Techstars Hires Startup Vet to Run Qualcomm Robotics Accelerator

Qualcomm headquarters in San Diego (Qualcomm photo used with permission)

Ryan Kuder, a San Diego startup veteran who left the mobile device recycler EcoATM earlier this year, has been hired to lead the new robotics startup accelerator that Qualcomm (NASDAQ: [[ticker:QCOM]]) is establishing under a deal with Techstars.

Boulder, CO-based Techstars, which just announced its 16th startup program last week in Detroit, named Kuder as managing director of what’s officially known as the “Qualcomm Robotics Accelerator, powered by Techstars.” The new accelerator, announced in October, will be based at Qualcomm’s San Diego headquarters.

Robotics teams that enroll in the program will move into space that Qualcomm has been renovating, and will get access to prominent experts in robotics and startups that Qualcomm and Techstars have recruited for the program. Kuder, who blogged about his new job here, says he’s already begun hiring a small Techstars team to manage the 16-week program. Applications will be accepted through Feb. 22, and the program begins May 26.

Ryan Kuder
Ryan Kuder

“We are working our hardest to find great robotics startups to move to San Diego and become awesome companies,” Kuder says. “We want you to be as successful as you can be, because we are going to be investing in your company.”

Among other things, the Techstars team will oversee the selection of 10 robotics startups for the program, which is set to run through Sept. 15. Each company that enrolls in the accelerator will get a $20,000 investment from Techstars in exchange for a 6 percent ownership stake, and an option to

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Author: Bruce V. Bigelow

In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here. Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.