KylespicDecision day is Thursday for the latest crop of startups to come out of the Austin Technology Incubator’s Student Entrepreneur Accelerator & Launch, known as SEAL, program.
“This is a program that evolved out of ATI’s activities on campus,” said Kyle Cox, director of Information Technology/Wireless and University Development Portfolios at ATI. The organization has a dual mission of serving startups in central Texas and the University of Texas community.
The SEAL program is designed to give the students a focused opportunity to work on nothing but their companies during three months in summer. Then they must decide whether to continue to pursue the idea or to dump it altogether and get on with something else.
This is the sixth year of the program.
“Historically, we’re at a 25 percent go rate,” Cox said. “The last two years, it has climbed up to be much higher. This year, every team is going to continue to pursue their ideas. We’re at a 100 percent go rate.”
ATI has a diverse list of startup ideas and the breadth of startups it services tend to be broader than a simple app or web-based solutions, Cox said. It tends to incubate heavily engineered and research supported companies, he said.
SEAL Decision Day is free and open to the public but advance registration is required as space is limited.
The event takes place on Thursday from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at the Blanton Museum at 200 E. MLK Blvd. It features nine startups: AdBm Technologies, OnSite Control, Beyonic, Clay.io, Favor, Guava, Intelligent Menu, nCarbon and LifeM.