Last week, in partnership with Kuwaiti accelerator Brilliant Lab, and Brazilian startup support initiatives Porto Digital and Apex, Mind the Bridge held our first graduation of Startup School 2016 (website).

We hosted the first class of 2016 in our brand new space in SOMA, San Francisco, which will be the new HQ for all Silicon Valley MTB activities. Watch all the highlights here.

Graduating on Friday were 16 entrepreneurs from countries including Brazil, Kuwait, and Italy. From both early and later-stage startups, our students represented a diverse range of businesses from varying sectors across IoT, education, virtual reality, and SaaS.

Our entrepreneurs represented companies including:

AjarOnline, a cloud service recently admitted into Gatehouse Capital (an international real estate investment advisory firm)’s pre-accelerator, built for the real estate market in Kuwait and the GCC to offer quick and efficient online rent collection via SMS and email.

BigHut Games, a game development studio from Brazil creating free to play mobile games for the dedicated casual gamer, with 3.5 million downloads to date.

DIVA home, a smartphone controlled LED lamp that connects to home appliances in order to keep track of how much energy is being consumed.

Fitmeplus, a platform enabling video-chat in real-time between personal trainers and customers.

InteriorBE, a community of interior design professionals providing high quality design services online.

Lotebox, a workflow management system for freight forwarders and logistics companies that simplifies the quote, control, and tracking process for cargo shipping.

Mindesk, software that enables CAD modeling in virtual reality to collaborate with  partners in the cloud.

Nasser Story App, an edutainment interactive app supported by Al Hamra Tower that seeks to teach children ages 3-9 how to learn Arabic in a very interactive way by using tower animation facilities.

Oncase, an analytics solution provider that integrates, cleans and enhances data from any source.

Prodeaf, software that translates any spoken language into sign language using 3D avatar.

SiliconReef, a complete system-on-chip solution for handling energy harvesting in a variety of applications.

Suati, platform leader in the Brasilian market for energy trading and management of energy contracts.

Startup School Jan 2016 edition

Over the Startup School of two weeks, our students heard from experts on how to grow their business and tap into the Silicon Valley ecosystem. Lecturers included Matteo Fabiano, founder of FireMatter, Immigration lawyer Sophie Alcorn, pitching expert and corporate storyteller Donna Griffit, angel investor Pietro Masi, corporate development guru Matteo Daste, and digital marketing expert and Timelapse founder Oliver Roth, among others.

Our very own CEO Marco Marinucci and Chairman Alberto Onetti (making a special appearance from his home-base of Italy) also shared their lessons from their careers as serial entrepreneurs with the group.

The group paid a visit to the San Francisco design-icon Autodesk, and the Silicon Valley HQ of French startup accelerator, OrangeFab, meeting with executives responsible for Orange’s programs intended to support startups.

Our startup school is truly unique in its ability to immerse international entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley’s local ecosystem. Mind the Bridge is local to San Francisco, yet we understand the complexities of growing and scaling a business in less-developed startup ecosystems across the globe. It’s our international community of entrepreneurs, investors, and corporations that gives us that global advantage.

Congratulations to all our graduates! We hope they enjoyed their stay in San Francisco. 

We look forward to welcoming the next class of Startup School 2016 in April.

Click here for more information on our future Startup School editions this year – applications to open soon!