MassChallenge announced as Partner for Startup America

We’re excited to announce that today that MassChallenge was celebrated at the White House by the White House. The MassChallenge Startup Competition and Accelerator is being recognized as one of the most promising initiatives in the country for supporting entrepreneurs, and we were announced as a key partner in the new Startup America Partnership, an independent entity co-funded by the Kauffman Foundation and the Case Foundation. For a link to the full press release, click here.

The MassChallenge office streamed the event live in our offices at One Marina Park Drive. The MassChallenge teams, sponsors, staff and press came together to watch the live stream of the White House announcement while learning the most up to date information for the 2011 competition. Our CEO and President John Harthorne and Akhil Nigam were honored to be at the White House and a part of the Startup America Partnership and White House initiative.

To view more photos from this event, click here.

Why is MassChallenge a part of the Startup America Partnership? Within its first year MassChallenge has made an impact on the startup ecosystem. MassChallenge teams have raised $20M since August and created close to 300 new jobs. MassChallenge's public-private partnership has shown great success in its first year and expansion options are being evaluated for 2012.

For 2011, MassChallenge is improving to its model with even better mentorship, improved IT infrastructure, and larger partnerships. As a result we've hired Karl Büttner, one of the most involved mentors of the 2010 competition, as Chief Mentorship Officer. We've hired a CTO and IT team to improve access to information, documents, and streamline operations. Finally, we'll have even larger partnerships such as Startup America and this will increase the number of resources available to our startups.

Startup America will bring together an alliance of the country’s most innovative entrepreneurs, corporations, universities, foundations, and other leaders, working in concert with a wide range of federal agencies to dramatically increase the prevalence and success of American entrepreneurs.

Other organizations involved in the Startup America Partnership include: The Deshpande Foundation, The Case Foundation, The Kauffman Foundation, Intel, IBM, The Blackstone Foundation, TechStars and JumpStart. You can learn more about the Startup America Partnership here: www.startupamericapartnership.org