Two startup accelerators announced inaugural teams for their 2020 cohorts this week.
BrokerTech Ventures of Des Moines and Iowa EdTech Accelerator of Iowa City will both welcome startup founders on March 2 as founders begin the five-week program for BrokerTech and 14-week program for Iowa EdTech.
Twelve BrokerTech Ventures startups will operate in Gravitate Coworking downtown. The accelerator was launched by Holmes Murphy in September to focus on technology startups serving insurance brokerages. BrokerTech Ventures will connect startup teams with a veteran mentoring network, seed funding for a portion of the team’s research and testing, and access to distribution for deployment. Following the program, BrokerTech Ventures will host a Summer Road Show series from May through August.
Link: Learn more about BrokerTech Ventures
Those startups are: Agentero (Oakland, Calif.), Broker Buddha (New York City), ChalkBites Inc. (Davenport), CogniSure (Warrenville, Ill.), ConsumerOptix (Dayton, Ohio), Goldfinch Health (Austin, Texas), Loss Run Pro LLC (Missoula, Mont.), MakUSafe Corp. (West Des Moines), ProNavigator (Kitchener, Ontario), Talage Inc. (Reno, Nev.), Trustlayer Inc. (San Francisco) and Wunderite Inc. (Boston).
The Iowa EdTech Accelerator is the first industry-focused startup accelerator launched by New Bohemian Collective (NewBoCo) in Cedar Rapids, and will host four startups operating out of the ACT office space in Iowa City, said Eric Engelmann, executive director of NewBoCo and managing director of the Iowa EdTech program.
Apprenticeship America, IEP Equity, the Agenda. Period, and TuitionFit are all Iowa-based startups targeting the education sector from K-12 to postsecondary education, Engelmann said. The accelerator is based on the existing Iowa Startup Accelerator, also managed by NewBoCo. The Iowa EdTech Accelerator will run from March 2 to June 5, with the option for cohort startups to present during EntreFEST in Cedar Rapids.
NewBoCo is partnering with ACT, University of Iowa Higher Learning Technologies, Iowa City Area Development Group and others to build up the edtech industry in Iowa.
“[We’re] working on a group of schools that could act as pilot schools for us for new products or services that meet their needs, or building venture capital connections on a global scale that are interested in the edtech sector,” Engelmann said. “This is just one piece of that much bigger story.”