News

The SXSW Interactive Accelerator Set To Host 5th Annual Competition

The SXSW Accelerator is hosting its 5th annual competition from March 11th – March 13th in Austin, Texas to exhibit some of the world’s most groundbreaking inventions and technologies. The Accelerator serves as an outlet for companies to showcase the technology market’s most impressive new innovations.

Companies have the ability to present their ideas across the categories of Social Technologies, Entertainment and Gaming Technologies, Mobile Technologies, Music Technology, News Technology, Health Technologies, or Innovative web-based Technology to a panel, consisting of: industry experts, early adapters, and representatives from the Venture Capitalist and angel investing community.

The past judges have included the likes of Craig Newmark of Craigs List, Chris Sacca of Lowercase Capital, Tom Conrad of Pandora, Scott Weiss of Andreessen Horowitz and Chris Hughes of Facebook to name a few. In 2012, 56 finalists presented and nine winners were picked out of that. Despite the fact that only 9 winners were chosen, over the years our research has shown that 33 percent of all participants who participated in the SXSW Accelerator event received funding, totaling $342.03M dollars.

“We couldn’t believe we had a check in our pocket before the competition even started.” - Jonathan Hunt, Director of Marketing at GameSalad

Not to mention, 10% of total participants over the years have been acquired by media powerhouses like Google, British Telecom, Huffington Post, Apple, Constant Contact, and Harmon to name a few.

The application deadline is scheduled for this Friday, November 9th however it has been extended to Sunday, November 11 at 11:59pm CST due to Hurricane Sandy so those companies who dealt with this tragic affair have more time to complete. Let your inner entrepreneur loose and apply for the SXSW Accelerator.

Please visit the SXSW website for more information about the event: http://sxsw.com/interactive/startupvillage/accelerator for interactive and for music: http://sxsw.com/music/startupvillage/accelerator

Serge | Elite.