Meet the 8 startups in Philly Startup Leaders’ 2017 accelerator

The eight startups in Philly Startup Leaders’ accelerator got together last week at Benjamin’s Desk for a kickoff event of the program’s fourth iteration.

Officially kicking off our Accelerator tonight! Excited to watch these companies progress over the next 12 weeks 💪💥💡 pic.twitter.com/eMedx22DvF

— PhillyStartupLeaders (@startupleaders) January 17, 2017

The companies have already been making moves before joining the 12-week program. Here’s the lineup:

• Borderwise: An online interface for preparing immigration applications. Backed by a $250,000 friends and family round, the company wants to streamline visa and green card requests.
• Canary Compliance: The makers of an environmental compliance system for gas stations.
• College Money Search: A platform for families and students to make informed financial decisions during the college search and admissions process.
• Fishbox: After hours package delivery service using tech to make sure you never miss a package again. Napoleón Suárez got the idea for the Fishtown-based company after ordering a cheaper iPhone on Black Friday that never came. 
• Orai (formerly known as Oratio): Sales pitch analysis software to improve content and delivery. The company also landed a spot on Drexel University’s Entrepreneurship Co-op program, allowing its founders to run their own internship. Its founding duo, Paritosh Gupta and Danish Dhamani are no strangers to pitching their idea.
• PadPorter: An online platform for easing the process of moving to a new home. Think movers and packers, but also assistance with utilities and such.
• Plank: A platform for collaborative group texts and messaging channels (remember Google Wave? So do they.).
• Ride RoundTrip, Inc.: Provides on-demand patient transportation for hospitals and health plans via credentialed medical transportation providers. (Here’s the company featured on WHYY.)

The accelerator’s 2016 cohort saw some success after completing the program, like ecommerce company Return Logic, which closed a $600,000 seed round or sponsored WiFi company GuestNet, which signed on big gym franchise in N.J. as a client.

Oh, we also have an update from PSL itself: in December, Lindsay Tsai — a Penn grad and former healthcare innovation consultant at Deloitte — joined the nonprofit in the role of program director. She’ll be tasked with running the accelerator.