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TechStars is joining forces with the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation to help simplify access to the growing number of accelerator programs. As part of the partnership, the Kauffman Foundation will provide TechStars with $200,000 funding to build software that can be utilized by accelerator programs.

Specifically, these funds will be used to help build an application system that can be used across industries, not just within the TechStars Network. The aim of the system will be to ease the application process, allowing entrepreneurs to fill out one form to apply to multiple participating programs, rather than have to repeat the process for each organization they apply to.

Y Combinator, the seed investing and startup incubating powerhouse, announced this morning that it has added its first two new investment partners since launching five years ago.

They are: Paul Buchheit, creator of Gmail, the prototype for Adsense and the Google slogan "don't be evil" and Harj Taggar, a Y Combinator employee who previously built and sold an eBay auction automation software company. Buchheit will reportedly leave Facebook to join the incubator. Y Combinator helps build small startups, runs the widely-appreciated Startup School and owns the startup-focused social news site Hacker News, among other projects.

In what's bound to be a boost for an already thriving tech startup scene, the Boulder-based incubator TechStars announced today that it is opening a program in a new location, New York City. This will be the fourth city into which the program has expanded, joining Boulder, Seattle, and Boston.

TechStars is accepting applications now for the NYC Class of 2011. The deadline for applying is November 21, and the inaugural program will kick off in New York in mid-January of next year.

Online auction and marketplace eBay announced today that it has acquired the popular iPhone barcode scanning application RedLaser. The application and the image recognition technology behind it are built by Boulder-based TechStars graduate Occipital, who says the application "[outgrew] our basement office." While the team at Occipital is refocusing its efforts to new fronts, eBay says it will pick up where the startup left off by continuing to develop the app and it's third-party SDK users.

Forget MTV's reality show "The Real World" - if you're considering getting into the startup game but want to get a glimpse of what's in store, then The Founders 2010 is for you. The weekly video series is in its second incarnation and follows three startup companies - content crowdsourcing service Grogger, mobile augmented reality platform creator Omniar and property management software RentMonitor - in their adventures through Techstars.

TechStars founder David Cohen posted an insightful blog post earlier this week that mentioned the impact second generation entrepreneurs are having on the current generation of first-time innovators. As Cohen points out, five companies from the 2007 Boulder TechStars class Brightkite, Filtrbox, Intense Debate, MadKast and SocialThing. As the entrepreneurs behind these companies continue on to found their second round of startups, they are simultaneously providing for the newer classes that come through the incubator.

Last week during my stint at Boulder Startup Week, Occipital co-founder Vikas Reddy was gracious enough to let me stay with him rather than in a hotel. Oddly enough it wasn't until one of the late night mixers a few days into the event that I got a chance to talk with Reddy about Occipital and the company's history and evolution. As it turns out, barcode scanning, which the company is now well known for with its RedLaser application, was not their original plan, but rather a pivot made to take the company in a more profitable direction.

Over the weekend, startup accelerator TechStars announced a partnership with Startupbootcamp, a Copenhagen-based incubator and the very first member of a new global affiliate program hosted by TechStars. With programs in Boulder, Boston and Seattle, TechStars is now expanding and "open sourcing" their incubation model by providing guidance and support for independent international startup accelerators. A TechStars presence in Europe, in any way, shape or form, is a positive step for seed funding in Europe, which - as we've discussed earlier - is in dire need of growth.

It was announced Tuesday that email management startup SendGrid had raised $5 million in Series A financing from a handful of prominent investors, including Foundry Group, Highway 12 Ventures, Dave McClure, David Cohen and Wordpress founder Matt Mullenweg. SendGrid, a graduate of last year's summer TechStars program, launched last fall and raised some seed funding from many of the same investors on its way to sending nearly 1.2 billion emails for its over 4,000 clients.

When Phoenix-based designer Jamie Martin's blog post hit the front page of Hacker News earlier today, he realized what it's like to burn bridges in a connected world. After his company Status.ly and three other startups were dropped from the Bootup Labs program roster due to financial difficulty, Martin blogged about the unfortunate incident and put his site up for auction. While Martin at first claimed that Bootup Labs "had no money", incubator cofounder Danny Robinson fired back with a reply.