Burbank Accelerator for Post-COVID Economy

The city of Burbank is upping its game in getting the word out about what it has to offer to startups and entrepreneurs.

The municipality has partnered with Untapped Ventures, a Glendale venture capital firm, to create a tech accelerator, albeit a virtual one due to the coronavirus pandemic. The theme of the accelerator is the future of work.

Mary Hamzoian, economic development manager for Burbank, said the accelerator is a continuation of the city’s programming for entrepreneurs.“We do have resources and amenities that entrepreneurs and startups are looking for, just like Silicon Beach has and Silicon Valley has,” Hamzoian said.The application period to join the accelerator opened on Jan. 14 and closes on Feb. 12. The selection date for the startups is Feb. 23 and the launch date for the accelerator is March 1.

There will be 25 startups chosen for the program, with five spots reserved for companies from Burbank, Hamzoian said. The startups do not need to be from the region or even the country, she added, although the focus of the accelerator is on startups from Southern California.“That is the beauty of a virtual accelerator,” Hamzoian said. “They can participate from anywhere in the world.”The first phase will go through the end of June and includes partnering solo founders with a development team; formulating ideas for the problem they are trying to solve; and building a demo, testing it out and seeing if the startup can generate $10,000 in annual recurring revenue.

The second phase will whittle down the number of startups, although Hamzoian said she did not know how many would be selected. This phase goes from July to November and includes pitching to investors; growing the startup by developing business and financial models, building a product and getting sales; and participating in a Demo Day to show the product to the world.   Attempts to reach George Bandarian II, founder and chief executive of Untapped Ventures, were not successful.But in a statement, Bandarian said: “Untapped Ventures is very excited to work with the city of Burbank to run this unique, traction focused, high value-producing accelerator that will benefit economic development.”From the city’s perspective, economic benefit is the intent of entrepreneurship, Hamzoian added.“It is to ultimately foster you as a startup to help you grow and then keep you in that city, generate jobs, occupy office space,” she said.

The city was approached by Untapped Ventures to create the accelerator after the firm was not chosen as one of the operators of a similar program in Glendale.

Creating an accelerator is something the city has wanted to do for some time. It is a continuation of the efforts it has made to create a network for entrepreneurs and startups through its monthly Tech Talks that started a few years back. Later, the city added pitch fests to the services offered for fledgling companies.

The next phase would have been to do a physical accelerator to give the entrepreneurs a place to go to get the mentoring and other assistance, Hamzoian said.But since a physical space was not in the cards due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Untapped Ventures suggested a virtual one instead, she explained.“And we thought what better time than now to do a virtual accelerator, and the focus of that was the future of work,” she continued.The startups chosen for the accelerator must present ideas connected to how the workplace is changing due to the pandemic. With more people working from home and video services from such companies as Zoom Video Communications Inc. and Slack Technologies Inc. becoming commonplace, there is room for other companies to move into the market.“The spectrum is really wide, and it ranges from the Zooms and the Slacks to hardware like virtual reality,” Hamzoian said. “There are a couple of productivity tools that have launched; there are virtual reality tools that have launched.” In a post at online magazine Medium made in October, Bandarian took on the topic of the new workplace and how it fits in with his firm.

“We are rethinking employment from the bottom up and re-designing the elements of how we work, who we work for, and the ways in which we are rewarded,” Bandarian wrote.