What happens when you bring 10 promising companies and 100 world-class mentors together for 13 weeks?

In Techstars — a ton.

We just completed #DemoDay for the first STANLEY+Techstars Additive Manufacturing Accelerator Class of 2018. It was an exciting milestone for the founders as they took the stage at the Bushnell Theater in Hartford, CT to share their visions with the world.

When we initially screened applications, we were looking for promising companies developing innovations in the additive manufacturing vertical. After spending the past 13 weeks with founders from Canada, Israel, California, New York, Ukraine, Ireland and Spain, I have realized that we not only found global teams developing AM innovations, we also found an amazing group of people who are as tenacious as they are innovative. Among them they hold 4 PhDs, 4 MBAs and 34 degrees in specialized disciplines including mechanical engineering, civil engineering and computer science. And a bonus for all of us, they were all team players. I saw first hand how they each recognized that come Demo Day, they would need to raise the bar for each other, and they delivered.

But running a startup is sometimes compared to riding a roller coaster. On any given day, a founder might encounter the highs of a new deal, the lows of a rejection, and everything in between. As the Managing Director for the program, I found myself on all ten roller coasters, and it was nothing short of exhilarating.

Approximately 100 mentors met with the founders, including leaders from Stanley Black & Decker, Formlabs, Yale, Stratasys, BAE Systems, UCONN, Makerbot, and Boeing, just to name a few. In the course of 13 weeks, they refined their business models, filed additional patents, developed case studies, completed working products, built relationships, and truly accelerated their businesses.

I’ve included a few pictures of some of the fantastic work coming out of the accelerator below:

Mani.me determined which process for 3D printing would empower them to go to market with their custom-fit manicures.

MetalMaker3D built their new Profoundry solution in the facility.

Kwambio began pre-orders for their commercial 3D Ceramics printer, announced the launch of their desktop version, and made headway into the bio-medical space.

CALT Dynamics developed a printer that leverages their new patented process for 3D Printing called Physical Mask Curing (PMC)

Structur3D continued to wow the market with their soft material solution.

Astroprint obtained relationships with 20% of the 3D printing manufacturing market and secured an enterprise relationship with Stanley Black & Decker.

Inventaprint rapidly began to onboard new users, while perfecting their platform.

Micron3DP successfully tested multiple speeds and use-cases on their 3D metal printing solution.

Nanoquan continued to rapidly onboard new relationships and explored additional industrial use-cases.

Castor analyzed thousands of parts and developed relationships with multiple fortune 500 companies.

More happened than I can write about, and so many wonderful things are in the works! I couldn’t be more excited about the STANLEY+Techstars Additive Manufacturing Accelerator Class of 2018!