Highland Summer Startup Program Offers Companies $15K

Highland Capital Partners opened the doors to its summer startup program. The 10-week program offers university-affiliated startups office space and $15,000 in funding. Highland does not take an equity stake. Here is the program’s Web site.

WEB POST

Summer@HIGHLAND

$15K + Cambridge/Menlo Park + Awesome Mentors + No Strings attached

Summer@HIGHLAND is a 5-year old entrepreneurship program designed to provide university-affiliated startups with the environment and resources for taking their initiative/company to the next level. The program is “founder friendly”: Highland receives no equity stake in exchange for a team’s participation, and teams are under no obligation to Highland after the summer. Our only priority is helping entrepreneurs and their teams significantly advance their startup over the summer.

Selected teams will receive $15K, free office space in Highland’s Cambridge or Menlo Park office, and the opportunity to work closely with the Highland team and an incredible network of founders. Teams will also have access to the Summer@HIGHLAND Speaker Series, which has included founders, CEOs and experts from technology leaders like…

Our criteria in 2012.

We are especially interested in having you spend the summer with us if:

• You have a leadership team with vision, passion, and drive
• Your initiative is built around a breakthrough idea that is scalable
• You’re pursuing a large addressable market opportunity with a product/service that has the potential to be highly-disruptive in its area
• Your business initiative is already showing momentum and (ideally) some demonstrable market traction (i.e., you’re well beyond concept)
• Your startup is technology-based or technology-focused – SaaS, internet/digital media, e-commerce, mobile, payments, social media, infrastructure, energy efficiency, robotics, healthcare IT, advanced materials & semiconductors
• You can direct us to advisors or business leaders who see your potential as you do

Sound like your team? Here are the details:

• There are two application deadlines this year: Early (March 1, 2012 at 11:59pm PT) and Regular (April 5, 2012 at 11:59pm PT). If you apply Early are not selected for some reason, your application will automatically roll into our Regular review process.
• The program is open to teams with co-founders that are current undergraduate or graduate students, post graduate docs, as well as recent grads (must not have graduated earlier than December 2011). At least one participating member of the team must meet this criterion.
• Teams need to consist of at least two co-founders and preferably aren’t larger than four members.
• Each selected team will receive $15,000.
• Participating teams are required to work full time for a minimum 10 weeks in the program over the summer. Teams should target to arrive at their respective Highland office on June 4th (there is some flexibility here) and depart no later than August 31, 2012.
• As the 2012 program will be hosted at Highland locations in the United States, to be considered all applying team members must be citizens of the United States or have all appropriate paperwork in place (independently of Highland) to participate in the program in the United States during the summer.
• While participating in the program, teams will need to reside in Highland’s offices in either Kendall Square or on Sand Hill Road.
• Each participating team will have a Highland sponsor who will be the team’s gateway to advice and counsel from Highland’s investors and industry network.
• Participating teams in the core Summer@HIGHLAND 2012 program are under no obligation to Highland after the summer.