TechStars NYC has been quiet since August, when managing director David Tisch announced that he would be stepping back from his day-to-day role at the accelerator program. Almost exactly a year ago, we profiled Mr. Tisch’s rise to prominence in New York’s startup scene largely through his role in building a satellite program for TechStars, which entered the local market just when it could benefit from a little infrastructure.
(Early observers will recall that the first class of TechStars New York was filmed for a reality show, but managed to escape the humorless vitriol directed at Randi Zuckerberg–probably because the TechStars version was for Bloomberg instead of Bravo, and involved about 100 percent fewer toga parties.) Over the past few years, Mr. Tisch has become a prolific angel investor through Box Group, and his name frequently shows up in seed funding rounds for New York companies–TechStars and otherwise. Thus finding a replacement who is as well-versed in the scene might be tricky.
But accelerator season waits for no man. Today, TechStars founder and CEO David Cohen announced an interim replacement for Mr. Tisch. Serial entrepreneur Nicole Glaros, who has been managing director of TechStars in Boulder since 2009, will be moving out East for the spring. With a new figurehead in place, applications are officially opening today for the program that starts April 4. In a blog post, Mr. Cohen, who will also be “partially based” in New York this session, wrote:
Of all of our Managing Directors nationally, Nicole has the most experience with the culture and heart of TechStars and has run five TechStars programs since 2009. She’s been responsible for funding and working with many great companies such as Ubooly, Cloudability, Mobiplug, Orbotix, and dozens more. Once we name a new permanent Managing Director for NYC, Nicole will be on site to train that person alongside her during the program next spring.
In an email to Betabeat, Mr. Cohen said “we think the permanent Managing Director in NYC will be someone from that area.” As for the program’s criteria, it’s the same as it ever was. “We’re simply looking for the best founders that we can meaningfully help,” he said. “We’ve funded very diverse things in the past, and we’ll continue to go after big ideas. I think our recent Boston class was as good example of that.”
In the meantime, Ms. Glaros, who says she “love[s] people, but hates crowds,” might want to steel herself for the subway-riding experience:
@leithstevens yes, excited! I’ll be a little fish in the worlds biggest ocean. 🙂
— Nicole Glaros (@nglaros) November 19, 2012
This post has been updated to include comments from Mr. Cohen.
