TechStars Boston is Homeless, But Will Return in 2010—Director Finds Shelter in Dogpatch Labs

One of the worst things that happened in the Boston entrepreneurial community this year was that Y Combinator decamped to do all its incubating of new tech companies in Silicon Valley. One of the best things that happened was that a few months later, TechStars moved right in to fill the void. The incubator camp run out of Boulder, CO, announced it was coming to town in February, and fielded its first class of Boston entrepreneurs this summer. And if you’d been to its Investor Evening last month, when the first Boston grads made their pitches at Microsoft’s NERD (New England R&D Center), you’d have seen first-hand from the packed house and all the energy and excitement just how welcome TechStars has become.

But despite that spectacular debut, TechStars was out on the streets and unsure of whether it would return. The group had taken up a suite of former Kaplan test-prep classrooms in an office building in Cambridge’s Central Square. But, it turns out, that was only a short-term lease—and it has ended. At the Mass Technology Leadership Council’s unconference on October 1, the executive director of TechStars Boston, Shawn Broderick, told Wade that TechStars had not determined whether it would return to the area for a second year. It depended on how investors felt, and whether enough of the firms in its first class found funding.

Broderick told me yesterday that he has just gotten the green light. “We are definitely planning to do TechStars Boston 2010,” he confirmed in an e-mail. “The investors met on Friday in fact to sort that out. So we’re on!”

He’s not sure where TechStars will set up shop. “We’re homeless until the 2010 program starts up,” Broderick wrote. But the TechStars Boston leader is not. He has moved into Dogpatch Labs, the incubator and entrepreneurial workspace operated by Polaris Venture Partners.

Dogpatch just had its grand opening last Thursday. Broderick says he knows Polaris general partner Dave Barrett, who is one of the point people for Dogpatch in Cambridge. “I asked Dave for a desk and he said ‘sure!’”

As for TechStars, Broderick says the planning for 2010 is underway. “We’ll have the details sorted out in the next few weeks.”

Author: Robert Buderi

Bob is Xconomy's founder and chairman. He is one of the country's foremost journalists covering business and technology. As a noted author and magazine editor, he is a sought-after commentator on innovation and global competitiveness. Before taking his most recent position as a research fellow in MIT's Center for International Studies, Bob served as Editor in Chief of MIT's Technology Review, then a 10-times-a-year publication with a circulation of 315,000. Bob led the magazine to numerous editorial and design awards and oversaw its expansion into three foreign editions, electronic newsletters, and highly successful conferences. As BusinessWeek's technology editor, he shared in the 1992 National Magazine Award for The Quality Imperative. Bob is the author of four books about technology and innovation. Naval Innovation for the 21st Century (2013) is a post-Cold War account of the Office of Naval Research. Guanxi (2006) focuses on Microsoft's Beijing research lab as a metaphor for global competitiveness. Engines of Tomorrow (2000) describes the evolution of corporate research. The Invention That Changed the World (1996) covered a secret lab at MIT during WWII. Bob served on the Council on Competitiveness-sponsored National Innovation Initiative and is an advisor to the Draper Prize Nominating Committee. He has been a regular guest of CNBC's Strategy Session and has spoken about innovation at many venues, including the Business Council, Amazon, eBay, Google, IBM, and Microsoft.