Australian start-ups could be set for a funding boost after leading US incubator TechStars revealed that it has raised a further $24 million in venture capital backing.<\/p>\n
<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The incubator, which offers a 14-week accelerator program for promising tech ventures, raised the money from a selection of investors, including Foundry Group, IA Ventures, Avalon Ventures, DFJ Mercury and SoftBank Capital.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Crucially, the funding will significantly increase the seed funding offered by TechStars to the start-ups it backs.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Currently, TechStars offers $18,000 to start-ups, in return for a 6% equity stake. The new investment will allow it to offer $100,000 to businesses accepted into its program.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n TechStars was founded in 2006 and has offices across the US. It estimates that around 70% of its start-ups go on to raise additional external funding.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The program backs around 60 businesses a year. That figure is set to increase following the decision to expand TechStars to markets outside the US.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n So far, it\u2019s thought that no Australian start-up has been backed by the venture, as yet. However, TechStars founder David Cohen has said that the program gets \u201clots of interest\u201d from Australia.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Speaking about the latest funding deal, Cohen says: \u201cIt\u2019s obviously a lot more attractive because it\u2019s more money upfront as soon as you get into the program. I think it will also attract entrepreneurs at a different stage of their life.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Australian start-ups could be set for a funding boost after leading US incubator TechStars revealed that it has raised a<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":58723,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45486"}],"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=45486"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45486\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}