Investor directory

Techstars

Techstars Central LLC, founded in 2006 and based in Boulder, Colorado, operates as a startup accelerator and venture capital firm focused on supporting early-stage technology-oriented companies. It specializes in a mentorship-driven accelerator program, selecting ten startups each summer to participate in a three-month incubation period, offering funding of $120,000 in exchange for equity. Techstars invests primarily in sectors such as fintech, artificial intelligence, blockchain, augmented reality, and IoT, while avoiding investments in medical devices, healthcare technology, and local service-oriented businesses. In addition to its primary accelerator, Techstars has various specialized programs, including those focused on music, retail, mobility, and social impact, with global reach extending to regions such as Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The firm prefers taking minority stakes, typically between six and ten percent, without seeking board representation or investor rights. Techstars has built a robust network of entrepreneurs, mentors, and corporate partners to foster innovation and growth within its portfolio, which includes over 1,000 companies with a significant collective market capitalization.

Focus

Pre Seed RoundSeed RoundArtificial IntelligenceMachine LearningSeries AShow more
http://techstars.com/ventures
https://crunchbase.com/organization/techstars
https://facebook.com/techstars
https://linkedin.com/company/techstars
https://twitter.com/techstars
https://www.capitaliq.com/CIQDotNet/company.aspx?companyId=431767203
https://www.privateequityinternational.com/database/#/profile?id=14977

Ethan Austin

MD of the Techstars Western Union Accelerator

Mark Tortorella

Advisor

Nathanial Zola

MD

Past deals in Search Engine

nFlux AI

Series A in 2022
nFlux, Inc. develops a software that provides artificial intelligence, visual content, and lingual information. The company offers Ask Engine, a unified integrated interface where users can acquire information from multiple sources, by asking a question. It serves entertainment, education, security, and healthcare sector. The company was incorporated in 2019 and is based in Los Angeles, California.

Y-hat AI

Pre Seed Round in 2020
For anyone with large volumes of video, Y-hat AI offers semantic search in videos stored on our cloud through AI. This results in 36,000x faster search compared to lexical search of manually written video tags and titles stored elsewhere.

nFlux AI

Pre Seed Round in 2020
nFlux, Inc. develops a software that provides artificial intelligence, visual content, and lingual information. The company offers Ask Engine, a unified integrated interface where users can acquire information from multiple sources, by asking a question. It serves entertainment, education, security, and healthcare sector. The company was incorporated in 2019 and is based in Los Angeles, California.

nFlux AI

Pre Seed Round in 2019
nFlux, Inc. develops a software that provides artificial intelligence, visual content, and lingual information. The company offers Ask Engine, a unified integrated interface where users can acquire information from multiple sources, by asking a question. It serves entertainment, education, security, and healthcare sector. The company was incorporated in 2019 and is based in Los Angeles, California.

42Maru

Pre Seed Round in 2018
42Maru, Inc., founded in 2015 and based in Seoul, South Korea, specializes in developing advanced search engine technology tailored for artificial intelligence applications. The company has created a deep learning-based question-answering system designed to accurately understand user intent and deliver precise answers. With a focus on various sectors, including connected cars, smart speakers, and chatbots, 42Maru leverages its expertise in information retrieval, machine reading comprehension, and natural language processing to enhance user interactions. The company aims to capitalize on the growing shift from traditional web searches to more intuitive question-answering systems, anticipating significant market growth in the coming years. Its business strategy encompasses B2C initiatives through partnerships with major telecommunications companies in Korea and plans for global expansion with multilingual support. With a strong team led by a seasoned CEO who has over 20 years of experience in the search engine industry, 42Maru is positioned to lead in the rapidly evolving AI landscape.

Enroll Hero

Pre Seed Round in 2018
Personalized recommendation tool that helps seniors pick the perfect Medicare plan in seconds.

Skopenow

Seed Round in 2017
Skopenow, Inc. develops a people search engine that enables social media investigations for discovering fraud. The company was incorporated in 2016 and is headquartered in New York, New York.

Skopenow

Seed Round in 2016
Skopenow, Inc. develops a people search engine that enables social media investigations for discovering fraud. The company was incorporated in 2016 and is headquartered in New York, New York.

Contactable

Seed Round in 2015
Contactable is a database that enables its users to find journalists by their topics of interests. It also enables them to review previously written content of the listed journalists.

Curious

Seed Round in 2015
Curious is an "intelligent" offline search engine powered by SMS.

Experiment Engine

Seed Round in 2014
Experiment Engine, Inc. operates testing and conversion optimization platform. Its platform enables brands and agencies to manage testing programs, scale experimentation, and measure ROI; and allows teams to plan testing projects, review variations, and report on results. The company’s platform manages, collaborates, and reports on testing programs; provides access to design, development, copywriting, and QA resources; and builds and refines conversion optimization strategies. It serves e-commerce, publishing, lead generation, and agency sectors. Experiment Engine, Inc. was incorporated in 2014 and is based in Austin, Texas. As of April 19, 2017, Experiment Engine, Inc. operates as a subsidiary of Optimizely, Inc.

MentorMob

Seed Round in 2013
What if Google provided a path through the best content to learn from so learners don't need to search anymore? MentorMob eliminates the need to search by providing crowd-curation of the best free content to learn from with a step-by-step path for any topic.

FindIt

Seed Round in 2013
FindIt is the easiest way to find emails and files across your cloud accounts using your smartphone. Search in a visual way using people, timing, and file types. Search Gmail, Google Drive, and Dropbox at the same time!

Mocavo

Series A in 2012
Mocavo.com™ (http://www.mocavo.com), a free search engine geared toward genealogists and people interested in learning more about their family history, launches today. Mocavo.com enables the search of more than 50 billion words – including billions of names, dates and places, all within fractions of a second. Mocavo.com fills an important industry need by providing the first large-scale, free search engine for family history research. Coupled with the speed and accuracy by which search results are produced, Mocavo.com represents a major technological breakthrough within the genealogy world.

Mocavo

Venture Round in 2011
Mocavo.com™ (http://www.mocavo.com), a free search engine geared toward genealogists and people interested in learning more about their family history, launches today. Mocavo.com enables the search of more than 50 billion words – including billions of names, dates and places, all within fractions of a second. Mocavo.com fills an important industry need by providing the first large-scale, free search engine for family history research. Coupled with the speed and accuracy by which search results are produced, Mocavo.com represents a major technological breakthrough within the genealogy world.

Mocavo

Seed Round in 2011
Mocavo.com™ (http://www.mocavo.com), a free search engine geared toward genealogists and people interested in learning more about their family history, launches today. Mocavo.com enables the search of more than 50 billion words – including billions of names, dates and places, all within fractions of a second. Mocavo.com fills an important industry need by providing the first large-scale, free search engine for family history research. Coupled with the speed and accuracy by which search results are produced, Mocavo.com represents a major technological breakthrough within the genealogy world.

The Shared Web

Convertible Note in 2011
The Shared Web is an online content discovery platform that allows users to access and share personalized news feeds from across the internet. Founded by Nicolae Rusan, Nav Patel, and Kareem Amin, the platform is based in New York, USA. Its primary goal is to enhance the way individuals consume and disseminate information, providing tailored news experiences that cater to users' preferences.

The Shared Web

Seed Round in 2010
The Shared Web is an online content discovery platform that allows users to access and share personalized news feeds from across the internet. Founded by Nicolae Rusan, Nav Patel, and Kareem Amin, the platform is based in New York, USA. Its primary goal is to enhance the way individuals consume and disseminate information, providing tailored news experiences that cater to users' preferences.

Localcents, Inc. (Villij.com)

Seed Round in 2007
A self-proclaimed "recommendation engine," Villij is a service that essentially matches people with similar interests. The site recommends individuals to one another based on the content people have themselves created on the Internet (i.e. blogs, social networking and bookmarking sites, etc.) Villij is a [TechStars](http://www.crunchbase.com/organization/TechStars) company.

Search to Phone

Seed Round in 2007
Search-to-Phone offers an interesting twist in the search for products and services over the phone. An improvement on the traditional 411 directory assistance, Search-to-Phone records your call like a voicemail and broadcasts your message to a number of relevant local businesses at once. You then receive a call from someone whose product or services you are likely seeking. Search-to-Phone is a [TechStars](/organization/TechStars) company.