Business / Technology

Brier Dudley offers a critical look at technology and business issues affecting the Northwest.

When the founders of startup accelerator 9Mile Labs started out earlier this year, it wasn’t clear how much demand there was for their program, which focused just on business-to-business startups.

But there was more than enough to get the program started, co-founder Sanjay Puri said.

About 100 companies applied for the initial round of business training and funding offered by 9Mile, which chose 9 companies to work with in its first session, starting April 8.

“We’ve been very very surprised by the level of interest and the quality of applications,” said Puri, a startup veteran who formerly worked at Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard.

Chosen companies will each receive $20,000, plus mentoring and temporary office space, and in return provide 9Mile with equity ranging from 4 to 8 percent of their companies. The session concludes with a demo day event planned for June 27.

Companies chosen for the inaugural program are:

AiroMetric Wireless, a mobile analytics venture.

AMP Tablet Solutions, which is working to improve connections between mobile sales reps and their supply chain.

Appuri, developing “software defined operations” for managing business operations.

CadenceMD, an analytics system and mobile app for improving doctors’ efficiency.

Comr.se,  working to combine companies’ sales data with social data to improve commerce operations.

GIVINGtrax, which is developing tools for companies to manage charitable donations and requests.

MeritShare, which is providing a system to provide online recognition to motivate employees.

Ombitron, developing a machine-to-machine platform as a service.

SpinRiot, a Portland-based startup developing ways to deliver content to multiple platforms.