500 Startups is announcing its seventh class, bringing in a truly international group of startups together. For the next three months, 30 companies will work to build out their products for a chance at raising their next round of funding. This class includes teams from Sweden, the UK, Italy, Mexico, China, Taiwan, Thailand, Australia, India, Brazil, and various cities in the US.
In addition, the accelerator is also opening up applications for its first-ever class in San Francisco.
Each class has unique features that separates them from the previous one — the seventh batch is no different. Among the 30 companies is 500 Startups’ first biotech startup, one focused on hardware, and a few in the “unsexy” department — and by that I mean industries not normally thought of as appealing to the mainstream.
Here are the 30 companies (in no particular order and also where they are based):
- Sales Beach (San Francisco): Automated, optimized outbound sales platform
- Grata (Silicon Valley): On-demand travel conceierge
- BTCJam (Silicon Valley): A peer-to-peer Bitcoin lending service
- ViralGains (Boston): Service that enables viral marketing at scale
- uBiome (San Francisco): 500 Startups’ first direct-to-consumer microbiome sequencing company enabling tests similar to DNA sequencing, but more about the bacteria inside of your body
- Goods Platform (New York City): A company enabling you to monetize your app or website through its “Contextual Commerce in a Box” set of tools
- Shopseen (San Francisco): A platform offering a simple, modern workflow to help merchants and sellers sell better.
- Buzzstarter (San Francisco): A distribution as a service platform
- REALTYSHARES (San Francisco): Crowdfunding platform for real estate
- MailLift (San Francisco): Scalable and automatable handwritten letters service for salespeople
- SilverPush (San Francisco): Advertising retargeting for mobile
- WishPlz (San Francisco): Pocket + Evernote for shopping
- Popbasic (San Francisco): Zara for the YouTube generation
- 3Sourcing (San Francisco): A search engine for technical talent
- ZBoard (San Francisco): The hardware startup of the seventh batch, this company sells a weight-sensing electric skateboard
- EquityZen (New York City): Equity liquidity plans for private companies
- WePlann (Fort Worth): A service that claims to make it easy to discover and book unique travel experiences
- AdEspresso (San Francisco): Facebook advertising optimization service
- Partender (Gainesville): A bar inventory mobile application
- PlateJoy (Boston): Healthy eating for busy people
- Shopeando (Mexico City): An online retailer for unbranded products in Latin America
- OLSET (San Francisco): A travel booking service
- Sidelines (San Francisco): Platform to power sports comments on Web and mobile
- Carreira Beauty (Sao Paolo): An online destination for beauty professionals in Brazil
- Cityblis (Sunnyvale): An ecommerce and digital marketing platform for fashion brands
- Anyadir Education (Mountain View): A service to help universities recruit students through social media
- LaunchTrack (Tampa): Technology to power event-driven businesses
- Bounty Hunter (Taiwan): A contest platform for crowdsourcing campaigns
- Populr.me (Nashville): Quick webpage creation service to help enhance sales and marketing communications
- Builk (Bangkok): Crowdsourcing construction data with free SaaS platform that helps builders save their cost and time
The 💜 of EU tech
The latest rumblings from the EU tech scene, a story from our wise ol' founder Boris, and some questionable AI art. It's free, every week, in your inbox. Sign up now!
You expect diversity from 500 Startups, and five companies within this batch are founded by women while a total of 12 are from outside of the US.
Lastly, 500 Startups is already gearing up for its eighth batch — applications are now being accepted. While specific timeframes have not been determined yet, the accelerator says that the next class will begin sometime in January 2014. What’s more, it will be the first class to be based out of its new office in San Francisco. As always, interested companies can apply through AngelList.
Get the TNW newsletter
Get the most important tech news in your inbox each week.