Startup Roundup: Phone.com, TOMO!, Text Engine
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Eric Bryant, cofounder, CEO and CTO of the Bedminster-based startup Text Engine, told us that the company had been accepted into the reSET accelerator (Hartford, Conn.), whose mission is to advance the social enterprise sector. ReSet kicked off its 2016 accelerator cohort on January 20.
The program accepted 21 businesses — from Connecticut to California. Most of their models are impact-focused, serving the educational technology, health and health tech and energy industries, as well as agriculture. More than 60 percent of them are already generating revenue.
Bryant noted that Text Engine now has over 1,200 users, 22 percent of them active, and signs up two or three new users a day. “We achieved break-even status in 2015. …We now have paying users and a code for our license.”
Bryant had some things to say about accelerators, noting that it was very hard to get anyone’s attention in New Jersey and that it was also difficult in upper New York State, although a Brooklyn accelerator was interested, as were accelerators in Massachusetts, Pittsburgh and England.
“Its worth noting that Shari Sloane, my cofounder, is from Rochester, N.Y. …We also applied to the nearest accelerator to her, StartFast,” but the director wouldn’t look at their business plan. “He simply rejected us out of hand because only one of us could attend his program full-time. I still feel that New Jersey and upstate New York really need to demonstrate a much deeper commitment to their own, homegrown startups.” Text Engine was selected by the Connecticut Technology Council as a 2015 “Tech Company To Watch.”
