DreamIt and Microsoft Help Startups Dream, Then Do

I was first introduced to Arie Abecassis, one of the Managing Partners at DreamIt Ventures, back in June this year. At the time, we were doing our bit to support DreamIt programs on the ground in NYC and Philly, a little in Israel, but Arie was keen to do [much] more with Microsoft BizSpark, and told me how much they rated the program.

This blog post was written by Claire Lee, Director of Partnerships at Microsoft BizSpark.

A few weeks later they announced the program with Comcast.

As Arie and I talked about our vision and mission, we seemed to share a similar philosophy for supporting startups. In fact, we both waxed lyrical for ages on what was supposed to be a short call. Arie told me the story behind DreamIt, then – and with pleasure – about the Forbes article that put them in the Top Ten accelerators.

I mentioned some of our partnerships and the work we’re doing all over the globe with accelerators. Arie said he wanted DreamIt to feature here.

Today, they do.

Since then, we’ve seen DreamIt go from strength to strength: more and more of their portfolio companies are getting funded and on a great trajectory; and they announced a fourth location, in Austin, TX. Then came the Fall 2012 program in Philly.

We wanted to enable more of the companies going through these programs benefit from BizSpark and – in particular – from the generous offer that is BizSpark Plus. DreamIt became a BizSpark Plus partner so they can make available up to $60,000 worth of Windows Azure services to startups, when they need it most.

We also wanted a way to reward really great innovation.

One of the suggestions Arie came up with was the idea of selecting four companies – one from each program/location during Fall 2012 and Spring 2013 – to work more closely with Microsoft expert engineers to build out their products. These guys are tagged BizSpark ‘Fellows’.

Basically what that means is, they get a lot of love and attention and we hope that makes a difference to them on their quest for greatness.

Going forward, we’ll publish news on our partner page

In the meantime, read the DreamIt release blog.