Eight seed-stage tech companies were selected late yesterday to be the first class of startups from San Diego to be admitted to the 10-week business technology accelerator program established by Silicon Valley’s Plug and Play Tech Center.
Every company admitted to the Plug and Play Startup Camp is eligible to get a $25,000 investment as part of the initiative, which was organized late last year by San Diego’s StartupCircle and Alex Roudi, a San Diego real estate investor.
The Plug and Play Tech Center, which Xconomy’s Wade Roush profiled in December, has been considering an expansion in San Diego for several years. Saeed Amidi, the founder and CEO, says he came close to acquiring a building here several years ago to serve as a tech incubator for Southern California. More recently, though, Plug and Play has simply expanded its recruiting efforts beyond Northern California, offering startup capital, business mentoring, and exposure to Silicon Valley VCs to startups willing to participate in its program. Amidi told me yesterday he had recently returned from a recruiting trip that included Berlin and Switzerland.
The inaugural San Diego Startup Camp will begin with once-a-week business mentoring sessions in San Diego, followed by a 10-week program at the Plug and Play headquarters in Sunnyvale, CA. The camp culminates with a “Demo Day” that enables startups enrolled in the program to pitch their businesses to scores of venture capitalists.
More than 70 companies applied for the program, and 16 finalists were selected to make 3-minute presentations yesterday, according to Startup Circle’s Gabriela Dow. She confided that organizers were unsure whether any San Diego companies would be
