TechStars expands to Seattle

TechStars announced yesterday that it plans to open a program in Seattle for the fall of 2010, with Seattle angel investor and entrepreneur Andy Sack serving as executive director.

We’ve found the perfect person to run the program in Seattle. Andy Sack will be the Executive Director there. Andy is already well-known on the local startup scene as co-founder and Managing Partner of Seattle-based seed fund Founders’ Co-op, guest lecturer in entrepreneurship at the University of Washington’s Foster School of Business, and host of the weekly tech meetup Seattle Open Coffee. Andy has served as a TechStars mentor in both Boulder and Boston in the past, so he’s already intimately familiar with the program and how it works.

To me, the real story here is the way that the Seattle community has galvanized around TechStars. It’s really quite amazing and humbling. Just take a look at the Seattle mentor list for the evidence. Also, the way that the VCs and angels in Seattle have come together is simply awesome. The funding group includes Bezos Expeditions, Buerk Dale Victor, DFJ, Founder’s Co-op, Ignition Partners, Madrona Venture Group, Maveron, OVP, Second Avenue Partners, Trilogy Partners, WRF Capital, Voyager Capital, Vulcan Capital and many prominent angel investors. Wow.

TechStars is essentially a three-month "startup boot camp" that accepts about 10 new companies each "semester." The program awards up to $6,000 per co-founder, with a maximum number of three co-founders. In exchange for mentoring (and the Seattle list of mentors is impressive), companies that participate in the program hand over a six percent equity stake to TechStars.

TechStars also runs programs in Boulder and Boston, with past companies including Ampidea, BrightKite, and Devver. The 2-year-old program has backed 39 companies to date, with 75 percent of those receiving follow-on financing.

Applications for the Seattle program will open in May 2010.