Tuesday, October 16, 2012

ThinkNear Among SoCal's First Accelerator Exits

The acquisition Tuesday of ThinkNear, the mobile advertising firm headed by Eli Portnoy, looks to be among the first accelerator-incubated companies in Southern California. The catch? ThinkNear was accelerated via TechStars New York, and moved here after participating in that program on the East Coast--and not from one of the many local accelerators that have cropped up lately. TeleNav said it would pay $22.5M for ThinkNear Tuesday morning, and make the company part of its mobile, local advertising group. ThinkNear graduated from TechStars New York in 2011, and was part of that group's Spring 2011 class. Southern California's own crop of accelerators are still early in terms of racking up any exits; there have been only a handful of exits from local accelerators (one, Sometrics, which was part of LaunchpadLA before it was officially an accelerator, was acquired for around $30M last year), most with no dollar numbers given for exit amounts.

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