How Effective is Excelerate for Chicago Startups?

May 17, 2012 12:00 AM

" Excelerate Labs is entering its third year, so I’ve decided to look back on the companies from the first two years to see how they’ve fared. Two recent events motivated this investigation.

First, my company announced a major partnership this week with FindTheBest, the data-driven comparison engine created by Kevin O’Connor. Kevin previously founded DoubleClick (sold to Google for $3.1 billion in 2007) and Internet Security Systems (sold to IBM for $1.4 billion in 2006), so he knows a thing or two about creating successful startups. Second, Excelerate Labs recently announced the members of its third class: SpotHero, 71lbs, Cureeo, Fibroblast, frintit, Good Karma Clothing for Kids, Lasso, Orbeus, Pictarine and Whimseybox. With the announcement of the third class, I thought it would be interesting to apply FTB’s spirit of data driven comparison to the largest incubator in the second city.

Let’s start with some top-level statistics. Excelerate Labs has been around as long as 500 Startups, but only half as long as TechStars or YCombinator. Of all of the programs, Excelerate actually provides the least amount of seed funding to its participants "

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