Startup Accelerator Boost VC Goes 100% Bitcoin

Startup accelerator, Boost VC, has announced it is now exclusively a “bitcoin accelerator.” The batch of startups for its next program will be 100% bitcoin focused companies. The accelerator will be choosing 20 to 30 bitcoin startups to join them at their headquarters in San Mateo, California for a 3 month long program where the startups will work on building the early foundations of their company.

“We are going full Bitcoin!” – Boost VC Founder, Adam Draper

The nearly 4 year old startup factory runs a 3 month long acceleration program, twice a year. Participants in each program, which are referred to as “tribes,” get seed capital, housing, legal counsel, and office space at Boost VC headquarters. In return, Boost.VC requires equity in the companies.

Boost.VC founder, Adam Draper, explained the areas of the bitcoin ecosystem the incubator is most interested in, “…we will be looking at payments, exchanges, block chain technology, Sidechains, and companies that service Bitcoin companies.”

Boost VC connects tribes with experts, investors and entrepreneurs in the bitcoin industry. Silk Road bitcoin auction winner and venture capitalist Tim Draper, Blockchain.info’s Dan Held, as well as Sean Percival, are a few of Boost VC’s seasoned startup mentors.Tech venture capitalist and bitcoin enthusiast, Marc Andreessen and founder of Coinbase, Brian Armstrong have both given speeches to previous tribes.

Earlier this year Draper stated he was going to accelerate 200 companies by 2017, 100 of those would be bitcoin companies. Drapers Tribe 5 is the first 100% Bitcoin incubation round.

Boost.VC gives 3 reasons why they decided to change the focus to Bitcoin companies only.

1. Hyperfocus: Instead of spreading our focus to different industries, we have decided to become the leader of one. With Bitcoin we already have an unparalleled network, and we can add tremendous value to anyone moving or already working in this space.
2. Play to our strengths: On average a Bitcoin company going through Boost has raised more than $500k. Our portfolio companies, investors, as well as ourselves we’re are all early in the Bitcoin space. We know this space better than anyone else.
3. We love the Bitcoin community: The Bitcoin community has continued to provide encouragement to Boost over the last two years and has welcomed us with open arms consistently. For us this is the most valuable way to pay back the community.

The company is going to be using $6.6M USD, raised earlier this month, to accelerate its upcoming batch of Bitcoin startups. During the funding round, Boost VC received capital from Ben Davenport, former American Online CEO Barry Schuler, Rothenberg Ventures, Kilowatt Capital, and Marc Andreessen.

Boost VC has completed 4 previous tribes, accelerating 57 companies in 57 industries.

Sophie is an artist whose secret passion is finance, economics, and technology. She loves keeping up with the ever expanding and evolving world of crypto-currency. When she isn’t painting, she can be found trying to understand the complex inner workings of markets. Another complex system she is fascinated by, are ecosystems. She often observes them on her daily hikes through nature.