Beta, the local group that organizes Twin Cities Startup Week (TCSW), is expanding its leadership team with the addition of Casey Schultz and Adam Lingerfelt, both former leaders of startup accelerators in California.
Beta Executive Director Reed Robinson told Minne Inno that Schultz and Lingerfelt both first discovered the Twin Cities Startup scene as TCSW attendees. Schultz participated in Beta's popular Fly-In Program, an initiative that brings out-of-state techies to Minnesota during TCSW. Lingerfelt moved to Minnesota after his partner landed a job with Target's tech team, and has since has worked nights and weekends with Beta to organize TCSW.
Schultz will now head Beta's TCSW efforts, and Lingerfelt will take the lead on the organization's incubator program.
In addition to organizing TCSW, Beta also provides resources to early-stage Minnesota tech founders through its six-month incubator. Since 2014, 124 companies have participated in this program. 80 percent of these businesses remain active today, according to Beta. The companies have collectively raised close to $250 million and created 750 jobs.
Schultz joins Beta with a combination of startup and accelerator experience. She was one of the original employees of CouchSurfing International, a precursor to Airbnb, before moving to the capital side of the equation as a leader of the Citrix Startup Accelerator in San Francisco.
Prior to arriving in Minneapolis, Lingerfelt coordinated the business incubator program for the Cal Poly Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship in San Luis Obispo.
"We're thrilled to invite Casey and Adam into the work that we're doing to support local founders, and the timing couldn't be better," Robinson said in a release. "We are in one of those eras where the two or three-person teams we work with today will become the Fortune 500s of tomorrow."
The news comes shortly after TCSW founder and Beta Managing Director Nels Pederson stepped down from his position to join local software development company Livefront.
