Tag: Blake Yeager

Techstars Cloud Selects 11 Companies to Participate in “Cloud 2016”

November 3, 2015 / LauraLorek@gmail.com / 1 Comment

Blake Yeager, managing director of the Techstars Cloud in San Antonio. courtesy photo

Techstars Cloud in San Antonio announced its latest class of 11 companies participating in its second program this year.

“We have a group of amazing founders from all over the world,” Blake Yeager, managing director of Techstars Cloud wrote in a blog post. In addition to the U.S., startups from Spain, Taiwan and Ireland are participating in the program.

This is the fourth Techstars Cloud class in San Antonio. It began on Monday with the companies working out of the newly-remodeled eighth floor of Geekdom. The program ends with a Demo Day on Feb. 11th.

Two of the companies are from San Antonio. Help Social, founded by Matt Wilbanks and Robert Collazo, former Rackspace employees, has received seed stage investment from Mark Cuban and the Geekdom Fund. Help Social, based at Geekdom, makes a social media platform for companies to do customer relations.

The other San Antonio startup is Slash Sensei, an online training platform aimed at teaching information technology skills to students. It is also based at Geekdom.

And the program includes three startups from Austin: Clyp, a platform to capture and share raw audio, HuBoard, a project management solutions for users of GitHub and GitHub Enterprise and Popily, a data storytelling site.

The foreign companies in the program include Imagenli, image centric app maker from Malaga, Spain, Jumble, email encryption startup from Dublin, Ireland and UXTesting, a toolkit for data visualization from Taipei City, Taiwan.

The other companies participating in the program include ilos, a video app from St. Paul, MN, Joicaster, a live streaming platform from Orlando, FL and Thalonet, a private network for better Internet performance from Atlanta, GA.

Competition to Award $50K in Grants to 3 Tech Startups in Bexar County

November 3, 2015 / LauraLorek@gmail.com / 0 Comments

By LAURA LOREK
Reporter with Silicon Hills News

Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff announcing Tech Fuel, a new startup competition in San Antonio.

A new competition called Tech Fuel wants to fund a few good technology startups in Bexar County.

Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff on Tuesday announced the new technology startup competition during a press conference at Geekdom in downtown San Antonio. The county is working with Tech Bloc, a new technology advocacy organization, on the competition, funded with the county’s $1 million innovation fund.

Old economic development tools and ways don’t work in the innovation economy to attract, retain and grow technology companies, Wolff said. And those tech jobs are highly sought after and valuable to communities today, he said. In Texas, the technology industry spins off seven jobs for every job it creates, Wolff said. That compares to manufacturing which spins off one to two jobs, he said.

The Tech Fuel competition seeks to ignite the city’s technology startup community even more, building on work being down at Tech Bloc, Geekdom and Rackspace, said Blake Yeager, managing director of Techstars Cloud in San Antonio. He is running the Tech Fuel competition, which is open to technology startups with scalable business plans and less than $1 million in revenue and less than $1 million in outside funding. Those startups must be based in Bexar County with plans to expand their businesses here.

Lew Moorman, Tech Bloc’s board chairman discussing the new Tech Fuel competition.

Technology is the foundation of every industry, said Lew Moorman, Tech Bloc’s board chairman.

“The startup economy is what drives so many new jobs,” Moorman said. “While the dollars are not huge the truth of the matter is it just takes a little nudge to get a few people who are having coffee who have a few ideas to go you know what now that there is this competition let’s get together and let’s get to work. Let’s see if we can build something. This is how things get started.”

Entrepreneurs can apply for the program at SATechFuel.com through Jan. 10th. Then Tech Fuel organizers will select the top five companies to continue in the competition on Feb. 15th. The finalists will present their startups to a panel of judges and receive mentorship and coaching from Tech Bloc leaders. They also get free membership at Geekdom, the downtown co-working center aimed at nurturing technology companies.

In May, Tech Bloc will hold an event to announce the top three winners. The first place winner will receive a $30,000 grant, second place a $15,000 grant and third place a $5,000 grant from the county.

Blake Yeager, managing director Techstars Cloud and director of the Tech Fuel competition.

The Techstars Cloud Program Returns to San Antonio in 2015

July 23, 2014 / LauraLorek@gmail.com / 12 Comments

I am very excited to have the opportunity to restart and lead the Techstars Cloud program: http://t.co/jMnKZomSuq cc @techstars

— Blake Yeager (@blake_yeager) July 23, 2014

Blake Yaeger

The Techstars Cloud program launched in San Antonio in 2012 with 11 companies and the next year another 11 startups participated in the 2013 program.

But the program, launched by Graham Weston, CEO and Co-Founder of Rackspace at Geekdom, went on hiatus in 2013 when Jason Seats moved to Austin and launched the Techstars Austin program.

Now it’s back.

The Techstars Cloud program will return to San Antonio in 2015 and will be led by Blake Yeager, who served as a mentor to the first class when he worked for HP Cloud Services. He later quit to join ZeroVM, a 2013 Techstars Cloud company acquired by Rackspace.

“I am extremely excited to be taking over as the Managing Director for the Cloud program,” Yeager wrote in a blog post on the Techstars website.

“The roster of alumni from the first two Techstars Cloud programs includes some great companies and even better founders,” Yeager wrote. “I don’t want to name names, because I know I will leave someone out, but these companies have raised serious money and are doing amazing things. I am excited by the opportunity to continue to build on the legacy that Jason and these first two classes have pioneered.”

“The next Techstars Cloud program will be kicking off in San Antonio in early 2015 with applications opening up this Fall, according to Yeager.