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Two Local Companies To Participate in Techstars Cohort

Techstars Anywhere, is a (mostly) virtual accelerator that helps startups around the world grow their companies.

The virtual program, Techstars Anywhere, is meant to address bandwidth and geographical problems.

If admitted, the founders participate in a thirteen-week accelerator program, without having to travel to a new city for months to participate. In addition, founders can work from “anywhere,” and three times during the program the cohort convenes in U.S. city. In exchange for the specialized help, funding, and access to mentors, Techstars Anywhere gets a 6% ownership stake from each company.

Since its inception in 2017, Techstars Anywhere has maintained a acceptance rate of less than one percent.

Two local startups, Sekr and The Crafter’s Box — both led by female entrepreneurs — were the only San Diego companies that made the cohort.

Founded in 2015, CEO Morgan Splena launched The Crafter’s Box, an e-commerce company that sells a monthly subscription box that provides crafter’s materials for art projects. Each month, a new project is presented varying from knit pillows to woven wall hangings to wooden cutting boards.

“I struggled to find professional educational resources digitally or local classes that allowed me to check out new crafting techniques around my schedule,” Splena, CEO of Crafter’s Box, said, “Sourcing high quality tools and materials was also problematic; mass hobby stores aren’t catering to the more artisan styles (tapestry, weaving, stained glass art, etc) of making and yet the industry is growing rapidly  —  making the industry ripe for disruption.”

Sekr, a tech startup founded by Brianne Acio and Jessica Shisler uses an app platform for travelers to be better connected, informed, and to locate campsites worldwide. Founded in 2018, the app called Vanlife currently serves over nine thousand users with a strong social media presence of roughly 65 thousand followers on Instagram.

“There’s around 80 thousand locations in America that you can camp at , for free , that no one knows about because there’s no one centralized resource for it,” Acio, CEO of Sekr, said, “Currently there are roughly 5 million ‘Vanlifers’ in the United States who experience extreme problems that are impacting their quality of life. These are people who have spent all their time accessing places nobody knows about, which is why we are targeting this niche market.”

Both startups are in their early stages. In particular, Sekr received a pre-seed investment of $70,000 which was used to help build its minimum viable product (MVP), the VanLife app, which was released last year. On the other hand, Crafter’s Box is solely bootstrapped and is a profit-generating company.

In total, there were ten startups who received acceptance into the program’s cohort. The other startup companies are Cabinet Health, Forecastr, Milkrun, Pangian, Symba, Tot Squad, Workfrom and Xmetryx.

Getting on Techstars’ Radar

When the founders learned they had been accepted into the highly competitive Techstars Anywhere, it was cause for celebration.

Making connections is a key part of being accepted into Techstars Anywhere.

As for standing out in the application process, it’s all about putting the founder’s name to a face, according to Sekr founder Brianne Acio

“For any program you’re going to apply to, build relationships with the people who are the decision makers.” Acio said, “If they (Techstars) didn’t know who we (Sekr) were personally, I don’t know if we would have gotten in. Developing those relationships with the right people definitely gives us an advantage, luck just came our way.”

The Crafter’s Box founder, Splena said she was discovered by Techstars after representing her company at a local pitch competition, Women’s Fast Pitch. “Thanks to the Women’s Fast Pitch competition and the recommendation from Silvia Mah (a local advocate for female entrepreneurs), they (Techstars Anywhere) began to follow us within the greater San Diego ecosystem.”

Standing Out

Before Sekr, so called Vanlifers only option was to turn to not-for-profit organizations which use user-generated content to display free camping places, such as ioverlander app and freecampsite.net. Sekr’s main differentiator is that it targets the younger demographics, whereas, popular sites typically cater to the older generation.

The Vanlife app by Sekr, allows its users to connect with people in the outdoors through its social features, including messaging, finding events, and posting listings.

The Crafter’s Box targets the artist community. It leverages an online marketplace where customers can purchase single workshop kits, digital content or tools and materials to replenish their crafting stash.

“We don’t believe anyone is doing anything quite like us, Splena said. “There are other digital educational platforms and online materials marketplaces (like Etsy), but a company that brings high-end, highly digestible workshop kits to crafters is new to this industry.”

Founders in the Techstars Anywhere program are expected to connect with a variety of entrepreneurs, mentors, and investors from the prestigious network.

A Full Launch

“We look forward to learning from the immense Techstars network of mentors as we tackle the challenges of growth,” Splena said. “We’re excited and grateful to join an acceleration program that will move us forward and help support our scale.”

Acio is getting ready for a launch. “We are really focusing on our product. We’re building out our technical team and getting the product ready for a full launch in May this year, just in time for road-tripping season.” Acio said.

San Diego Ties

Although the program is remote, it does have roots in San Diego. The accelerator is led by Ryan Kuder, a San Diegan and a former executive of EcoATM.

Techstars, which was co-founded in 2006 by popular venture capitalist Brad Feld, has dozens of accelerator programs worldwide and is one of the most active startup investors in San Diego.

Techstars Anywhere invests in founders building companies across a variety of industries — consumer or enterprise software, security, impact companies, hardware, IoT, and robotics.

The program will culminate in a virtual demo day in April, where investors can evaluate the startups’ progress.

Past companies to have gone through Techstars Anywhere include Smallhold, Qeepsake, Goodr, Trust & Will, DNSFilter, Lynq, Flikshop, Bloominous, Civic Eagle, Speedwell & Yarrow, and Parabol.

Recent portfolio success stories included ClassPass (received $1 billion unicorn valuation in 2020), PillPack (acquired by Amazon in 2019) and SendGrid (acquired by Twilio in 2018).

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