TechStars Chicago’s first class of startups: patient-monitoring, matchmaking and marketing

A new class of entrepreneurs is getting ready to take on the Windy City. On Thursday, TechStars Chicago, which was formed earlier this year when the Boulder-based TechStars program joined forces with the local Excelerate Labs, announced its first cohort of startups.

Troy Henikoff, the program’s managing director, said the 10 startups were selected from an applicant pool of 904, which was double the size of the applicant pool last year. The 10 companies not only reflect a range of industries, he said, the new cohort is geographically diverse, with just three startups from Chicago and a couple from outside the U.S.

Launched three years ago, Excelerate Labs was led by a group of entrepreneurs and venture capitalists, including Henikoff (founder of SurePayroll), OkCupid founder Sam Yagan, Sandbox Industries’ Nick Rosa and New World Ventures’ Adam Koopersmith. Its 30 companies have raised a total of $ 30 million, the group said. But teaming up with TechStars elevates the program and gives startups access to a national network of mentors and investors.

Here are the program’s 10 new startups:

CaptureProof (www.captureproof.com) – Currently in beta, CaptureProof gives patients a secure site for tracking their health with photos and video and then sharing them with their doctors. Through the site, doctors can monitor patients’ health trends and progress remotely.

HIPOM (www.myHIPOM.com) – For parents who want to limit their kids’ access to the Internet, HIPOM provides a cloud-based solution for controlling any individual device in the home.

Nexercise (www.nexercise.com) – Nexercise is an iPhone and Android app that helps people lose weight and improve their fitness through competitions with friends, alerts and rewards.

Pathful (www.pathful.com) – A web analytics service, Pathful says it tracks all kinds of visitor interactions and doesn’t require tagging.

Peoplematics (www.peoplematics.com) – Peoplematics is a service that enables employees to find and share information across their personal cloud

Project Fixup (www.projectfixup.com) – A matchmaking service, Project Fixup pairs up people for one-on-one dates based on their schedules and interests.

SimpleRelevance (www.simplerelevance.com) – An email marketing platform, SimpleRelevance says its analytics-driven approach can improve revenue per message by 30-300 percent.

SocialCrunch (http://about.socialcrunch.com) – SocialCrunch says it builds a “behavior graph” of Internet users to help marketers learn about and reach a target audience.

Sqord (www.sqord.com) – A “Fitbit for kids” (see disclosure), Sqord’s watch-like fitness tracking device promotes activity through friendly competition.

TradingView (www.tradingview.com) – An online community of investors and traders, TradingView aggregates Web stock charts and enables investors to share their ideas.

Disclosure: Fitbit is backed by True Ventures, a venture capital firm that is an investor in the parent company of this blog, Giga Omni Media. Om Malik, founder of Giga Omni Media, is also a venture partner at True.