DETROIT (FOX 2) - "Detroit was the world's original Silicon Valley," said Suneel Gupta.
Gupta moved back to his hometown as a successful entrepreneur and helped the group flourish. The group connects creative entrepreneurs from all over to mentors based here in Detroit.
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Techstars incubates Detroit business innovation
The Techstars have bold ideas as innovators in mobility, tech and automotive.
The Techstars have bold ideas as innovators in mobility, tech and automotive.
"Le Car company is a personal car shopping service that matches you to your perfect car," said Tamara Warren, one of this year's Techstars.
The program works like this - 10 startups from all over the country and the world descend on Detroit for three months. They get help from mentors in Detroit and today they demo their product.
"Coming home to Detroit to build my company is everything," Warren said. "Detroit is such an important city to the fabric of the auto industry and the world."
In the last five years, 54 startups have been through the program-digging their heels into a pool of talent that's unique to our city, given our manufacturing and innovative roots.
It's even bigger than that. Some companies have relocated to Detroit including this startup.
"We want to expand our operation in Detroit, and like I said, we are moving our headquarters to Detroit," said Vicente Delgado. "We want to grow the business here in Michigan as well in other states nearby."
Delgado announced Tuesday he's moving his company from Mexico to Michigan.
Well over half of the talent coming to today's Techstars Demo day are from outside of America. The startups and apps being developed and demonstrated here, vary from things automotive experts would use in house to other apps for everyday people.
MJ Lee started Octane, which connects car lovers to Car meetups and scenic drives.
"Being in Detroit has been amazing because it is the Motor City," said Lee. "It is the home of the automotive industry, so we were able to really connect with the car community here, industry professionals and the automotive industry. So for a mobile app for a car people, this has been great just being here and being with the automotive culture."
"What I am proud of is you have people who are doing this for the very first time," Gupta said. "And to do anything for the first time is hard. Starting your first company is always hard to do and one of the things that always helps is having people around you that have done it before.
"They can say here are the mistakes I made, here are the things I did right, but here are the things I may have done wrong so that you can learn from those mistakes."
For more online, go to https://www.techstars.com/