Startup accelerator coming to Boise this fall

A new startup accelerator could match mentors with new companies in Boise this fall. The accelerator is being created by Pat Lawless, who also founded Startup Boise this year.

Lawless, the president and CEO of VoxBright Technologies, has worked with similar accelerators in Ireland and plans to connect the Boise accelerator with the Global Accelerator Network, an international group of accelerators that has agreed-upon standards for its programs. In GAN’s accelerator model, private investors fund startups for a small share of the company, with mentors working with entrepreneurs in short-term, intensive programs.

“We’re helping them flush out their ideas and hoping to get them to some sort of prototype, or a stage where they can get real money. This is early seed capital. We’re trying to get them to a point where they can get angel investment or early VC (venture capital) investment,” Lawless said.

Lawless said he has about eight individuals interested in funding the accelerator for two years, and is working to line up office space for the accelerator companies and the mentors. One mentor will be Mark Solon,  a managing partner with Boise VC firm Highway 12 Ventures and a general partner with TechStars, a top startup accelerator. Solon said accelerators help startups succeed in their fragile infancy.

“An accelerator is just that: It helps companies accelerate their progress. If Pat is able to attract top mentors to the program, the companies will benefit from the experience, wisdom and lessons learned from those mentors,” Solon said via email.

The accelerator could start in September or October, with four companies in its first class. The companies haven’t been chosen, though Lawless has several companies in mind. During a six-month span, those companies would get free office space and a $25,000 stipend, and three months of intensive mentorship at the start of the program. At the end of the six months, the companies would then pitch their ideas to investors. Lawless said he’s working on having the pitch take place at the Dent Conference, an annual leadership and ideas conference in Sun Valley, with the Boise accelerator companies pitching alongside other nascent companies from the western U.S.

Lawless said finding the right companies for an accelerator can be hard. The ideal company would have two people, and be either at a pre-revenue stage or just earning revenue. He said the companies need to have the potential for growth. He won’t focus solely on computer software companies.

“One of the fears that we have, both with Startup Boise and with the accelerator, is being overly tech focused, meaning software technology. We would love to see a mix of software and embedded technologies. … We also have manufacturing, agricultural and food-based technologies. We’ll look at all of them,” Lawless said.

TechStars has seven locations for its accelerators, while the Global Accelerator Network has 50 accelerators, several of which have moved up to TechStars designation. Patrick Riley, executive director of the GAN, said he’s talked informally with Lawless and has the impression that the accelerator could join GAN in the near future.

“What I hear over and over again from companies is that their growth in a week in an accelerator is typical of the growth they would have received in a month or two months outside of the accelerator,” Riley said.

Lawless, also the Boise Chapter president of the angel investment group Keiretsu Forum, was both a participant and mentor in an accelerator-like program run by the Irish government called Enterprise Ireland. He developed and eventually sold a mobile phone advertising platform called Numenix, then became a mentor and eventually the president of Amulet Devices, which makes voice-enabled remote controls that work with Microsoft Windows’ Media Center program.

Lawless started VoxBright, which uses voice controls for cable and satellite TV systems, in Boise because he wanted to help the business community here. He said he and Joe Williams, VoxBright’s director of research and development, typically meet informally with two or three entrepreneurs every week to offer advice.

“It’s something that both he and I love doing,” Lawless. “Usually, it’s at 5 o’clock in the afternoon on a Thursday or Friday, and it usually ends up falling into the kegerator at 6. We keep a kegerator here, because entrepreneurs need beer.”