The Conquer Accelerator program announced today the five startup teams selected to participate in its third summer cohort.
Designed to help both newer and established companies overcome business hurdles, Conquer Accelerator emphasizes smart planning and growth, extensive mentorship from an experienced bench of professionals and structured educational components focused on bringing its cohort startups to success.
The accelerator program is hosted and managed by Spartan Innovations, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Michigan State University Foundation.
“The Conquer Accelerator acts as a final launching platform for startups from MSU and beyond, preparing companies to hit the ground running,” says Paul Jaques, program director. “Our program puts the finishing touches on startup teams and prepares them for investment and growth.”
The program’s five teams will work through an intensive 10-week program, starting in June. In addition to $20,000 in seed funding, each startup receives tailored mentorship, a creative co-working space, and networking support and talent resources to enable them to grow their companies.
The five Michigan-based startup teams participating in 2018’s cohort are:
• Every Two Minutes — tackling campus sexual violence through education, prevention and resources. Every Two Minutes’ first product, (my)Sidekick, is a next-generation mobile learning platform providing immersive prevention education, skills and on-demand tools at critical moments to help students combat campus sexual violence.
• Hidlo Studios — a digital marketing agency specializing in the creation and management of geofilter campaigns for businesses on the Snapchat platform. Hidlo provides extensive brand research to devise customdesigned, long-term geofilters for maximum brand interaction.
• Lingco Language Labs — a modern language-learning platform to give instructors all the tools they need to run successful language courses. In today’s fast-paced world, the Lingco Classroom provides tools for instructors, elevating the language learning experience with adaptive technology. Lingco helps every student reach fluency.
• Smart Staffing — optimizes the matching of in-home caregivers with clients of private-duty healthcare companies. Offering an easy-to-use, map-based software, Smart Staffing makes scheduling efficient while ensuring both client and caregiver connect in positive, meaningful ways.
• Vloggle — an innovative, video-sharing social platform taking the medium to the next, most accessible level. With Vloggle, users effortlessly create, edit, share and play quality videos up to ten minutes long.
