Two organizations recently launched initiatives with the goal of helping startups focused on Near Field Communication RFID technology. Startupbootcamp and AccelerateNFC (owned by OTA Ventures) are each offering a program targeting those with new NFC products, or with solutions that are developed but need a boost by way of partners, funding or customers.
The two companies are now accepting applications for mentoring programs, with the understanding that any applicant accepted into the program will share a percentage of his or her company’s equity. Startupbootcamp’s NFC & ContactlessXL program is being funded by Vodafone, along with other companies, while AccelerateNFC is being funded by the mentoring companies that will share that equity from participating startups.
Startupbootcamp is a four-year-old organization that offers support for startups focused on mobile technologies, as well as technologies in the health-care and other industries. This year, the firm added a program built around NFC and other contactless technology solutions (such as QR codes and bar codes). The NFC & ContactlessXL program will choose a total of 10 companies among startup applicants. Those winners will receive €15,000 ($19,800) in seed funding. In addition, they will be hosted at the company’s Amsterdam facility from Oct. 14, 2013, to Jan. 17, 2014, where they can work on development, and gain assistance from mentors in the NFC technology realm, as well as SMS text message services providers, banks and other financial institutions. Following that three-month period, the startups can remain at the offices for an additional three months, while Startupbootcamp will help them secure additional funding.
The Startupbootcamp NFC & ContactlessXL program was launched at Vodafone’s request, according to Marc Wesselink, Startupbootcamp’s alumni growth director, who is also helping to launch the NFC program. Participants can then take part in an Investor Demo Day in January 2014, in which potential investors in Amsterdam will be able to come view their technology. In addition to Vodafone, the program’s sponsors include the Rabobank Group, Thales e-Security, Adyen, Oberthur Technologies, PWC, Amazon Web Services, Axicom and VMW Taxand, while ABN AMRO, CM Group and Javest are co-shareholders with Vodafone.
Startupbootcamp is currently accepting applications from NFC companies worldwide, Wesselink says, and has received 75 applications to date. The application process is expected to continue until August. In the meantime, the firm plans to meet with some of the applicants at Pitch Days—a process of meeting with startups within their own geographic areas, including many parts of Europe and some locations in Asia. The company may opt to visit the United States before August as well, he says. Those applicants unable to attend one of the Pitch Days events can meet with the Startupbootcamp staff via Skype.
Each of the 10 startups selected to participate in the NFC & ContactlessXL program will provide 8 percent equity to Startupbootcamp. Following the three-month program of working with mentors in Amsterdam, participants will also receive follow-up support from the organization, via an alumni growth program that encourages businesses to continue working with mentors. Startupbootcamp will also strive to connect participants with large customers or end users.
So far, Wesselink reports, applicants have submitted a wide variety of solutions, and tend to be “more mature teams” that have products already on the market. The continuation of the NFC and contactless technology program will depend on the growth of the NFC market during the coming year, he says. “We really like disruptive products,” he states.
AccelerateNFC is also taking applications from a worldwide audience for its program, which will be hosted for the selected companies in Dallas, Texas. The firm was cofounded by Robert Sabella, who has a history in RFID and NFC technologies, together with Hall Martin (the founder of the Texas Entrepreneur Networks). Sabella is the CEO of AccelerateNFC, as well as of OTA Ventures’ NFC Bootcamp, which offers a program of workshops and demonstrations of NFC around the world to those wishing to learn more about the technology. In 2003, Texas Instruments launched a similar event, RFID Bootcamp, to provide training for the use of RFID. This bootcamp, Sabella says, was the genesis for the accelerator program, and he based the format of NFC Bootcamp on the RFID Bootcamp events.
Dallas, Sabella says, is an advantageous place to learn about NFC, thanks to the presence of not just Texas Instruments, but also a host of other companies involved in NFC innovation, including mobile-phone company Samsung, mobile-payment venture ISIS, AT&T and contactless technology firm DeviceFidelity Inc.
The applications are reviewed by a committee composed of AccelerateNFC’s mentors. To date, Sabella says, more than half a dozen mentors signed into the program. The committee eventually hopes to see that number increase to 20 mentors. While those mentors pay to support the program, they also share in the startups’ equity. “This highly incentivizes them to pick the winners,” he says, since they, too, “will be sharing in the rewards” of the startups’ future success. Mentors include Sabella and Martin; Tony Sabetti of ISIS, who launched the RFID Bootcamp program while working at Texas Instruments; Jesse Money, the lead consultant at NFC consulting company Constratus; Matthew Kammerait of Quad Graphics; and Ian Robertson, the former head of RFID at Hewlett-Packard. The selected startups will then participate in a 12-week program in Dallas, working with a host of mentors in the NFC industry.
The program is open to any companies whose product is in, or past, the development stage, and with less than $1 million in sales. The focus, Sabella notes, is on non-payment NFC solutions.
Although the application process was not intended to commence until later this summer, Sabella says he has now opened up that process, since he received multiple requests to begin accepting those applications. Three or four companies will be selected in September, he reports, and AccelerateNFC will also provide up to $15,000 in funding per business. Startups will share 6 percent of their equity with AccelerateNFC mentors.
NFC Bootcamp will host a training program on June 12 and 13, to coincide with the 4th Annual Auto-ID & Sensing Solutions Expo, hosted by the MIT Enterprise Forum of Cambridge. The program is a partnership between NFC Bootcamp and the MIT Enterprise Forum of Cambridge’s NFC Cluster Circle (a group of companies that support the development and adoption of NFC technology).
During that week, AccelerateNFC will host a two-day NFC Hackathon in which developers will compete for cash and prizes by creating NFC-enabled mobile applications and solutions focused on gaming, social interactions and ways to connect real-world objects with mobile devices. The event is sponsored by multiple NFC companies, including HID Global, Smartrac, Kovio, the NFC Cluster Circle, NFC Bootcamp, BlackBerry, Cellotape, Blue Bite, ABnote, NFC-Jobs and TapTrack.