Kickstart wrote the Mountain West's first seed checks in the middle of a recession. Sixteen years and roughly $500 million later, it is still the region's most active early-stage investor - and still betting the frontier is wide open.
Techstars is a global pre-seed investor and startup accelerator founded in Boulder, Colorado in 2006. It runs three-month, mentorship-driven accelerator programs that give early-stage founders capital, a dense mentor network, and lifelong connections in exchange for equity. Since its first class in 2007, Techstars has backed more than 10,000 founders across programs in dozens of cities and 150+ countries, producing companies such as SendGrid, DigitalOcean, ClassPass, PillPack and Remitly.
Stagetime is the professional network for the performing arts - a single hub where artists, agents, artistic administrators and companies build multimedia profiles, connect with 18,000+ industry peers, post opportunities, and manage auditions and applications end to end. Founded by opera singer and designer Jennie Moser after she grew tired of stitching together websites, PDFs and social feeds to chase gigs, the Bloomington, Indiana company replaces the field's scattered tools with one accessible community for showcasing talent and finding work.