Notable developments in Sacramento’s startup scene in 2015.
It’s been a busy year in the Sacramento startup community with a number of news items worthy of celebration. Here’s a look back at some notable developments in Sacramento’s startup scene in 2015.
January
UC Davis launches its Innovation Institute for Food and Health
February
Hacker Lab opens an office in Rocklin
March
Startup Hour, a new TV show (still in production) came to town on March 31 and a number of Sacramento startups pitched for the show.
April
Local teams reached for the stars at NASA Space Apps Challenge Sacramento.
Sacramento’s second annual homegrown video game expo, Indie Arcade Gaming Expo, takes place.
May
The Urban Hive hosts 52 participants at Sacramento’s Startup Weekend EdTech Edition, focused on innovation in education.
Seed company HM Clause opens up lab space for research incubator.
June
SARTA’s annual TechEdge event features keynote speaker Mark Mastrov .
California’s Health and Human Services Agency (CHHS) hosts Health 2.0 Developer Challenge hackathon focusing on creating apps, visualizations, and other tools that can help better harness available data.
A new coworking space in Auburn, Auburn Tech Incubator opens.
August
Shockwaves reverberate around the region as SARTA announces it’s shutting down.
October
Hackers, makers, and space enthusiasts participate in two and a half days of developing creative solutions to space-related problems at Hack the Moon.
Rocklin was host to the region’s first Mini Maker Faire, Rocklin Mini Maker Faire.
Former SARTA program AgStart relaunches.
November
Elk Groves first coworking space, Innogrove, opens.
Eight teams competed for first place at Startup Weekend Sacramento: Elk Grove Edition at the new coworking space, InnoGrove.
Fourteen promising seed stage technology startups from Velocity’s 2015 Entrepreneurs Showcase Accelerator program take the stage to make their pitch to angel, corporate, venture and institutional investors.
Velocity Ventures announces their plans for a new coworking/accelerator space downtown in the top floors of the Renaissance Tower.
A group of local entrepreneurs and investors announce the establishment of I/O Labs, a 40,000 square foot innovation space supporting entrepreneurs, founders, investors, and startups.
The Hacker Lab graduates their first cohort from their Startup Hustle program.
December
UC Davis hosts Food, Ag, and Health Solution Summit.
In addition to the events above, many other startup-focused events took place in Sacramento in 2015. And, as eventful as 2015 was, 2016 is already shaping up to surpass it.
Thanks to Sacramento startup scene cheerleader extraordinaire Laura Good for help in curating this list.
