CivStart has chosen another twelve innovative startup companies to join its accelerator program focused on building an honest and inclusive ecosystem of local government solutions.
CivStart, a non-profit accelerator bringing govtech innovations to state and local government, today announced the twelve startup companies participating in their second cohort. The cohort was selected after an intensive three-stage selection process, involving CivStart’s selection committee which consists of current and former public-sector leaders.
CivStart’s program is a comprehensive approach to identifying and vetting the best and most innovative startup solutions, while supporting and growing those startups to better serve local governments and their communities. Half of the twelve companies have women founders and several others are founded by other underrepresented entrepreneurs, corresponding to CivStart’s commitment to building an honest and inclusive ecosystem of govtech solutions.
“Startup companies working with state and local governments face additional hurdles to growth and sustainability,” explained Anthony Jamison, CEO at CivStart, “Local governments have additional reasons to limit their exposure to what they might see as risky startups. CivStart helps to lower the risk for governments in adopting these solutions, while providing our startups with comprehensive support in navigating the challenges of working with governments,” he continued, “Because our local governments and the communities they serve deserve the best, most affordable, and most innovative solutions to meeting their needs.”
“Acta is excited to meet and work alongside other companies that are in the GovTech space,” Pavani Peri, Founder of Acta Solutions, stated. “CivStart is doing the necessary and challenging work of building relationships with key decision-makers in local government,” explained Paul Salama, Co-Founder & COO of ClearRoad. “Especially during a time like this, we look forward to working with CivStart and tracking the impact we make collectively,” ShaKeia Kegler, Founder & CEO of GovLia, added.
The new 2020 cohort of twelve startups joins an existing 2019 cohort of ten startups for CivStart’s two-year program. The startups will be matched with mentors from CivStart’s advisory board, receive educational webinars from leading experts, organizations, and public-sector leaders in the field, receive unique access to support from established companies like Esri and AWS, and get opportunities to present to, and learn from, the experience of public-sector leaders.
About CivStart CivStart believes solving society’s biggest problems starts at the local level. Our mission is to build an honest and inclusive ecosystem of solutions that serve local governments and their communities. We bridge the gap between early stage companies and local governments, first by identifying cutting-edge govtech and civic technology companies and then providing expert consulting while leveraging strategic partnerships with governments, established businesses, and investors for the benefit of all. The technologies that go through the CivStart program aren’t just made in a sterile lab, but have been made with guidance from government leaders to ensure that once in the wild, the technologies serve community needs, not the other way around. Learn more at CivStart.org.
Contact: Nick Lyell | Chief Impact Officer, CivStart (608) 234.2166 nick@civstart.org
CivStart 2020 Startup Cohort
Read more about our startups at www.civstart.org/startups
- Acta Solutions – helps local governments extract better insights from constituent input faster and at a lower cost.
- Bloom Housing by Exygy– A modern system that helps people learn about, apply for, and gain access to affordable housing. Bloom’s common digital application process has been developed by Exygy and deployed in partnership with jurisdictions in the San Francisco Bay Area.
- CitizenLab – is the e-democracy platform for local governments. It helps local governments reach more citizens, manage their ideas efficiently, and make decisions based on real-time data.
- ClearRoad – Is deploying leading-edge road pricing programs for congestion pricing, road usage charging, freight management, and tolling leveraging the hardware already in vehicles.
- Collective Liberty – Is eradicating human trafficking by collaborating across industries, agencies, and service providers to create ground-breaking, data-driven approaches that work.
- GovLia – Is the easiest and fastest way for governments to implement and manage local preference or supplier diversity programs; saving time, money and resources.
- Lex Loci Labs – Lex Loci Labs builds software that empowers criminal justice stakeholders to be more efficient, transparent, and just.
- Near Space Labs – Provides high-resolution, high-frequency, zero-emissions imagery from the stratosphere at down-to-earth prices. Commercial and government organizations can now monitor their assets, gain remote access and obtain actionable insights.
- Pigeonly – Provides a postal mail solution that allows correctional facilities to receive legal and non-legal postal mail without the risk of contraband, protecting the safety of employees and inmate population.
- Qwally – Is an intuitive, cloud-based software platform that helps small businesses navigate local government contracting and local government departments coordinate integrated support for small businesses.
- Stae– expands access to data insights across local governments to drive better outcomes in housing, transportation, budgeting, and other verticals.
- Waterly – solves the boots on the ground data collection issues facing local water operators while eliminating hundreds of hours of budget-sapping labor each year.