Demo Day for the Philadelphia-based accelerator
focused on connectivity, media, and entertainment marks the
conclusion of the program; Eight Startups Land Partnerships with
Comcast NBCUniversal Companies
Eleven tech startups from around the world that are building
innovative connectivity, media, and entertainment technologies
pitched their companies to hundreds of investors, mentors, and
Philadelphia’s tech and startup community on Thursday during Demo
Day, which marked the finale of the second class of the Comcast
NBCUniversal LIFT Labs Accelerator, powered by Techstars.
The 13-week accelerator featured 11 companies that worked with
more than 75 mentors across Comcast NBCUniversal, including the
Xfinity technology, product and experience teams, NBC and Telemundo
broadcast stations, NBC Sports, NBCUniversal cable networks,
Universal Studios, Universal Theme Parks, DreamWorks Animation,
Comcast Business, Comcast Ventures, and Strategic Development. For
the first time this year, Sky also had mentors in the program.
Comcast NBCUniversal mentors joined an esteemed Techstars community
of mentors with deep industry, investment, and entrepreneurship
experience.
During Demo Day, eight of the 11 companies announced that they
either completed or are working on proofs of concepts or pilot
projects with Comcast NBCUniversal as a result the accelerator.
Additionally, one company, NICKL, decided to relocate to make
Philadelphia its new headquarters.
Throughout the accelerator, the diverse set of founders – of
which more than half are women or people of color – benefitted from
talks with other successful entrepreneurs, media training, pitch
practice in front of producers from CNBC, and hundreds of business
development meetings.
“It has been such a fantastic experience for all of the Comcast
NBCUniversal mentors to work side-by-side with these dynamic
companies to help them grow and launch their businesses,” said Sam
Schwartz, Chief Business Development Officer, Comcast Cable. “The
Founders of these promising startups have an incredible passion and
drive, and we are so excited to see what’s next for them.”
"Today marks the culmination of the 11th program I've run at
Techstars,” said KJ Singh, Managing Director, Comcast NBCUniversal
LIFT Labs Accelerator, powered by Techstars. “Having invested in
over 100 companies during my tenure and run more programs than
anyone else at Techstars, past or present, this is without a doubt
the class I am most excited about. These 11 companies were able to
achieve so much more because of their access to mentorship from
both the broader Techstars network and the decision-makers within
every business unit at Comcast NBCUniversal and Sky."
The startups that participated in Demo Day, and some of their
notable accomplishments during the accelerator, include:
- Diana AI, a conversational business intelligence and
analytics tool that enables non-technical users to access
enterprise data and analyze it easily, using natural language via
voice or text. During the accelerator, the team acquired its first
paying customers and signed six new enterprise customers, including
Comcast. Founders: Geeta Banda (CEO) & Teja Nanduri | San
Francisco, CA
- edisn.ai delivers interactive and personalized content
to sports fans by applying its AI-powered player recognition engine
to live video streams in real time. The team launched a pilot
project with Comcast's Watchwith Xfinity platform to deliver
interactive content for football games and will leverage this
capability for other kinds of content going forward. They are also
in pilot discussions with NBC10 and Telemundo62 Philadelphia for
sports and news content, and with Universal Pictures for
entertainment content. Founders: Ashok Karanth (CEO) &
Akshay Chandrasekhar | Bangalore, India
- GameOn increases live sports engagement by turning
complicated stats and odds into simple prediction games for the
everyday fan. The team has an active pilot with Comcast Business to
showcase free-to-play sports prediction on Comcast’s Xfinity X1
platform in bar and restaurant venues. Founder: Matt Bailey
(CEO) | Brooklyn, NY
- Messy.fm is the all-in-one podcasting solution for
businesses, brands, and individuals to record, edit, and publish
unlimited episodes for free. The company has grown its number of
shows by 28 percent and added a number of paid partnerships with
teams at Comcast NBCUniversal. Founder: Molly Beck (CEO) | Los
Angeles, CA
- NICKL creates a pass that helps enterprise teams get
past paywalls on articles across the web. Employees stay in the
know while employers save money. NICKL Passes will soon be offered
as a perk to thousands of Comcast employees and their dependents.
It also added 200 paying corporate customers during the course of
the program. As a result of the accelerator, NICKL has relocated
its headquarters to Philadelphia. Founder: Sumorwuo Zaza (CEO) |
Philadelphia, PA
- Pivan Interactive provides advanced training and
analytics for competitive gaming athletes, powered by computer
vision and AI. Pivan launched their first product, Uncanny.gg, and
they were able to systematically prove out an effective customer
acquisition strategy. They have partnered with Comcast Spectacor’s
new esports joint venture, T1 Entertainment & Sports, to
develop data-driven tools and provide unique analytics targeted at
the organization’s professional players. They are also in
discussions with the Philadelphia Fusion around a future
partnership involving both the team and the newly announced Fusion
Arena. Founders: David Sturgeon (CEO) & Constantine Tsang |
Boulder, CO
- Respeecher uses AI technology to transform voices,
allowing one person to speak in the voice of another. During the
program, Respeecher built relationships with partners that cover
over 75 percent of the U.S. entertainment box office and over 40
percent of the audiobooks market. They were also able to improve
their product, which now requires five times less time for
converted speech delivery. Founders: Oleksandr Serdiuk (CEO),
Grant Reaber, and Dmytro Bielievtsov | Kyiv, Ukraine
- Sporttrade is a financial exchange for sports. Since the
start of the accelerator, Sporttrade has signed a letter of intent
with an institutional trading entity, which has agreed to be a
designated market maker on the Sporttrade exchange when it
launches. Founders: Alexander Kane (CEO), Greg Scott, &
Henry Fuz | Philadelphia, PA
- Struct Club elevates how music-inspired fitness
instructors choreograph and deliver classes. The team welcomed its
first paying customers, piloted the platform in the Comcast
Technology Center's Fitness Center, and maintained 10 percent
weekly growth of instructors on average. The company launched a
wave of new features as well as a partnership with the Women in
Fitness Association, called Struct Scholars, to accelerate the
careers of diverse emerging women in the fitness industry.
Founder: Amira Polack (CEO) | Los Angeles, CA
- TakeShape is building a platform that helps developers
combine and streamline the growing number of application
programming interfaces (APIs) that provide critical functionality
to their web projects. TakeShape has signed a Letter of Intent to
work on a project with Universal Pictures and is already working
with a number of teams across Comcast NBCUniversal on potential
longer-term projects. Founders: Mark Catalano (CEO) & Andrew
Sprouse | Brooklyn, NY
- The GIST provides sports content, experiences, and
community for women. They successfully launched across the U.S. and
in Philadelphia in September. Since launch, they've grown their
community of "GISTers" more than 10 percent each week with
engagement rates remaining over triple the industry average for
their twice-weekly newsletter. Founders: Roslyn McLarty, Jacie
deHoop, & Ellen Hyslop | Toronto, Canada
Comcast NBCUniversal LIFT Labs Accelerator, powered by Techstars
will begin accepting applications for its third class in January
2020. Founders from around the world who are serious about
developing the next generation of connectivity, media, and
entertainment companies are encouraged to apply for the
accelerator, which will begin in July 2020 in Philadelphia.
This accelerator is one part of Comcast NBCUniversal LIFT Labs
for Entrepreneurs, a collection of programs that give talented
entrepreneurs access to Comcast NBCUniversal's renowned network of
partners, brands, and mentors to foster rapid breakthroughs in
connectivity, media, and entertainment. LIFT Labs offers business
development opportunities, expert talks, mentorship with industry
leaders from Comcast NBCUniversal and its partners, plus events and
educational resources designed to help entrepreneurs grow, launch
and amplify their businesses. For more information on the many ways
startups can engage with Comcast NBCUniversal, visit
www.ComcastNBCULIFT.com or follow LIFT Labs on Twitter, Instagram,
Facebook, and LinkedIn.
About Comcast Corporation
Comcast Corporation (Nasdaq: CMCSA) is a global media and
technology company with three primary businesses: Comcast Cable,
NBCUniversal, and Sky. Comcast Cable is one of the United States’
largest video, high-speed internet, and phone providers to
residential customers under the Xfinity brand, and also provides
these services to businesses. It also provides wireless and
security and automation services to residential customers under the
Xfinity brand. NBCUniversal is global and operates news,
entertainment and sports cable networks, the NBC and Telemundo
broadcast networks, television production operations, television
station groups, Universal Pictures, and Universal Parks and
Resorts. Sky is one of Europe's leading media and entertainment
companies, connecting customers to a broad range of video content
through its pay television services. It also provides
communications services, including residential high-speed internet,
phone, and wireless services. Sky operates the Sky News broadcast
network and sports and entertainment networks, produces original
content, and has exclusive content rights. Visit
www.comcastcorporation.com for more information.
About Techstars
Techstars is the worldwide network that helps entrepreneurs
succeed. Techstars founders connect with other entrepreneurs,
experts, mentors, alumni, investors, community leaders, and
corporations to grow their companies. Techstars operates three
divisions: Techstars Startup Programs, Techstars Mentorship-Driven
Accelerator Programs, and Techstars Corporate Innovation
Partnerships. Techstars accelerator portfolio includes more than
1,900 companies with a market cap of $23 billion.
www.techstars.com
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version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20191011005049/en/
Katie Lubenow Comcast Corporation 215-286-5691
Katie_Lubenow@Comcast.com
Ali Donnermeyer Techstars 603-498-5965
Ali.Donnermeyer@techstars.com
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