BOULDER, Colo. — Techstars, a startup accelerator founded in 2006 with several programs in the Triangle, has secured $42 million in investment.
The Boulder-based company this week announced the fundraise led by SVB Financial Group, the holding company of Silicon Valley Bank, with additional participation from existing investors including Foundry Group.
The firm said this funding will accelerate Techstars’ growth to help more entrepreneurs succeed through seed-stage accelerators, global startup ecosystem activations, corporate innovation, and entrepreneur-focused events.
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Techstars already has a strong presence in the Triangle. Last year, it teamed up with MetLife to create an incubator for early-stage insurance startups. It culminated with a Demo Day for ten startups from around the world, pitching their companies to a 250-strong crowd packed into Cotton Room at Golden Belt in downtown Durham last October.
In total, Techstars consists of both an investment management business with $500 million in assets under management as well as an operating business that is rapidly approaching $100 million in annual revenue.
Techstars’ investment activity now includes 49 accelerator programs in 35 cities across 16 countries, deploying $80 million into nearly 500 startups on an annual basis. The Techstars portfolio of 1,900 companies currently attracts an annual $2 billion in downstream investment from the venture capital industry. Techstars also invests in global emerging startup communities by operating approximately 1,000 annual Techstars Startup Weekend events in 600 cities across 120 countries to help surface and support future high growth companies.
“Being the largest and most active global seed investor requires a mindset and approach that is completely distinct from traditional venture capital,” Techstars Co-CEO David Cohen said in a statemnt. “Techstars has created and is scaling an entirely new type of early-stage private equity asset.”
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