TechStars: The next great incubator unleashes 11 startups in NYC

2 days later, Cohen called up Tisch and offered him the job. (He no longer has to wait 2 months to score a meeting with Fred Wilson.)

TechStars has a warm and fuzzy feeling going on. Every year, we have an alumni reunion. This past fall, to launch TechStars NYC, we had the reunion in New York. Out of 70 TechStars graduated companies, only 3 are based here, but 59 of them showed up to the reunion. 56 companies got on an airplane for the reunion. [The remaining companies were either too busy to make it or couldn't travel from Seattle at the time.] That says a ton about this organization.

-David Tisch

This past Thursday at New York City’s Webster Hall, TechStars’ inaugural NYC class held its first Demo Day to an audience of 750 investors, mentors, press and startup community. (And for the first time in Webster Hall’s history, the boys’ bathroom line was longer than the girls’.)

Also known as the ”olympics for startups,” TechStars is harder to get into than Harvard or Yale. Out of 579 applicants (including 3 food trucks), 11 were chosen. Over the 3-month program, 234 pizzas were delivered to the TechStars offices, there were 4 name changes, 3 idea changes, lots of late nights and a hell of a lot of Red Bull. On Demo Day, each of the 11 teams gave 8-minute pitches to investors in the audience.

So who are the 11 startups? Allow me to introduce you, in no particular order…

1. VERI

On September 1, 2010, the first day TechStars NYC was announced, Tisch received an e-mail from a company called SocratED. The subject line was: “The #1 reason why SocratED should be a part of TechStars NYC.” The message said, for the next 75 days until the application deadline, we will send you a reason, everyday, of why we should be in TechStars. The #1 reason? Education in America is broken.

Tisch wrote back, ‘Don’t miss a day.” For 75 straight days, SocratED founder Lee Hoffman wrote Tisch a reason. On day 30 he wrote, “I’ve been working in tech for 12 years. I was the CTO of Razorfish when I was 18 and and my cofounder has been working in education for 8 years.” Tisch’s jaw dropped, “I couldn’t believe they had waited until day 30! I wrote Nicole [Glaros, Managing Director, Boulder] an email and said, ‘Holy shit, they’re for real.’”

In the program, SocratED changed its name to Veri. The startup aims to create ‘the learning moment,’ and it’s getting people to pay attention online using gamification, such as multiple-choice trivia quizzes created by users. According to Veri, users stay on the site for an average of 27 minutes, which is very impressive, particularly for an educational site. The company plans to make money by including and promoting quizzes submitted by brands and companies.

VERI founder Lee Hoffman also attracted quite a bit of attention. 20 mentors wrote Tisch asking for Hoffman in the program. Tisch says VERI is now coming out of TechStars as perhaps the buzziest investor wise.

Veri is raising $750,000 with $300,000 committed.

2. Nestio

40 million people move each year in the US., spending a total of 1.6 billion hours on their search. The three founders of nestio, Caren Maio, Matthew Raoul and Michael O’Toole are setting out to disrupt the online real estate industry. The result is such a brilliant platform for organizing your apartment search that it actually inspired me to think about moving.

“We’re here today because moving sucks,” says Maio. “The stress, frustration and time consumption. nestio is the easiest way for you to find an apartment and achieve transparency on your findings.”

The product launched in beta 10 days ago, and is starting with NYC apartment rentals. Nestio offers users the ability to make better decisions with local photos, timely notifications, location-based context like near by restaurants as well as building history. It’s also a place for users to keep track of their apartment hunt. Nestio’s handy bookmarklet allows users to easily copy paste URLs from external sites like Craigslist and Streeteasy into a nestio “folder”. Once inside nestio, users will be able to add a “collaborator” (future roommate) from Facebook and instantly view saved listings and add some of their own.

A sweet mobile app is in the works that will allow users to take notes, receive realtime notifications of apartment listings and snap photos. Nestio is raising $750,000.

We will have a full on interview with the founders and product demo of nestio for you on Monday. Stay tuned.

3. ThinkNear

Another location based daily deals service? No. ThinkNear is an API that is smarter, much smarter. Thinknear specifically helps local merchants drive foot traffic to their stores during slow periods. The technology also pulls in data like weather, events and traffic to determine when to deliver mobile offers to nearby users. Additionally, the platform agnostic startup relies on ad networks such as AdMob and Where to push out discounts to users, who then have a limited time to redeem their offers.

ThinkNear’s open API lets developers integrate local deals into their own apps. Since releasing its API 2 weeks ago, there are already 25 apps building on it.

Thinknear is raising $1.2 million and has $550,000 committed.

4. friendslist

Have you used the app Exit Strategy to navigate NYC’s subways? Because you should. Do you love FourSquareandSevenYearsAgo? Because I do. The guys behind both of these projects created Friendslist, which aims to replace Craigslist in the same way Craig obliterated the newspaper classified industry.

“Friendslist is the best opportunities from the people you trust. As Craigslist grew, it lost cred. It lost the personal touch, curation and trust and grew to become a scary, anonymous place,” says Founder Jonathan Wegener.

Wegener plans to get Friendslist into the hands of major social influencers in New York, and have it organically grow into a platform that empowers people to connect with each other, whether its by helping people post relevant job openings or knowing where you can borrow a lawn mower.

“We’ve got a dream that we can help our friends be more helpful,” says Wegener. “Friendslist can turn you from a busy middle man into a hero.”

They are raising $300,000.

5. Immersive

Digital billboards and out-of-home (OOH) advertising are a 3.5 billion dollar industry. By 2016, OOH advertising spending is expected to reach $6 billion. And immersive wants to make ads smarter. Their software works with existing digital signs, using facial recognition and data to determine age, gender and attention time. It even works with large crowds. In theory, if you are a 25-year old man, this means you may never have to look at another Tampax advert again.

See a quick video of their current business plan here.

They are raising $1 million with $300,000 committed.

On mobile site? Click here for next page.