Psyched about ER Accelerator's inaugural class!

New York, NY - May 31, 2011: ER Accelerator (ERA) today has announced the 10 startups that will participate in its Summer 2011 program, set to kick-off in New York at its Times Square offices on June 6th.

“We are very excited to have received interest from such a wide group of top-flight entrepreneurs for our inaugural ERA program,” said Murat Aktihanoglu, Managing Director. “We are thrilled with the group of companies which will be participating, and we look forward to working with them and our extensive mentor network to help these companies succeed.”

ERA will be located in the heart of New York City at 1500 Broadway, overlooking Times Square. The state-of-the-art office building has facilities including private rooms for startups as well as various meeting rooms.

“We believe there is no better place to be starting a technology company today than New York,” said Jonathan Axelrod, Managing Director. “We look forward to helping to build the next great generation of New York tech companies.”

The participants in the ERA program were selected from hundreds of applications from all over the US and the world. As part of their participation in ERA, each startup will receive a $25,000 investment, access to 180+ mentors and three months of free office space at the ERA office.

The companies that have been accepted and will be participating in the program are (in alphabetical order):

BuzzTable - BuzzTable puts the "old school" table buzzer on your phone, establishing a direct line of communication between the restaurant and their customer. The focus is customer retention, incentivizing customers to return through loyalty rewards, deals, and a more personalized relationship.

Centzy - U.S. consumers spent $540B on local services like haircuts, massages, oil changes, and yoga classes in 2010, yet over 80% of local service businesses do not post prices and hours online. Centzy is a new search engine where consumers can find accurate prices, hours, and ratings for every service in their city.

LetGive - LetGive provides a platform that connects application developers, charities, and socially conscious consumers. The platform allows developers to turn their applications into fundraising vehicles for nonprofits and charities in the LetGive network. The entire donation and distribution process is managed seamlessly by LetGive.

Nabfly - Nabfly is a mobile tagging platform that lets people scan posters with their phones and engage with a brand through a native application. Nabfly makes it easy to remember and interact with the cool things you see walking around a city.

numberFire - numberFire is an analytics platform that uses quantitative modeling to bring new insights and analysis to the world of sports.

Parking Panda - Parking Panda is a mobile, real-time parking discovery tool. It enables parking space owners to rent out their underutilized spaces to a community of drivers. People in need of parking can save money and time by finding a place to park and paying right from their phone.

Pricing Engine - Pricing Engine is a business intelligence service for digital marketers. It provides users a simple visual interface to discover actionable insights for improvement. The service includes patent-pending advertising optimization and valuation across the full range of creative and targeting options, media choices, and pricing models.

PublicStuff - PublicStuff’s web-based solution addresses the service needs of both local governments and residents by increasing consumer participation while also driving down costs for public agencies. The municipal platform allows agencies to cost-effectively manage communications with the public and better manage the delivery of services. The consumer platform allows the public to request a variety of services.

sitesimon - sitesimon makes it easy to find and enjoy new content online. Users can share their browsing seamlessly, connect with what their friends and others are looking at, and be recognized for discovering sites that others love too.

WebThriftStore - WebThriftStore enables anyone to turn their unused "stuff" into tax-deductible, charitable donations. The product makes it easy to offer anything online, and then allows consumers to use their social networks to convert it into cash for the charity of their choice.

Each of the ERA companies will receive other perks like free legal services from Gunderson Dettmer, and other professional services and support from selected partners and sponsors, such as Amazon, Microsoft, CBRE, Cogent Communications, American Airlines, Steinberg Foreman Group at Morgan Stanley, Phone.com and Manning Publications. These services include free hosting, free banking services and other support.

“We are extremely proud of the sponsors who are supporting ERA and our companies,” said Charlie Kemper, Managing Director. “They have helped us create an experience which we think is unique among accelerators”.

Through its partnership with American Airlines, the Accelerator will now offer unique travel benefits for all of its startups. Each will receive 10,000 Business ExtrAA points, which are redeemable for up to five domestic round-trip flights on American Airlines flights, American Eagle or AmericanConnection or used for other travel awards. “This is an unprecedented opportunity for our startups to be able to travel to where ever they need to be to build and expand their companies, thanks to the generous support of American Airlines,” said Murat Aktihanoglu.

"We are happy to support the ER Accelerator program and to continue to encourage the growth and long-term success of the SMB community through our products, services and strategic partnerships." said Karen Buls, American’s Director – Small and Medium Enterprise Products, Marketing and Sales Strategy.

At the heart of the ER Accelerator program is its 180+ mentors, including experienced entrepreneurs, operating executives, technologists, and investors who will provide hands-on support to participating startups. Mentors include Fred Wilson, Esther Dyson, Randy Komisar, Brian Cohen, David Pakman, Lewis Gersh, Jeff Stewart, Howard Morgan and other such leaders connected to New York and the technology community. Startups will interact with this group of experts through hands-on individual coaching and interactive group discussions.

About ER Accelerator:
ERA is an early-stage investment fund and business accelerator based in New York City. ERA organizes 3-month programs where it funds 10 startups and provides them with office space, mentoring and free services to accelerate the growth and success of these startups. ERA has been launched out of the NY-based non-profit Entrepreneurs Roundtable which was founded in 2007. ER is dedicated to fostering the startup ecosystem and helping entrepreneurs succeed. It provides educational opportunities, community-building functions, and introductions between start-ups and investors through free monthly events in New York, Philadelphia, Turkey and Japan.




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