Amsterdam’s Rockstart Accelerator has announced the 10 new startups that will form its next acceleration class. On March 13th, the companies will commence their six-month Rockstart journey.
This will mark Rockstart’s second round of acceleration. It debuted the 10 companies from its first edition in June of last year, the stand-out of the group being social media scheduling tool Postcron, which hails from Argentina. Founded by Alejandro Rigatuso, Postcron received a €100,000 investment from Vidoze.com just six weeks into the Rockstart program and published over 40 million posts within a year of its launch.
Inspired by the success of Rockstart’s first acceleration edition, startups from all over the world applied to form part of its second class. In fact, Rockstart reports receiving submissions from over 400 startups from 60 different countries – not bad at all.
“People often ask me: where do you find all these startups? Honestly, I’m still surprised myself about how many entrepreneurs we are able to reach through our zero-budget marketing strategies. I believe it’s the reward for hard work and great results of the first program. The tech community in Amsterdam has also been booming in the past year, which also helps to attract great international startups,» remarked Don Ritzen, Rockstart Accelerator Co-founder and CEO.
The startups chosen for the 2013 edition operate in a wide variety of markets and technologies. Lucky for us, two of the startups have some Latin American roots. Limk is a Start-Up Chile alum, and iClinic is based in Brazil.
Here are the startups:
Zazzy, a platform where users can design their own jewelry.
3D Hubs, a place to connect users with 3D printers.
Van Chefs, a place to order from local chefs and share meals.
Limk, a tool that helps “cut out the web noise” to find content by way of each user’s social graph. Based in Turkey, Limk participated in the first edition of Start-up Chile.
Amiquo, a platform for game communities that helps gamers meet and stay connected even when they’re not playing.
iClinic, a web-based system through which doctors can access clinic and patient data anywhere, anytime. Based in São Paulo, Brazil.
Liscount, a platform to help consumers create the best-priced grocery lists possible.
Gibbon, a tablet-based learning platform through which users can learn, teach, read and discuss.
Parking Defenders, a tool for drivers to reserve parking spots and parking operators to maximize profits.
Cupenya, a way for companies to monitor, manage and optimize business processes through intelligent real-time analytics.
Each of the 10 selected startups was hand-picked after a grueling selection process, including a two-day Selection Days event to which 25 finalists were invited. They will soon commence work with Rockstart in taking their companies from idea to market in 100 days, supported by funding, office space, support tools and a network of over 100 mentors. In a few months, they’ll reemerge for the Rockstart 2013 Demo Day and a month-long tour through Silicon Valley.
“We’re excited because we have an extremely talented, driven and intelligent group of entrepreneurs this year: you’re going to hear a lot more about them,» said Ritzen. We surely will.
