Disney puts a new spin on its accelerator

Over the past few years, Disney’s accelerator classes have been transitioning away from what was once a roughly standard early-stage growth framework. Rather than the "adopt-a-company" models prevalent among most accelerators, it has been leaning hard into how it can create mutually beneficial relationships with companies that run the gamut from well-established to really just beginning.

The latest class, announced today, really shows how far the model has evolved beyond its early partnerships with Techstars. The press release that came along with the list rightly calls out Sphero as a success story from its last batch. The little-robot-company-that-could had been making a very cool controllable ball for a while but had struggled to really latch into the customer consciousness.

by Matthew Panzarino (@panzer)

Full Story: https://techcrunch.com/2017/07/11/disney-puts-a-new-spin-on-the-accelerator/