Attendees of SXSW Accelerator Presented by Microsoft BizSpark are looking forward to five days of innovative presentations and after parties, but the actual Accelerator applicants are interested in more: impressing potential investors.

Each year SXSW Accelerator showcases some of the most cutting edge products created by top innovator in the technology field. At last year’s event, Roqbot, the social music service, emerged as one of the winners in the newly established Music-Related Technologies category. With Roqbot, businesses like cafes and other entertainment venues, can stream licensed music while customers check-in, see what’s playing, request and buy songs and vote via an app that is currently available on iPhone or Android platforms.

CEO and co-founder of Roqbot, Garret Dodge, credits Accelerator with giving his company a critical bump. “SXSW brings the combination of high visibility and great reward—the visibility from investors and the media that almost no other event has for startups,” said Dodge.

Since winning Accelerator, Roqbot has been featured in several news
articles, including Wired, Billboard and The Guardian. SXSW Accelerator also led to a number of opportunities for Roqbot with high profile businesses. “The Gap and Cisco actually found us through a Google search, which is really the result of the press we received out of SXSW." Dodge added.

According to Dodge, Roqbot will use SXSW 2012 as a platform for taking their brand to the next level. “We are going to be having some big
announcements and programs for this coming year with Miller Coors at SXSW,” said Dodge. Roqbot is also working with the group behind Noise Pop, the popular San Francisco indie music festival, where they will collaborate on a number of projects by creating custom music libraries for specific events.
Overall, Dodge plans to extend Roqbot by incorporating it into consumer’s lives, helping them discover “long tail content in music" by providing their service in local neighborhood bars, gyms or retail stores.

We invite you to join us for this incredible event, as we highlight the technology market's most impressive new innovations. Catch a glimpse of the industry's future and to make strong industry connections at SXSW Accelerator Presented by Microsoft BizSpark on March 12-13 at the 2012 SXSW Interactive Festival in Austin, Texas.

We invite you to join companies like Roqbot for this incredible event, as we highlight the technology market's most impressive new innovations. Catch a glimpse of the industry's future and to make strong industry connections at SXSW Accelerator Presented by Microsoft BizSpark on March 12-13 at the 2012 SXSW Interactive Festival in Austin, Texas.

For more information on Interactive Accelerator, click here, and for more info on Music Accelerator, go here.

Click here to attend SXSW Accelerator Presented by Microsoft BizSpark. We hope to see you there!!

Contributed by Adam Price, photo of Garret Dodge, courtesy of Roqbot