Tampa adtech wins spot in Techstars accelerator

Nickelytics, an advertising technology company headquartered in Tampa, is one of a dozen companies accepted into Techstars Smart Mobility Accelerator for 2020.

The accelerator program, based in Turin, Italy, is focused on transformative smart mobility technologies with a concentration on smart infrastructure and smart cities.

Judah Longgrear, CEO at Nickelytics, announced the company’s acceptance into the program in a post on LinkedIn.

Nickelytics puts ads on vehicle that travel at least 30 miles per day through busy city streets. It has technology that tracks who sees the ads and analyzes the demographics, according to the company’s listing on PitchLyst.

Related story: Startup Report #049-Nickelytics

The company’s original business was The Nickel Ride, a free transportation service in downtown St. Petersburg and other Florida cities. It shut down that service in July and pivoted to Nickelytics.

Last year, Nickelytics was accepted into the current Tampa Bay Wave accelerator program. The company was absent from Wave’s Pitch Night last week, when Rich Heruska, accelerator director, said Nickelytics had been accepted into a “globally known accelerator,” without revealing it was Techstars.

Techstars is a worldwide network designed to help entrepreneurs succeed.  Membership in a Techstars accelerator comes with a $120,000 investment, according to the organization.

“We are very excited to add Nickelytics to the Techstars portfolio. The team has managed to build a valuable and innovative platform for its customers that is scalable globally and has great potential in the rapidly growing mobility market. We are looking forward to supporting Judah and his team over the coming years and help them build a successful company,” Martin Olcyzk, managing director of the Smart Mobility Accelerator, said in a news release.

The Smart Mobility Accelerator is Techstar’s first program in Italy. It’s held at Officine Grandi Riparazioni, or OGR Tech, an innovation hub in Turin. The 12 companies in the accelerator come from Italy, Norway, Germany, Portugal, Ukraine and the United Kingdom, as well as the United States. They will get hands-on mentorship on business modeling, sales, fundraising, marketing, and other relevant topics to build successful and sustainable companies. The Smart Mobile Accelerator is supported by Compagnia Di San Paolo, Fondazione CRT and the Intesa Sanpaolo Innovation Center.

The program culminates in a Demo Day April 23.

Nickelytics also is scheduled to take part in Wave’s Demo Day at the Synapse Summit in Tampa next month.