partnership with venture firm Urban Us, invests up to $150,000 in up to 10 companies building solutions to address the most complex challenges cities face today. Now in its seventh cohort, seven startups today showcased solutions ranging from drone infrastructure for emergency response, EV charging software, novel materials inspired by nature to decompose air pollution, automated sewage assessment, predictive analytics for the construction and energy industries, and IoT-based solutions for food safety and cold-chain integrity.
“Building creative solutions for a brighter urban life is in our DNA,” said URBAN-X Managing Director, Micah Kotch. “As the need for solutions for local resilience has come into clearer focus across the world over the past weeks, we could not be more proud of the dedication Cohort 07 has shown in addressing large-scale challenges to improve city life.”
The full list of Cohort 07 companies include:
– ChargeLab: Making electric vehicle charging simple through an open EV charging management platform.
– Therma: Building technology to ensure food safety and waste reduction from farm to fork.
– EVA: Provides drone infrastructure and airborne logistics for vertical take off and landing transportation in healthcare and emergency response.
– Firmus: corporate accelerator Leverages AI and historical data to help construction companies learn from previous mistakes and automatically detect errors in the early stages of design.
– Hades: Provides automated assessment of sewer infrastructure, improving public health and environmental protection.
– Metalmark: Develops novel materials for highly efficient catalytic decomposition of air pollutants, making clean air globally accessible and affordable.
– Unety: A SaaS-enabled marketplace for sustainable finance that automates underwriting to reduce the time and costs of each transaction.
Today’s event marks the start of teams seeking additional investment to grow their companies, and served as a demonstration of the product and business development milestones hit during URBAN-X’s 20-week accelerator program.
Responding to real-time challenges as the crisis around COVID-19 has emerged, EVA is deploying its high throughput drone docking stations to aid in COVID-19 response efforts. EVA began working with partners in Europe and New York State to combat supply chain disruptions and support delivery of essential goods to healthcare institutions, pharmacies and home-bound elderly populations. Other companies that have deployed their technology to help cities respond to COVID-19 include current and alumni URBAN-X companies: AO Air, Circuit, Food For All, GreenQ, Near Space Labs, Numina, Therma, Thrilling and Upshift.
“MINI is committed to agile innovation, collaboration and entrepreneurship to build meaningful solutions that improve quality of life in cities in unexpected ways,” said Mike Peyton, Vice President, MINI of the Americas. “Cohort 07 exemplifies these qualities, which are needed now more than ever as we provide support to one another across the global community.”
The event will be livestreamed here beginning at 1:00 p.m. ET.
URBAN-X has a proven track record in helping early-stage companies secure funding from leading investors. In fact, 80% of URBAN-X companies have gone on to raise their next round of capital.
“Cities are central not just to climate action, but to resilience as well. This is especially apparent today,” said Shaun Abrahamson, URBAN-X Investment Committee and Managing Partner at Urban Us. “We are thrilled to support the founders of Cohort 07 now and into the future, and to continue to invest in driven entrepreneurs improving city life through URBAN-X.”
In addition to investments that URBAN-X and Urban Us made as part of the accelerator program, funds and individuals that have invested in URBAN-X portfolio companies include Fred Wilson, Brad Burnham, Edgar Bronfman Jr., BMW i Ventures, Draper Associates, Fontinalis Partners, Ekistic Ventures, Wireframe Ventures, Fifth Wall Ventures, Samsung NEXT, Story Ventures, Kairos, and UL Ventures.
URBAN-X Cohort 08 will launch this summer and will be the first URBAN-X class to be conducted completely online. URBAN-X looks for the brightest startups creating disruptive and scalable solutions across sectors such as public health and safety, food, water, energy, construction, mobility, and more. With an existi