The Walt Disney Company has chosen 11 companies to go through its mentorship and investment programme. 

Disney Accelerator is a 15-week immersive initiative that gives companies access to mentorship from Disney executives, up to $120,000 in investment capital and access to The Walt Disney Company resources.

Mentos include Disney chairman and CEO Bob Iger (pictured) as well as senior brass from Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm, ABC, ESPN and Walt Disney Imagineering as well as leading executives from the entertainment and business space.

The programme culminates with a Demo Day in October, where each team will present their company to industry leaders, Disney executives and the entrepreneurial community.

The selected companies are:

Buzzstarter – a scalable programmatic content marketing platform;

ChoreMonster – a web and mobile platform that aims to make chores fun for children;

Codarica – providing an early interaction with the world of code for children;

Cogo – providing video monetisation results for content creators;

Jogg – aims to simplify the act of acquiring video from anyone;

Sphero – a connected play company that fuses digital and physical play through controllable creating robots;

Sidelines – an online publisher and distributor of high-quality discussions from a team of more than 400 experts;

SnowShoe – a creator of plastic pieces that interact with touch screens;

Twigtale – providing parents with personalised, expert advice for every major transition of a child’s development;

TYFFON – an entertainment app development company and creator of the ZombieBooth series; and

Ubooly – a learning toy that talks and listens to children.

“With Disney Accelerator we are now bringing the creativity and imagination of Disney to early stage startups in a way we have never done before,” said Kevin A Mayer, evp of corporate strategy and business development at The Walt Disney Company.

“We are thrilled by the response we’ve received and the high calibre of applicants to the programme and we look forward to sharing our knowledge with this excellent group of creative entrepreneurs and really making a difference with these start-up companies.”

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