A Cleveland-based entrepreneurship incubator is eager for Israeli technology
innovators to join its inaugural accelerator program.
LaunchHouse –
started in 2008 by CEO Todd Goldstein, COO Sam Krichevsky and “director of
awesomeness” Dar Caldwell – is a business accelerator that has since helped get
30 startups off the ground.
The firm is now launching its first-ever
LaunchHouse Accelerator program, offering 10 entrepreneurial tech teams $25,000
each and 12 weeks of work space in a Silicon Valley-type of location in
Cleveland on September 1.
The teams, LaunchHouse said, must be made of
two or three cofounders in a techrelated field and will have ongoing,
collaborative brainstorming sessions with other innovators. At the end of the
term, the teams will have the opportunity to present their ideas to local and
national venture capitalists and angel investors, the firm said.
“This is
our pilot of the accelerator,” Krichevsky told The Jerusalem Post Monday night.
“Our matrix for success at the end of this program is how many of these
companies will get follow-up funding.”
LaunchHouse is trying to provide
these entrepreneurs with “real-life experience” rather than an academic
setting.
As they reach each of several specific goals and milestones,
they will receive different allocations of their $25,000 funds, he
said.
“We really have a true entrepreneurial community,” Krichevsky said,
stressing that the incubator setting will offer connections and an
“entrepreneurial environment, ecosystem.”
The setting is minimalist – the
LaunchHouse building is in a former Oldsmobile dealership – but the new
Accelerator program has secured $200,000 in funding for this pilot round from
the Ohio New Entrepreneurs (ONE) Fund, as well as a $50,000 match from a private
local resident, he said. The ONE Fund has assured Launch- House that assuming
they can demonstrate a matrix for success, they will continue to fund the
program in the future, Krichevsky said.
Two out of the three cofounders –
Krichevsky and Goldstein – are Jewish, and all three are deeply interested in
Israeli innovation.
“Israel has some of the best entrepreneurs in the
world, and we know that,” Krichevsky said. “We would love to be able to be part
of the movement.”
LaunchHouse has already been approached to open up a
branch in Israel, he said.
While Israel has many venture capitalists, it
lacks programs like LaunchHouse, where people are willing to take the biggest
risk and invest in an initial idea, Krichevsky said.
“It’s an interesting
niche that we’re filling on both ends,” he said.
Meanwhile, separately
from Accelerator, LaunchHouse is in the process of setting up a Jewish
entrepreneurial fund that will be a future incubator specifically designed for
Jewish entrepreneurs from all over the world, Krichevsky said.
“Israel is
very near and dear to my heart,” he said.
Entrepreneurs can submit
applications on
Launch-House’s website until July 1.