Techstars Seattle’s 11th cohort began its three-month accelerator in February 2020 with in-person programming. After five weeks together, the founders and program shifted much of their work online as COVID-19 disrupted businesses and daily life. The ten startups responded in markedly different ways: some lost demand, some redirected sales or launched new services, and others prioritized features for changing customer needs.
This is a historical account of what the companies and Techstars Seattle managing director Isaac Kato told GeekWire on April 21, 2020. Their descriptions and forecasts reflect that moment, not verified current company status or performance.
How Techstars Seattle adapted its accelerator
The 11th Techstars Seattle class started in February 2020. Kato told GeekWire that mentoring, guest-speaker events, KPI sessions, pitch practice, one-to-ones and social gatherings moved online, and that the shift happened without interrupting much of the program. He said the founders had five weeks of face-to-face time “before we went into our bunkers.”
The cohort’s virtual Demo Day was scheduled for May 6, 2020. That was a planned event date reported at the time, not a current event listing. Kato described the founders as “a resilient and resourceful bunch in the face of the pandemic.”
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Who was in the 2020 Techstars Seattle cohort?
GeekWire reported interviews with ten companies in the class. The table summarizes what each said it did and how its founders described the pandemic’s effect in April 2020; company accounts are attributed, not independently assessed.
| Company and location | What it did, as described in the report | Reported pandemic effect or response |
|---|---|---|
| Caravel Portland |
Collected and analyzed business-customer conversations to recommend ways to improve adoption and retention. | Founders Maxwell Folley and Jonathan Minori said the company changed its customer-acquisition focus, anticipating higher churn among businesses concentrated in heavily affected sectors. |
| MD Ally Philadelphia |
Described a system for routing non-emergency 911 callers to virtual care. | Founders Shanel Fields, Daniel Zacek and Kojo DeGraft-Hanson said they were working with public-safety leaders on resilience and emergency preparedness, including triaging non-emergency patients to virtual care. This was the company’s account, not an independently evaluated clinical or public-safety result. |
| neu Seattle |
Managed services for vacation-rental hosts and cleaners, including cleans, linens, towels and toiletries. | Founders Kwame Boler and Claudius Mbemba said the collapse in travel eliminated demand for the vacation-rental cleaning platform. The company created a COVID-19 deep-clean service for homes, commercial properties and offices. |
| Introwise Seattle and Estonia |
Helped real-world experts offer coaching and advice online, with scheduling, digital payments and remote sessions. | Founders Genia Trofimova and Denis Anisimov said they launched seven weeks earlier than planned to help people who had lost jobs move their businesses online. |
| Olive Technologies Vancouver, British Columbia |
Described an end-to-end platform for IT leaders evaluating major technology decisions. | Founders Chris Heard and Dan Harrison said COVID-19 disrupted a sales pipeline built around restaurant chains. They redirected sales toward technology companies and adjusted the product for restaurant customers seeking to reduce IT spending. |
| Retrocausal Seattle |
Described computer-vision software for front-line worker training, task guidance and analytics based on recorded physical activity. | Founders Zeeshan Zia, Quoc-Huy Tran and Andrey Konin said U.S. factory closures slowed sales. They were helping manufacturers create “Safe Return to Work” playbooks with dashboards for social-distancing and PPE practices. |
| Shotcall Atlanta |
Connected content creators and influencers with fans in streams or games. | Founders Thomas Gentle, Gordon Li and Riley Auten said they were reaching out to professional athletes and others whose public-facing careers were on hold, proposing that they play games with fans. |
| Spyn Pay Seattle |
Described a consumer credit card intended to support wealth-building and responsible spending. | Founder Steve Strauch said the company was prioritizing features for debt reduction, savings and bill paying amid the downturn. |
| Yave Seattle |
Described connected commerce for long supply chains, using coffee as its market example. | Founders Scott Tupper, Nicola Claxton and Dan Carlson said the company was supporting Seattle coffee-business partner Onda Origins with working-capital loans during the crisis. |
| Zendoc Seattle |
Described an AI assistant that found contracts in services including Gmail, Office365, DocuSign, Box and Dropbox, then organized them in a searchable repository with alerts and reminders. | Founders Laurent Lathieyre and Olivier Colle said their distributed, lean, pre-revenue team experienced only slight operational impact. |
How the pandemic affected the startups
The accounts show no single cohort-wide business response. Exposure to travel, restaurants, factories and in-person work shaped what founders said they needed to change. Some reported demand loss or a disrupted sales pipeline; others described an early launch, a new service, feature priorities or relatively little operational disruption.
Demand losses and sales changes
Caravel anticipated that customers in severely affected industries might churn, and shifted its acquisition focus. Olive Technologies said the restaurant-chain pipeline had been disrupted, prompting a sales redirection and product adjustments. neu reported that travel’s collapse removed demand for its vacation-rental cleaning platform, leading it to offer deep cleaning in other settings. Retrocausal said factory closures slowed sales.
New or accelerated offerings
Introwise brought its online coaching service to market earlier than planned. neu adapted its cleaning work to homes, offices and commercial properties. Retrocausal described support for manufacturers planning workplace returns. Shotcall explored connecting fans with athletes and other public figures through games. These were reported plans and responses in April 2020; the article does not establish their later outcomes.
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Changed priorities and limited disruption
Spyn Pay said it was emphasizing debt reduction, savings and bill payment. Yave described working-capital support for Onda Origins. MD Ally said it was working with public-safety leaders on virtual-care triage and preparedness. Zendoc’s founders reported only slight operational impact on their distributed team.
What the 2020 report said about Techstars Seattle
GeekWire reported that Techstars had 50 programs worldwide at the time. It said Techstars Seattle had graduated 100 companies over the preceding decade and that alumni Remitly, Outreach, Skilljar, Bizible, Leanplum and Zipline had collectively raised more than $700 million in investment capital. These are figures reported in 2020, not current totals.
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The story also relayed Bloomberg’s comparison of 44 Silicon Valley startups funded in the previous month with 126 in January. That comparison was attributed to Bloomberg through GeekWire, not presented as an original GeekWire count.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Source and timeframe
The cohort descriptions, founder accounts, program details and figures above come from Taylor Soper’s April 21, 2020 GeekWire report, “Techstars Seattle: Meet the latest cohort as founders and accelerator adapt amid the pandemic.” The report captures a specific early-pandemic moment; it does not establish whether the companies, products or accelerator arrangements remain active today.
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