Startup Program to provide founders from across the globe
with exclusive support and access to select accelerators,
incubators and venture capital firms
SANTA CLARA, Calif.,
March 25, 2021 /PRNewswire/
-- Agora, Inc. (NASDAQ: API), a pioneer and leading
platform for real-time engagement APIs, today announced the debut
of the Agora Startup Program to empower global entrepreneurs and
startup founders with exclusive backend support for real-time
engagement (RTE) and direct access to benefits like top
accelerators, incubators and venture capital firms. Tethered by
partnerships with the Global Accelerator Network (GAN), Blume
Ventures, Techstars Toronto Accelerator and more, the program will
help startup founders get the critical resources and connections
they need to accelerate growth and bring the next-generation of RTE
applications and platforms to market.
To drive success of the new program, Agora has also hired three
key team members with extensive knowledge and experience in the
startup space:
- Tony Blank, who will spearhead
initiatives as director of startup programs, joins the team after
running similar startup programs for Twilio and Sendgrid where he
helped over 5,000 startups find their place in the market and grow
their customer base.
- Todd Embley, joining the team as
a senior startup advocate, most recently served as the director of
the Founder Institute in Western
Canada -- the world's largest pre-seed startup
accelerator.
- Blaise Thomas, coming on board
as a startup advocate, brings unique on-the-ground experience to
the table as a former founder himself. He dreamed up Splashmob, a
platform that allows end-users to create live mobile sites in story
format across connected devices, which was part of the 2020
Techstars Music Class.
"I couldn't be more excited to supercharge Agora's startup
ecosystem and provide critical resources to entrepreneurs around
the world," said Tony Blank,
Director of Startup Programs at Agora. "I look forward to
finding the most innovative and exciting startups and provide the
full spectrum of services founders need to break into competitive
markets and create companies that will define the future of
real-time engagement. Because innovation doesn't exist within
borders, we implore founders worldwide to apply, get in touch and
join our community."
Some of the exclusive benefits of the Agora Startup Program
include:
- Free kickstarter packages: Agora will provide cohorts up
to 1 million free minutes of use for Agora's proprietary
Software-Defined Real-Time Network (SD-RTN™), which delivers
extremely low latency and high availability voice, video and live
streaming. The program also includes free access to Agora Analytics
to help developers analyze call usage and quality.
- Discounted HIPAA support: It's crucial for healthcare
startups to build on secure and compliant infrastructure. Relevant
startups in the program will get discounted HIPAA Business
Associate Agreements (BAA).
- Constant backend guidance: It takes a village to build
an app or platform and Agora's deep bench of expert developers and
RTE evangelists will be on call to support founders the whole way
through.
- Virtual show-and-tells with VCs and founders: On a
monthly basis, Agora will host virtual show-and-tells for founders
to present their app or platform to other founders for feedback and
collaboration, as well as virtual show-and-tells with prominent
VCs, incubators and accelerators to maximize exposure for funding
opportunities.
"GAN's community of accelerators, studios and investors has
supported over 13,000 startups in the last decade, and every single
one of these startups has needed to conserve cash and build an
amazing customer experience," said Patrick
Riley, CEO of Global Accelerator Network. "We're thrilled to
have partnered with Agora, because they're doing both of these
things really, really well while putting founders' needs
first."
"Blume Ventures is extremely excited to be a partner of the
Agora Startup Program," said Jitesh
Luthra, who spearheads market development for Blume
Ventures. "The Agora team have been incredible partners to us and
our portfolio of companies. Real-time engagement continues to
evolve and we are confident that Agora will continue to support the
next generation of entrepreneurs looking to solve tough
problems."
The Agora Startup Program welcomes an impressive inaugural group
of startups including: Mixpose, a platform that offers daily free
yoga classes online with AI pose estimation; Remotion, a video
workspace that helps remote teams move faster and feel connected;
and AirMeet, an all-in-one, secure, simple and scalable virtual
events hosting platform.
"Techstars Toronto is incredibly excited to welcome Mixpose --
an Agora Startup Program cohort and Silicon Valley-based startup --
into the 2021 class and the Techstars family," said Sunil Sharma, managing director for Techstars
Toronto. "Mixpose is one of the most enjoyable and healthy ways to
leverage AI that we have ever seen. The idea to have at-home or
in-studio interactive yoga and dance with pose and transition
analysis will change the way yoga and dance classes are experienced
remotely. Having this collaboration with the Agora Startup Program
right from the start is an incredible win and we cannot wait to see
how this develops over the next several months."
To learn more about the Agora Startup Program and how to apply,
visit www.agora.io/en/startups/. For more information about Agora's
partners or its live interactive video and voice SDKs for mobile,
web or desktop apps, visit www.agora.io.
About Agora
Agora's mission is to make real-time engagement ubiquitous,
allowing everyone to interact with anyone, in any application,
anytime and anywhere. Agora's platform provides developers simple,
flexible and powerful application programming interfaces, or APIs,
to embed real-time video and voice engagement experiences into
their applications.
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SOURCE Agora