Accelerator Seeks Next Batch of Entrepreneurs

Hawaii's first venture accelerator is looking for its sixth cohort of startup companies. My, how time flies.

Blue Startups is hosting an information session at its downtown office on Wednesday, and offering free pizza and beer for anyone actively working on a startup, looking to recruit local talent, or just curious about the program.

Blue Startups was founded in 2012 by Henk Rogers, who built his success upon seven species of falling blocks, and his daughter Maya. Out of the gate, they were looking for "capital-efficient and scalable-technology companies," and hooked up with the Global Accelerator Network and 500 Startups.

It's interesting to look back at the graduates of their first cohort in 2013. A couple of companies have faded away, a couple are still going strong, but I'm happy to see that the people behind the startups that feel somewhere in the middle are still out there, working on something different perhaps, but working on something.

The fifth and most recent Blue Startup cohort, focused on "travel tech," showed off their stuff at last month's joint demo day: Benjamin, CandyBAR, Huedoku, NaluTrip, Ujoin, and VRCHIVE. And now the accelerator is looking for the next group of startups seeking up to $70,000 in seed funding (way up from the $20,000 offered in the beginning), mentoring, work space, help with pitch development and investor introductions.

In all, more than 30 companies have gone through the program, which was named one of the nation's top 20 accelerators by TechCrunch earlier this year.

While Blue Startups is throwing its doors wide open, the competition for the seven to ten slots is fierce. Over a hundred applications were received the first time around, and that number has since grown to nearly 300.

The information session will be held from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. on Wednesday, July 1 at Blue Startups' headquarters at 55 Merchant Street downtown. Interested entrepreneurs are asked to register online. For more information, visit BlueStartups.com, or visit the program's profiles on Twitter or on Facebook.