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USC's Startup Accelerator Targets 10 Companies, Starts In May

More details on the University of Southern California's new Viterbi Startup Garage, the brand new startup accelerator being backed by the United Talent Agency and Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers, have emerged, with the school saying that it plans to provide grants and mentorship to approximately 10 companies for a 12 week session starting in May. The startup accelerator will actually based based at USC's Information Sciences Institute in Marina Del Rey.

The school said it started the accelerator because entry-level and accelerator opportunities in Southern California have "always been sparse", complaining that most graduates that ultimately spin-out and launch their own startups do so for the most part in regions other than Southern California.

USC said that the accelerator will be open to any USC undergraduate or graduate students or USC alumni who graduated in the past 5 years; at least one member of the founding team must be an enrolled student in the USC Viterbi School of Engineering or a USC Viterbi alumnus. The school said that applications for the first program will be accepted through Monday, April 22nd.

The effort isn't the first time that USC has linked with a Silicon Valley venture capital firm; the campus also has the USC Stevens Institute for Innovation, which has been looking to help spin out and create innovation on campus, which was funded by Sequoia Capital's Mark Stevens, a USC alumnus.