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Techstars to open up shop in Detroit

crainsdetroit.com

11–20 of 99 posts

Re: Techstars to open up shop in Detroit

#11

I wish there was something like this here in DC. Very little startup scene. All I get to see are those sweettalk recruitment shops and those three lettered agencies that I couldn't imagine working for. Good news for you Detroit!

acceleprise, 1776, paul singh, steve case, 5-10 coworking spaces...

DC startup scene is hardly dead.

Re: Techstars to open up shop in Detroit

#12

Great news & I have more hope for the community. However, many people outside of the startup scene have misconceptions, as they see survivor bias/success bias in the reporting. One item in the report feeds this misconception: "The average company got $1.9 million in funding." The median raised would be far more revealing of the actual experience that a startup faces than the average.

Techstars is incredibly transparent with their stats. Full funding data available here: http://www.techstars.com/companies/stats/

I just pulled some numbers quickly...

In the last 3 Techstars NYC batches (not including the most recent), there were 37 companies with median funding of just over $1.6 million. 28 are still active, 6 have been acquired and 3 have failed.

Re: Techstars to open up shop in Detroit

#13

As a Detroiter hopefully this will give me a reason to start going downtown. The current problem with the Detroit Metro area is when ever outside money comes in. Most the time the offices open in the northern/western suburbs. I say this because most high paying jobs are in the suburbs. Because that's where the businesses are. The suburbs are doing well. At first I was very excited and hoped they'd open relatively clo…

The only time I ever go downtown is for events at the Renaissance Center and Cobo Hall. There's really no reason to otherwise, unless you like to gamble. Pretty much everywhere outside of the immediate area around Cobo is really bad anyway.

Re: Techstars to open up shop in Detroit

#14

I wish there was something like this here in DC. Very little startup scene. All I get to see are those sweettalk recruitment shops and those three lettered agencies that I couldn't imagine working for. Good news for you Detroit!

I had the complete opposite experience in DC. There are a TON of startups in DC. Far more than where I live now (Portland OR).

You should checkout über offices. They have 5-10 startups working out of all three locations (most of with funding). On top of the co-working/startup spaces you have other accelerators and funding opportunities like 1776 and Acceleprise.

The DC startup scene is definitely healthy.

Re: Techstars to open up shop in Detroit

#15
post #3

While this is great news, I think YC-Detroit would have been even better ;-) There is a lot of talent here. As evidence, here's the First Robotics Competition team map: https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=zIJNq656OeBY.ke6fB8... Our teams also have a long history of winning ;-)

While YC is a wonderful program, I think it'd be nice to give some props and support to programs like TechStars that are actively expanding and supporting startup cities outside of the valley.

Re: Techstars to open up shop in Detroit

#18

I have said it before and I will say it again. Detroit is the perfect place to build the robotics industry and they should call it Uncanny Vally.

>Detroit is the perfect place to build the robotics industry Why?

Access to a technical population that are still there from the auto industry.

Cheap land to build large testing facilities.

Infrastructure that is only recently started to erode to test out various robots on.

Cheap cost of living in an otherwise capital intensive industry.

Re: Techstars to open up shop in Detroit

#19

As a Detroiter hopefully this will give me a reason to start going downtown. The current problem with the Detroit Metro area is when ever outside money comes in. Most the time the offices open in the northern/western suburbs. I say this because most high paying jobs are in the suburbs. Because that's where the businesses are. The suburbs are doing well. At first I was very excited and hoped they'd open relatively clo…

The only time I ever go downtown is for events at the Renaissance Center and Cobo Hall. There's really no reason to otherwise, unless you like to gamble. Pretty much everywhere outside of the immediate area around Cobo is really bad anyway.

The Greektown area is nicer. Fairly good restaurants aimed at younger people, I've frequented that area often without a problem.

The "Down Town" area is perfectly fine. I have friends who live down town. Just when you leave that bubble protected by freeways it gets very bad very fast.

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