<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
The partnership will see 10 start-ups chosen to participate in a three-month incubation program at Microsoft, in addition to $20,000 in seed funding. It will run from March to May in 2012.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
In exchange, TechStars will take a 6% stake in each of the start-ups. The goal of the program is to create businesses that leverage Kinect for Microsoft\u2019s Xbox 360 or Microsoft Windows.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
TechStars founder and chief executive David Cohen says the accelerator, based in Seattle, is focused on helping start-ups build \u201cthe next generation of innovative experiences for the Kinect\u201d.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cTechStars is helping Microsoft to create and operate the program using what we\u2019ve learned from accelerating over a hundred internet start-ups ourselves,\u201d Cohen wrote in a blog.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cWe couldn\u2019t be more excited about where Kinect is heading and the chance to work with some amazing start-ups that are taking advantage of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Mentors for the accelerator include entrepreneurs and venture capitalists in the industry, as well as executives from organisations such as Microsoft Studios, Microsoft Research and Xbox.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery company participating\u2026 will receive an investment of $20,000, an Xbox development kit, the Windows Kinect SDK [and] office space,\u201d Microsoft said in a statement.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
They also receive \u201call the resources of [Microsoft] BizSpark, technical training and support\u201d.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
At the end of the program, each company will have the opportunity to present at an investor demo day attended by angel investors, venture capitalists, Microsoft executives and media.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cYour company does not necessarily need experience developing with Kinect, but the business concept does need to leverage Kinect capabilities as part of the final offering,\u201d Microsoft says.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cYour team must also be willing to develop the technical skills required to bring your solution to a functioning prototype.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Microsoft has provided an outline of the eligibility criteria:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n- Any Kinect-enabled application on Windows or Xbox that can be a commercial business.<\/li>\n
- Can be cloud-hosted, on any platform, but needs to be an application.<\/li>\n
- Could be one view of an application that may also have a web UI, mobile UI, etc.<\/li>\n
- Kinect-controlled applications, like what consumers have on their phone, but on a big screen or a computer screen.<\/li>\n
- Content one might expect to consume in their living room or in an operating room.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Microsoft has teamed up with US seed fund TechStars to create the Kinect Accelerator, a scheme where start-ups receive $20,000<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":59924,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43204"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43204"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43204\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}