UNM alum competes for $1M, part of NFL draft
University of New Mexico alumus Andreas Velten, co-founder of Ubicept, is generating national recognition as part of TitletownTech's $1 Million Startup Draft hosted by Microsoft and the Green Bay Packers.
After competing against 1,000 other startups from across the nation, Ubicept, which operates out of Boston and Madison, Wisconsin, emerged as one of seven finalists.
On April 24, the Startup Draft will be broadcasted live, and the competition winner will be announced.
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Ubicept's Sebastian Bauer and Tristan Swedish meeting with a potential partner.
Courtesy of TitletownTech
The event is part of a collaboration with venture capital firm TitletownTech, a partnership between the Green Bay Packers and Microsoft, which has supported more than 30 startups since 2017.
Albuquerque Business First talked to Microsoft General Manager of U.S. Philanthropies, Mike Egan to gain insights into the collaborative effort and Microsoft's activities in the New Mexico region.
According to Egan, about a decade ago, Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith told him the company needed to think about community engagement on a less traditional level by abandoning the idea that New York and Los Angeles are the only places where technology ecosystems can be built.
The company chose six places originally, including El Paso and Juarez, where the company started the Bridge Accelerator program.
Last year, in an effort to expand, the company set out to find a nonprofit in every state and allow them to be a TechSpark fellow, and receive funding and resources from Microsoft.
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In New Mexico, it's the Mycelia Foundation, based in Las Cruces, which aims to bridge the digital divide, or improve internet access and digital literacy through education and promotion of better rural broadband access.
'This can happen anywhere. And it's happening in little Green Bay, Wisconsin. … I love the creative thought here, that you can mix these two worlds together. … The two combine in many, many ways,' Egan said of the event's intersection of sports and technology.
Business First also spoke with TitletownTech Managing Partner Craig Dickman, who is going into his 13th season as part of the Green Bay Packers' board.
Prior to TitletownTech, Dickman founded a company called Breakthrough Fuel, which managed the energy used to move products. The company, based in Green Bay, scaled into 47 countries before it was ultimately sold.
Dickman, through his experiences, has learned the business of sport, which helped him as he worked on the board of directors for American Family Field that oversees the stadium that the Brewers operate in, or the time that that I owned a minor league baseball team.
'I've really been fascinated by the business of sports, but more by all business models,' he said.
Dickman said this 'unusual' partnership between the Packers and Microsoft, is both bring strong characteristics and credibility to the early venture space.
Founders, according to Dickman, might be naturally drawn to brands which are well known and have trusted marketplace engagement from viewers. The real magic, he added, is the engagement of Microsoft, which can help startups work through business problems and offer other valuable insights.
'I think what made this one special was that the NFL draft was coming to Green Bay, and so we really wanted to take advantage of the excitement and kind of the attention that was going to be focused on Green Bay this coming weekend, to highlight what we're doing at TitletownTech. The startup draft became a really, a really elegant way to do that,' Dickman explained.
Velten did not respond to a request for comment by the time of publication.
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