9 hot startup accelerators

Imagine K12

This Palo Alto, Calif., accelerator connects founders with hundreds of teachers and administrators through its "Teachers in Residence" program. Created by execs from YCombinator, Yahoo and Google, Imagine K12 also offers an "educator day" in which teachers and principals listen to pitches, play with products and give feedback.

That was huge for Brett Kopf, founder of Remind101, a text-messaging service for schools. Since graduating two years ago, the company now has $4.5 million from investors, and 10 million teachers and parents use the service.

The accelerator offers $14,000 to $20,000 for 6% to 7% equity and an additional $80,000 for an uncapped convertible note. 53 startups have graduated from the program.

Other startups

• Securely: Web filtering service for safe Internet use at school. The company has 200 schools as customers and has raised $1.4 million.
• Educreations: An iPad app that lets teachers create video lessons -- more than 4 million to date. The company raised $2.2 million from a variety of investors.
• LearnSprout: Software that shows patterns in student information systems to identify who requires immediate assistance. It has raised $4 million.