San Francisco, CA. The StartOut Growth Lab, a groundbreaking startup accelerator to advance companies founded or cofounded by LGBTQ entrepreneurs, welcomes its second cohort this month, including a cryptocurrency trading platform that simplifies and accelerates cross-exchange orders, an artificial intelligence concierge for vacation rentals, a high performance haptic glove for virtual and augmented reality applications, and a mental health platform that uses data-driven matching to increase engagement between sessions.
The Growth Lab is the result of a partnership between global law firm Nixon Peabody LLP and StartOut, the largest nonprofit organization for LGBTQ entrepreneurs. Housed in 2,300 square feet of donated space in Nixon Peabody’s San Francisco office, entrepreneurs work one-on-one with Nixon Peabody attorneys, StartOut’s entrepreneurs-in-residence, and other experts, and receive mentoring, education, introductions to capital sources, and an array of networking opportunities.
“We are proud to have created the first-ever diversity-oriented accelerator within a major law firm,” said Thomas Gaynor, managing partner of Nixon Peabody’s San Francisco office and a longtime member of StartOut’s board of advisors. “The first cohort was a tremendous success, and we’re excited to see what this next group of talented, innovative entrepreneurs can do.”
Peter Sisson, the Growth Lab’s entrepreneur-in-residence, said the application process for the second group was demanding, with forty-eight applicants vying for nine spots.
“The new class is quite impressive,” Sisson said. “I’m particularly excited about the broad range of industries and products represented. These companies are applying cutting edge technologies to solve old and new problems in innovative ways.”
The second group consists of the following companies:
The StartOut Growth Lab’s first cohort included LGBTQ-founded companies providing innovation in running high-value networking events, real estate property management solutions to help owners generate consistent rental income, a video analytics platform to help brands discover and promote brand-safe user-generated videos on social media, a social network and app for the LGBT community, and a cybersecurity and insurance platform for cloud-based businesses.