In 2009, StartX began as a small “for students, by students” startup accelerator on Stanford’s campus. Nine years and 650 StartX companies later, 83% of our startups are still growing or acquired. StartX companies are 2.2× more successful at reaching $100M+ in valuation than the best accelerators, and today, the StartX community ranks tied for #1 against any accelerators nationwide, at their own metrics. (http://seedrankings.com/)
As part of our efforts to provide funding to entrepreneurs, in 2013 we created the Stanford-StartX Fund as a way to bring StartX to financial self-sustainability while supporting the fundraising efforts of Stanford entrepreneurs. Today, StartX companies raise an average of $9.3M, compared to $1.1M in 2013, and our organization has built up a robust revenue model through engaging with F500 corporations in their innovation efforts.
Now that StartX has reached financial stability, we are shifting to a new funding model that best represents the core values that drive our community: trust, mentorship, and quality entrepreneurs. As a result, Stanford-StartX Fund will stop making new investments after June 30th.
“We invested in StartX’s program development because we saw the potential for it to provide great value to Stanford entrepreneurs,” according to Randy Livingston, Stanford University’s Vice President for Business Affairs and Chief Financial Officer. “We are pleased that this vision has been realized, with over 800 Stanford alumni, faculty and students having participated in StartX over the last 9 years. It is gratifying that StartX is now in a position to move forward as a financially self-sustaining organization. We look forward to seeing what the community achieves next.”
Every time StartX has reached new heights, it has been because of the StartX community’s combined willingness to experiment and grow. We are excited to see our 50th Stanford-faculty founded company join the StartX Professor-in-Residence program and the first StartX Student-in-Resident scholarship recipients graduating from Stanford in 2019, currently exploring ways in which we can collaborate more with Stanford’s Office of Technology Licensing, and we are now developing specialized programs and resources to inspire and support Humanities and Science majors to show that entrepreneurship is a viable path for all backgrounds.
We are excited about continuing to expand our collaboration with Stanford, so stay tuned for further announcements from us!
