Share This Story  |   Comments (0)

Joining TechStars in Colorado and Y Combinator in Silicon Valley and Boston, New Haven, Conn., has its own startup initiative that is clicking into gear. Last summer Yale University held its first Yale Entrepreneurial Institute, a 10-week program geared toward helping entrepreneurs turn their ideas into companies.

On Tuesday, two of the participants in the program said they raised a combined $500,000 in seed money and are now building out their businesses. Stickk.com, which raised $150,000 primarily from two Yale professors, plans to launch its Web site in December. The company helps people set and meet goals using an online forum and social network.

The other company, GoCrossCampus, raised the remainder of the funding to continue developing its Risk-like massively multiplayer online game set on college campuses. Here's how the company describes the concept:

Every residential college, dorm, or group makes up a team, and anyone in one of those groups can be a player. You control a piece, your suitemate controls a piece, that girl down the hall controls a piece. Your pieces, or armies, can take over territory: your quad, your bench, your dining hall -- but  you, as a team, have to agree on a plan and gather enough forces for a successful attack. If you can't organize yourselves, how will you ever conquer ... your entire campus.

It takes just 2 minutes a day to play. Use your armies to attack enemies, or defend your territory. Join a strategy meeting ... or start one! Or just stay at the sideline. How you participate is up to you. But if you don't, your neighbors might come over to ask why.

No offense to any humanities grads out there, but my money's on the engineering schools as the ones to beat. - Stacey Higginbotham

Also From Tech Confidential

• 'You can get a robust return and take care of the planet,' Al Gore tells investors
• Analyst: Software maker Chordiant should seek sale
• ex-Kelkoo CEO rips Yahoo!, blames its culture for failed deal
• Think your portfolio is ugly? Behold Carl Icahn's
• Chipmakers Staccato and Artimi to merge, land $20M in VC

Tech Confidential Home Page

---

Post a comment

Name:

Email Address:

URL:

Remember personal info?

Comments: (you may use HTML tags for style)

Please only click "Post" once. It may take a few moments to process.