With a $100,000 cash prize at stake and 14 weeks until Demo Day, GigTank launched in Chattanooga earlier this week. The startup accelerator, hosted at CO.LAB, is connecting eight teams of entrepreneurs to mentors, investors and potential customers to help accelerate the launch of their companies.
“The momentum around GigTank has been building for months, and we’re excited that our entrepreneurs have arrived in Chattanooga,” said CO.LAB CEO Charlie Brock. “Every team has brought an idea they’re passionate about, and that passion is contagious. We’re ready to help them get started, get connected and ultimately launch successful companies.”
Over the course of the summer, teams will develop their business ideas under the mentorship of experienced entrepreneurs and investors and have access to a range of resources – including the fastest Internet in the Western Hemisphere: 1 gigabit per second broadband that will enable accelerated research and development and beta testing in their industries.
The eight entrepreneur teams are working in a wide array of technology markets:
• Ariagora connects independent musicians with fans in new and profitable ways.
• BioStash is reinventing the way scientists work. By providing a modern UI and integrating with existing command line tools, BioStash will remove information roadblocks for today’s scientists and labs.
• HD Fantasy Football uses live HD video to personalize and increase social interaction in the fantasy football experience.
• Iron Gamer is building a new social gaming experience through live competitive events and interactive streaming content.
• Silver Communities facilitates remote medical services for the elderly and provides other social and health-related software.
• Corpora uses Twitter status updates and other public data to determine the health of users by geography, providing insights into the spread of illness and quantifying the impact of previously elusive factors on public health.
• TourRaiser connects artists to their fans by raising capital for tours and letting fans vote to determine show locations.
• 911View produces video-focused mobile apps for public safety professionals and dispatchers, enhancing the benefits of emergency services for the public.
Two of the entrepreneur teams, Ariagora and Corpora, were recruited through a social networking competition called the Geek Hunt, where potential applicants were tagged on Facebook or Twitter. The taggers who helped CO.LAB recruit Ariagora and Corpora each won $1,000 for their efforts.
Sponsors, mentors and judges of the program include Alcatel-Lucent, Cisco, Mozilla, IBM Venture Capital Group and others.