Having a dedicated resource to answer those questions literally on-site was hugely helpful,” says Robin Rath, co-founder and CEO of Pixel Press, a game technology startup that graduated from the accelerator in 2013. “You have so many questions that you don’t always know the answers to. Pixel Press lets anyone be the creator, publisher and player of their own video game. The others are subject matter experts who provide education on the seemingly innumerable avenues founders must explore in their growth. Mentorship is the heart and soul of what Capital Innovators provides.Ĭompanies have a pool of 50 mentors available to them, but six to seven of those mentors serve as leads and pair with a company throughout the program. Louis, and recognize the robust ecosystem that has developed here in recent years.” Meaningful Mentors When companies apply to our program because they see it’s a top 10, they start looking at St. “It provides tremendous validation and helps bring amazing deal flow into the city. Louis and fuels growth in the startup ecosystem as a whole,” says Sindecuse. “Our ranking draws great innovations to St. For the second year in a row, it was ranked as a top 10 US accelerator by the Seed Accelerator Rankings Project.
Today, Capital Innovators is no longer just a regional name. Louis accelerators emerged: SixThirty (2013, FinTech), Prosper (2015, women-led companies), The Yield Lab (2015, AgTech) and Stadia Ventures (2015, sports-focused companies) with Capital Innovators sharing best practices along the way. When T-REX was created in 2011, one of its first functions was to house companies going through Capital Innovators. Louis’ first accelerator program made its first investment. Techstars, one of the world’s most highly regarded accelerators, provided guidance along the way.Īnd in 2011, St. Louis, piecing together the type of mentorship pool and curriculum she felt would be most valuable. So in 2010, Sindecuse began assembling the bones of what would eventually become Capital Innovators, the first accelerator program in St. “We had passionate, smart founders sitting on what I thought were great ideas, but they weren’t getting to that point where a stranger would feel comfortable investing in their businesses, so they were dying on the vine.” “Companies weren’t getting everything they needed,” she says. Judy Sindecuse and Brian Dixon seated at Cortex, where Capital Innovators now offices. Louis’ startup community and believed that with the right push, a vibrant ecosystem could become a reality. A successful CEO and founder herself, she saw the the potential of St.
The idea for the program began in 2010 when Sindecuse was mentoring at ITEN. Created by CEO Judy Sindecuse and captained by program director Brian Dixon, Capital Innovators is the lifeline new founders often desperately need. Louis-based accelerator program Capital Innovators focuses on these early-stage startups. “When you’re a first-time founder, investors look at you and think, ‘This kid doesn’t know anything,’” says Turner.Īnd they could be right: First-time founders are often adrift in a world they don’t yet understand, navigating the waters of investment, scalability, business administration and product development. FocalCast founders Charlie Beckwith and Devin Turner are graduates of Capital Innovators. As a newly minted graduate of Marquette University in 2014 with a mechanical engineering degree, he didn’t know much about starting a company, but he knew enough to know that he didn’t know enough. Louis-based company that created a multidevice, mobile platform for interactive presentations and collaborations.
“The success rate for founders, if it’s their first company, is dismal-it’s like 10 percent,” says Devin Turner, co-founder and CEO of FocalCast, a St. Looking to grow your company? Check out EQ’s startup ecosystem guides to startup accelerators and business incubators in St.
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