Currently, there are 2.5 million veteran-owned businesses nationwide. Those businesses only make up 9.1% of all small businesses in our country. Techstars and Patriot Boot Camp (PBC) are collaborating on an initiative designed to increase the number of military, veteran, and military spouse entrepreneurs. 

Through an enhanced partnership, Techstars and PBC are increasing access for underserved founders and diversity and inclusion among founders. Techstars and PBC are creating a shared pipeline of high-quality military-, veteran-, and military spouse-founded or co-founded businesses.  Both organizations will benefit from a two-way recruitment funnel into each other’s organizations.

Patriot Boot Camp is excited to announce this enhanced partnership with Techstars. Along with this partnership comes many amazing exclusive benefits for PBC alumni.  The PBC community now has access to Techstars’ incredible mentors, speakers, training, Techstars Affiliate Program, Techstars Talent Program, Startup Digest reading resources, Startup Weeks and Startup Weekends. Above all, Patriot Boot Camp is honored to have Techstars’ leaders, David Brown, Dave Drach, and Taylor McLemore, now Managing Director of the Techstars Workforce Development Accelerator, on the PBC Board of Directors. 

“It was the support from Techstars that made the first Patriot Boot Camp event possible. This is a perfect example of the Techstars value Give First — simply trying to help anyone, and especially entrepreneurs, with no expectation of getting anything back,” says McLemore. “Techstars believes in the potential of military veteran and military spouse entrepreneurs. The most exciting part is that there is only more and more opportunity through this partnership as Techstars and Patriot Boot Camp continue to grow and support entrepreneurs.” 

Techstars has been a PBC partner since 2012 when founder Taylor McLemore launched the non-profit with the support of David Cohen, Governor Jared Polis, and David Calone. Patriot Boot Camp, a 501(c)3, was designed after the Techstars model of Give First and provides intensive mentorship-driven programming specifically for active duty, veteran, and military spouse led technology startups. 

In collaboration over the last seven years, PBC and Techstars have successfully created a path of growth and success for 15 PBC alumni representing 13 companies by helping them participate in a Techstars Accelerator. PBC’s first-ever active-duty military spouse, Michele Atkinson, Founder, and CEO of Contract Cloud, LLC, just participated in the Techstars Chicago Accelerator. Last year, two PBC alumni, Lamine Zarrad, CEO of Joust and Brantley Pace, Co-Founder, and CEO of Terran Reality Corporation, were accepted into the same class for the Techstars Boulder Accelerator program. 

“Of everything I learned at Patriot Boot Camp, the biggest takeaway that I got from the experience was confidence,” said Michele Atkinson, CEO and Founder of Contract Cloud, PBC Austin 2019 Alumn, Techstars Chicago Accelerator 2020 Graduate. “I had read about pitching, raising money, leadership, marketing, and the fundamentals of growing a startup in books and articles, but the mentorship and learning sessions with seasoned experts were game-changing. I now feel confident speaking with investors, because I got to see how the entire ecosystem worked while at PBC. I can tell that I am more decisive as a leader, and have seen positive growth from implementing marketing strategies I learned there too.” 

Techstars continues to help guide the PBC organization and provides tremendous support to the PBC leadership team. Together they are making sure they are providing the best services to all veteran, military, and military spouse startups.  

About Techstars

About Patriot Boot Camp

Patriot Boot Camp (PBC) is a non-profit founded in 2012 that provides educational programming and a robust community of experts and peers to help technology-driven veteran and military spouse startup entrepreneurs start and scale businesses.  PBC has hosted sixteen 3-day in-person boot camp programs in 12 U.S. cities since 2012 with a pivot to virtual programs for the last three months. Patriot Boot Camp has 950+ active duty military, veteran, and military spouse entrepreneur alumni worldwide.  PBC’s alumni are 55.3% service-connected disabled, 35% ethnically diverse, and 22% women.  Eight PBC alumni have successfully exited their companies via acquisition since 2015.  

Patriot Boot Camp works with organizations and companies, as well as donors, to financially support and enhance our programs. These funds directly impact more than 6,000 military community entrepreneurs per year through Patriot Boot Camp entrepreneur Boot Camps.  If you would like to be a part of the PBC community of sponsors, please email jen@patriotbootcamp.org.

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