Techstars is billed as a leading pre-seed venture capital firm, investing in a diverse, global pool of entrepreneurs and high-growth companies. Can you just tell the audience a little more about the company?
“Techstars at our core, we’re a venture capital investor,” says Kittredge. “We’re actually the most active pre-seed investor in the world. But we go far beyond capital and invest a lot of resources into the companies that we back. We run a thirteen-week program that all of our companies have to go through, in which we help them with the fundamentals of growth, match them with mentors, and then help them for the duration of their company, really find that product market fit and grow.”
The innovation community has a big emphasis on corporate innovation, new product development and so on, but also recognizes the innovations, creativity and partnerships that start-ups bring to the table. There’s strengths and weaknesses to every type of partnership, of course.
“Absolutely. I think what it really starts with is listening to the customer,” she says. “So having conversations with the end user about what the pain points are that they can build to help solve. And that’s a lot of the reason why we’re here at FEI today, is to listen to these consumers, in this case the corporations that are in attendance, to listen to what their needs are so that we can bring that back to Techstars, back to our start-ups, and help them build with that vision in that direction.”
Do you feel that corporations are looking for more open innovation growth nowadays? Perhaps in a partnership or collaboration, they can accomplish some sort of innovation or product development that they couldn’t accomplish directly in certain ways, and then maybe they have to bring in that partner?
“Partnership is fundamental to growth, especially at these earliest stages,” observes Kittredge. “They want to build with a partner in mind so that, again, they can fill that need and address the pain point directly. And it’s a quicker path to finding that product market fit that’s essential for start-ups at the earliest stages.”
The FEI Collective Intelligence Startup Competition features some innovative companies highlighting their AI-human intelligence product and service solutions. What does that mean to you and your organization?
“Collective intelligence for Techstars—our network, we call it the Techstars network. It’s a global network of mentors and experts across every stage, sector, industry imaginable,” she says. “To us, that’s the core of what we are. We, together, are much more than we are as individuals. So we help bring together that community so that we can put these resources into companies and help accelerate their growth far better than they would have been able to do on their own. And I think that this conference is really a testament to that power of a network, a community, and the fact that we are all better when we work together.”
More Startup Stories from FEI25
FEI25 Collective Intelligence Startup Competition
The FEI25 Collective Intelligence Startup Competition featured twelve innovative startups leveraging AI with human intelligence to solve critical business challenges. Chelsea Trengrove from Neoclease won the first prize of $25,000, while Roger Dias from Xtory took second place with $5,000. The competition showcased how collective intelligence can transform industries from healthcare to finance, with each founder demonstrating unique approaches to combining human expertise with AI capabilities.
Neoclease Levels Up Gene Editing with Winning Innovation Formula
Neoclease is taking genetic medicine to new heights with generative AI—and its use of AI is one of the reasons the company was the first-place winner of the FEI25 Collective Intelligence Startup Competition, held in May at the Front End of Innovation (FEI) conference. All Things Innovation recently spoke with Chelsea Trengrove, CEO and Cofounder, Neoclease, to discuss the company’s mission, its use of AI and its groundbreaking work in the gene editing and biotechnology fields.
