Rockstart Accelerator Announces First Year Results

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“We're proud of the successes of our first year class and believe it’s important to provide the results and progress of the startups in the Rockstart Accelerator program to foster a culture of openness and transparency.”

Amsterdam, The Netherlands (PRWEB UK) 9 January 2013

Rockstart Accelerator, the startup incubator program that helps promising startups from around the world launch their companies and break through on a global scale, announced the results of its 2012 inaugural year startup class today. Of the ten startups in the 2012 class, four have raised follow on funding to date, and one has reached the break-even point and expanded to Silicon Valley. The Rockstart Accelerator startup hub is based in Amsterdam, and accelerates 10 teams of founders with 99+ mentors for 100 days, along with an additional three-month summer program that culminates with a 25-day Silicon Valley road trip. Applications for the second year of the Rockstart Accelerator program are open now through January 20, 2013.

Highlights of the inaugural Rockstart Accelerator 2012 class include:

•     Owlin, a real-time news and social media analysis service: raised $250K from NoRo Venture Capital
•     Pastbook, a service to relive and share your photos both online and in print: raised $325K in seed financing from NoRo Venture Capital, Vidoze BV, and an undisclosed group of angel investors
•     Peerby, a web and mobile application that enables users to rent and borrow stuff from people in their neighborhood: raised an undisclosed seed round from Sanoma Ventures, and won a $125K second prize in the global Postcode Lottery Green Challenge, part of the Clinton Global Initiative
•     Postcron, a simple service for scheduling Facebook and Twitter posts: raised $125K three weeks into the program
•     Imgzine, a platform for real-time social magazines: reached the break-even point with 12 employees and currently expanding to Silicon Valley
•     Wercker, continuous SaaS deployment to the cloud: won the 2012 GigaOM Structure:Europe LaunchPad

“The results of programs like 500 Startups, Techstars, and Y-Combinator are well known, but due to the culture here in Europe there’s still a lot of unknowns in terms of the track record for follow on funding and results of accelerator programs based in Europe,” said Don Ritzen, co-founder and CEO of Rockstart Accelerator. “We're proud of the successes of our first year class and believe it’s important to provide the results and progress of the startups in the Rockstart Accelerator program to foster a culture of openness and transparency.”

The Rockstart Accelerator 2013 program is for startups around the world, and promising startup teams from any country are encouraged to apply. The program aims to prepare startups for international expansion and growth funding of between €100K and €1M euros. The second year of the Rockstart Accelerator program kicks off on March 15, 2013, and applications will be accepted through January 20, 2013. Rockstart your company and apply today at http://www.rockstart.com/accelerator.

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About Rockstart Accelerator
Rockstart Accelerator is a startup incubator program that helps the world’s most promising teams launch their startups and break through on a global scale. Rockstart Accelerator annually supports 10 teams of founders for 100+ days, provides seed investment of up to $20K, six-months of free office space, 99+ mentors, and coaching by entrepreneurs-in-residence. The program culminates in a four-week Silicon Valley road trip where the Rockstart Accelerator startups meet serial entrepreneurs, pitch to investors and VCs, and work out of San Francisco-based startup hub, RocketSpace. Rockstart Accelerator asks eight percent equity in the startups that are selected. Follow Rockstart on Twitter or Facebook to get the most up-to-date news about Rockstart Accelerator or visit http://www.rockstart.com/accelerator.

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