500 Startups Dave McClure Headlining Conference In New Orleans April 22-25

Dave McClure the infamous Sith Lord of 500 startups and huge advocate for startups globally, will be the keynote speaker at Pubcon 2013 in New Orleans. The conference focuses on social media and search and is hosted at the state of the art New Orleans Convention Center.

McClure will discuss his vast experience helping to grow and cultivate startups. In addition to being the founding partner at 500 startups he also hosts regular Silicon Valley meetups called Startup2Startup and of course Geeks On A Plane. To date McClure has invested in over 250 startup companies through his 500 Startups fund and their Mountain View based accelerator program which goes out of it’s way to attract talent worldwide. Some of his investments include MakerBot, TaskRabbit, SlideShare,Mint.com and Twillio.

McClure’s experience spans two decades including serving as PayPal’s Director of Marketing from 2001 thru 2004. While in that role he launched the now infamous PayPal Developer Network. He’s also worked with other well known companies like Facebook, LinkedIn, O’Reilly Media, Intel and Microsoft.

“We’re thrilled to feature Dave McClure as a keynote speaker at Pubcon New Orleans 2013, where his unique spin on the role of social media and optimization in Internet startups will make for a fascinating and insightful presentation,” said Brett Tabke, founder and chief executive of Pubcon.

Michael Slaby, the Obama For America Chief Integration and Innovation Officer, will kick off Pubcon. In addition to playing a major role in the 2008 Obama campaign, Slaby has also served as the digital global practice chair at Edelman and chief technology strategist at Tomorrow Ventures, Eric Schmidt’s venture capital fund.

Pubcon promises to announce more high profile speakers in the coming weeks.

You can register for Pubcon here

500 Startups: Markerly Founder Sarah Ware Video Interview

Undoubtedly, unless you’ve been living under a rock, if you regularly read nibletz.com, than you’ve heard of 500 startups, startup, Markerly. The Washington DC startup is in the latest batch of companies being accelerated at 500startups in Mountain View.

Markerly makes easy to use, but robustly analytical publisher tools. Their tools don’t require a widget, great publishers can just insert one snippet of code and do things like share bits and pieces of content across social networks or comment on photos. The best part is that Markerly is free.

Nibletz.com, the voice of startups everywhere else, was the first blog to use Markerly’s tools and we’ve been the beta testing guinea pig throughout their entire experience at 500 startups. Recently they added the voice of Silicon Valley, PandoDaily as well.

The company was founder by Sarah Ware. The New Jersey native, Georgetown graduate and former employee at hot DC startup, LivingSocial, and longtime friend Justin Kline started Markerly as a way to share highlighted content. Since arriving at 500startups the team has found more refined ways to share. They also provide sharing analytics which can be invaluable to a founder.

We got a chance to meet up with the Markerly team at CES 2013 and #nmx Blog World. Check out our video interview below

Ware is one of the lead panelists in the “Kick Ass Female Founders From Everywhere Else” panel at the biggest startup conference in the US, everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference

500 Startups Launching New York Co-Working Space

500 Startups New York based partner Shai Goldman announced on Twitter earlier today that the popular seed fund and accelerator program is opening up a new co-working space in New York. TNW reports that the co-working space is open to 500 Startups portfolio companies and early stage startups.

While 500 Startups in based in Mountain View California (Silicon Valley), founder Dave McClure and partner Paul Singh are very committed to startups outside the valley. McClure is known, for among other things, his Geek On A Plane adventures which get entrepreneurs to build companies in planes flying above far off exotic places.

The 500 Startups accelerator cohorts are always a good mix of companies from across the country and around the globe. We’ve featured interviews with many of the current class here on nibletz.com.

If you’re interested in working at the 500 Startups co-working space, it will cost you $500 per month per desk. In addition to portfolio companies they are looking for startups that are either: bootstrapped, angel/seed funded or series A funded. They have space for 40 people. You can apply here at wufoo.

The space is located at 27th & Park Avenue South and here is a video of the space:

everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference will feature several 500 Startups backed companies from “everywhere else” including a kick ass panel called “Kick Ass Female Founders From Everywhere Else” led by Markerly’s Sarah Ware.

500Startups Backs Bangalore Startup ZipDial

Dave McClure and his 500startups continue their jaunt across the globe. Just last week we reported that McClure had made his first investment in a German startup. Today we’ve found out that 500startups has backed a company out of Bangalore India called ZipDial.

500startups is no stranger to Indian startups. In fact, an Indian email newsletter startup called TradeBriefs is in the current cohort based 500startups accelerator program, happening right now in Mountain View.

ZipDial founded by Sanjay Swamy, Amiya Pathak and Valerie Rozycki is a mobile marketing engagement platform that works based on a missed call. A call is initiated and then disconnects after one ring and then sends a text message.

“We’ve been impressed at how effective ZipDial has been for us, usually 2-5 times more effective than Facebook or just SMS. We see its value for brand and SME advertiser clients and are excited to see it grow globally,” Satyan Gajwani, CEO, Times Internet (who participated in the funding round along with 500Startups) told SiliconIndia

“500 Startups has proven repeatedly to add value with its global network of mentors helping their portfolio companies grow. Working with the fund is strategic for ZipDial as we invest in our international expansion into other emerging markets,” says Valerie R. Wagoner, CEO and Founder of ZipDial, as reported by Silicon India

Linkage:
ZipDial is on the web here.

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Dave McClure, The King Of Everywhere Else, Makes First German Investment: Versus IO

While here at nibletz we are the “voice of everywhere else” Dave McClure, Sith Lord at 500 Startups and founder of Geeks on A Plane, is the reigning king of “everywhere else”, to prove that his first investment in a German startup has just been revealed. McClure has invested $100,000 in comparison platform Versus IO.

We’ve been covering the German startup since earlier this year and even had the opportunity to interview their CEO Ramin Far, earlier this month.

Versus IO in it’s simplest form is a comparison engine that allows you to compare two different things side by side. With Versus IO you can compare gadgets, electronics, and even cities. They are quickly ramping up to having 640 different comparison verticals.

It’s not just a “hot or not” style comparison either, for instance in their cities comparisons they use over 100 different factors including: education, crime rates, climate, infrastructure, safety, economy, business, culture, people and a whole lot more. What makes the platform truly unique is the fact that they aren’t in the business of selling things so there’s no chance that the comparison’s get skewed over things like price, discount and offer.

“We’re extremely excited about the investment from Dave and the role he will play in helping to take VERSUS IO to the next level in terms of what we offers users and the direction of the business”, Far, said in a statement. “Dave’s experience of working with growing companies will be invaluable for us moving forwards. 2013 has the potential to be huge for us to be even more successful than 2012 has been.”

This $100,000 investment is the first for McClure in a German company and it appears that it’s separate from the 500startups fund.

Linkage:

Check out VersusIO here

Here’s Dave McClure’s blog

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Check out some of the 500startups graduates at everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference

DC Startup Speek Raises $1.2 Million Dollar Seed Round

We’ve been tracking DC startup Speek since last May when they pitched the initial concept and platform at the TechBuzz competition in Washington DC as part of Capital Connection.

What originally attracted us to Speek was the super easy interface for their conference calling application. The conference calling space is definitely a hot one. Back in May, another conference calling startup UberConference won the highly coveted TechCrunch Disrupt Battlefield at TechCrunch Disrupt NY.

Speek is actually easier to use. With Speek you simply go to the website, pick a username and enter some information, like your primary phone number. From there, when you want to make a conference call you go to that user’s page on Speek and hit the big button in the middle of the page and voila, conference call initiated. For example, my Speek address is http://speek.com/kyle yes I was using it early enough.

The other main attraction to Speek is the startup pedigree. The company was founded by John Bracken who sold his first big startup e-vite to TicketMaster. Speek’s CTO Danny Boice was the founder at Jaxara a startup he sold to Pantheon in 2006.

Today they announced that they’ve raised a seed round of $1.2 million by “several early stage venture funds”.

“Conference calls today are a painful experience in a $3 billion market that hasn’t innovated in over twenty years,” said Speek.com co-founder and CEO John Bracken. “Speek is revolutionizing conference calling by turning a limited telephone-based service into one that is simple, free and in-tune with the next generation of web and mobile services.”

“Speek makes conducting a conference call fast and easy,” said co-founder and CTO Danny Boice. “No longer do you have to frantically search for a PIN number or wonder who’s on the call or who’s talking. Nearly ninety-percent of people who have used Speek would be disappointed if our service disappeared.”

Linkage:

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We Talk With 500 Startups, Madrid Startup, Traity: Recruitment With Trust & Personality

We’ve reported on countless startups that are striving to re-invent the interview and recruitment process. It seems that recruitment may be one of the hottest startup spaces in 2012. How can you separate the good and the bad? Well one way is by knowing that Dave McClure’s 500 startups is backing this Madrid startup, Traity.

Traity is attacking the recruitment space with analytics, data, and endorsement. When you look up a book or something that may be a bit new to you on Amazon.com, you’re a lot more comfortable knowing that the book has 100+ positive reviews right? If you’re like me and willing to take a chance on a book, having 100 reviews either positive or negative is typically an indicator that it’s at least worth a look.

Well that’s where Traity starts. Their recruitment platform reports are made up of endorsements from several people.

The other place where Traity is making a difference is in personality. Traity positions themselves as a personality based engine, personality test or as it suggests on their website, personality game. Traity is measuring the personality strengths in people like perseverance or how proactive they will be. A candidate could look perfect on paper but they could be a bump on a log in real life. These are all factors you need to know when hiring a candidate, that you may not get to see until the interview.

Speaking of interviews, here’s an interview with Juan Cartagena, co-founder of 500 startups, startup Traity

Interview with Japanese 500startups Startup: Language Cloud

According to brothers Billy and John Martyn, language learning and educational technology in Japan needed a big dose of innovation. That’s what their Japanese startup Language Cloud is all about.

The Martyn brothers are half American and half Japanese and spent their lives growing up internationally. They were born in Saudi Arabia, and grew up in Pakistan, France and the U.S. Billy ultimately graduated college from UVA while brother John graduated from George Mason University. To call these two worldly may be a bit of an understatement.

Now back in Japan, both brothers are attacking the problem with technology in language education. We’re not talking about Rosetta Stone here. Language Cloud is a complete educational system that helps teachers teach languages to students better, and helps students learn easier.

“Language Cloud is a learning management system designed specifically for language education. In short, it provides educators and students with an easy to use and more importantly, free, digital platform for managing and enhancing the quality of language classes, while simultaneously promoting student collaboration and enthusiasm for foreign languages through school-based social networking. In addition, the Language Cloud interface has been designed to be both intuitive and simple to use. This allows instructors and students, even those with little tech experience, to confidently begin using web 2.0 technologies in the classroom for educational purposes.” Billy told us in an interview.

Language Cloud has already attracted 7000 students and teachers out of 54 academic institutions including grade schools, private language learning schools and universities.

We got a chance to talk in depth with Billy Martyn. Check out our interview below.

Meet Indian 500 Startups Company TradeBriefs, Email Newsletters Making People Experts

Sree Vijaykumar, the founder of Indian startup TradeBriefs, has turned an email newsletter business into a bonafide startup with big upside potential. Some may think that email newsletters are old school, and that in this age of mobile first startups and apps, apps and more apps, how could there possibly be room at the 500 startups lair for an email newsletter startup?

TradeBriefs is in the current class at 500startups so obviously there’s more than meets the eye with these email newsletters.

“We have managed to silence our naysayers. People didn’t think an email newsletter business could thrive, but we have successfully demonstrated that our formula works.. Our subscribers and advertisers are both happy, which is great and now we are ready to scale.” Vijaykumar told us in an interview. Scaling is what they are focusing on while they are in Mountain View participating in the 500 startups accelerator program.

TradeBriefs is part human editor and part learning algorithm. They say that their newsletters are helping professionals in their concentrated fields become industry experts.

TradeBriefs began with an industry newsletter for India’s retail industry and quickly expanded to four other verticals including; Telecom, Finance, IT and FMCG. They are planning on adding verticals and expanding out of India.

In the US, Fierce has been able to make a viable business out of email newsletters, turned into websites, within the tech industry. Now, in addition to their websites, and newsletters Fierce also hosts major industry events in the telecom, mobile and tech industries. Is it possible for TradeBriefs to do the same thing? Obviously 500 Startups thinks so.

Check out the rest of our interview with Vijaykumar below.

Chattanooga, America’s First Gig City, Welcomes 500 Startups For Will This Float At GEW

One of the biggest misconceptions in the startup and tech space is that Kansas City and Google were the first to offer 1GB Ethernet to businesses and residents. While we love Kansas City startups it’s actually Chattanooga Tennessee that was first with citywide 1gb Ethernet to homes and residences.

Chattanooga has been doing some very big things for entrepreneurs and startups lately. Back in August we brought you exclusive coverage of the GigTank Demo Day. Chattanooga has also been aggressively recruiting entrepreneurs and startups to the region with economic incentives.

Community leaders Sheldon Grizzle and Enoch Elwell haven’t slowed down either. Among other things, including running the Colab space, Grizzle and Elwell have recently been in Chicago, Nashville and Atlanta evangelizing about one of the most truly beautiful places in the world to launch a startup.

In fact it was at the VentureAtlanta event where Grizzle caught the eye of 500 Startups Co-Founder & Sith Apprentice Paul Singh.

500 Startups is the extremely active and diverse vc firm and accelerator in Mountain View. Although the secret 500 startup lair is physically located in Silicon Valley it’s anything but a valley accelerator. Here on nibletz alone we’ve profiled over a dozen 500 startups, none of them have been from the valley.

This week, as the world gears up for global entrepreneurship week so does Chattanooga. Their signature event pits 15 startups against each other this year, in the “will this float” startup competition. The competition, abbreviated WTF, has grown in both the number of participating startups and prize money/investment. The Times Free Press reports that last year’s winner, SupplyHog, is already making money.

This year the contestants include a new startup aiming to help convert streaming music listeners into active music purchasers. Another innovative idea vying for an investment of up to $250,000.

Another startup competing for the gold is looking to turn Farmville into somewhat of a reality. Entrepreneur Troy Cain plans on building an urban farm that is ultimately controlled by mobile devices. Farmers would be able to buy warehouse space where they would be able to plant their own urban farms. Plant watering, and other needs would be monitored and executed via mobile phone commands.

“People want to have a garden and grow their own food, but they don’t have the space or time to maintain it,” Cain said to the Times Free Press. “We’re looking at making it less than the average people spend on food per month,”…”We think it’ll float.”

Entrepreneurs, other startups and the community can come and see the 15 teams pitch live on Thursday at 6pm on the fourth floor of the public library at 1001 Broad Street. They’ll be showing off a new space that’s dedicated to tech work and will even feature things like lights that dance on the walls in response to tweets.

Linkage:

Get your ticket for “Will This Float” here

Source: Times Free Press

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We’ll see you in February

500 Startups Company From Buenos Aires, Wideo, Is The Easiest DIY Video Animation Platform

When it comes time for pitch day there’s something that everybody wants, and that’s a good video. Sure most startups will work for weeks on end on the pitch deck, but going to the slide in the deck that has cute little fuzzy things hacking away at computers, the sunshining and little puppies dancing because your go to market strategy is so great, puts you above the rest.

While most startups, businesses and just your every day people, wish they had great animated videos, most aren’t that creative. That’s why animated video houses make the big bucks,and animated videos don’t fit in the lean startup budget.

Have no fear 500 startups startup, Wideo is here.

Wideo is a do-it-yourself animated video platform. You choose the characters, fonts, backgrounds,lighting, color, sound and more. You put it all together on a very easy to use creation tool, share your computer three times and voila, instant animation. You’ll be producing hit Saturday morning cartoons in no time.

All jokes aside though, Wideo is one bad ass startup and anything that can make my life as a startup founder easier, and at very little cost, is something that I like.

Dave McClure must have liked it to because those guys are creating millions of quick animation videos in the top secret 500 startups lair.

Check out our interview with Agu De Marco one of Wideo’s co-founders, below.

We Talk Mobile Payments & Brazilian Startup Culture With 500 Startups’ UniPay

We’re continuing our series of interviews with the latest class of Dave McClure’s world famous 500 startups. One of the reasons we love 500 startups is because of McClure’s commitment to startups in and outside of the valley. Sure the top secret lair and command center for 500 startups is based in the valley but McClure targets startups anywhere and everywhere. He’s also known for his geeks on a plane startup events that are literally all over the world.

Fitting right into McClure’s rockstar requirements is a mobile payments startup from Brazil called UniPay. Mobile Payments definitely aren’t new. Brazilian startups aren’t new either, however when you put them both together it does become a new concept. This is partially because credit card payments in Brazil are a beast in themselves. Unipay’s co-founder Tahiana D’Egmont tells us in the interview below that because of bureaucracy, high fees and an ambivalence with trust that runs in the Brazilian culture, electronic payments are a tough nut to crack.

UniPay is addressing the needs of those smaller merchants that don’t have access to credit card processing. If Payfirma is the “Square” for Canada, than UniPay is aiming to become the Square for Brazil.

Check out our interview with D’Egmont below. She tells us all about UniPay but she also tells us about Brazilian startup culture. One of the things we found most interesting is that most Brazilians are deathly scared of their ideas being stolen, and “fail fast” doesn’t work in Brazil, just yet because Brazilians are afraid of failure.

Read the interview below, D’Egmont does remind us that she’s new to the states and he’s still learning English.

It’s Tea Time At 500 Startups With Hawaiian Startup Tealet

Subscription startups are blowing up these days. It seems there’s a subscription service or subscription box for just about anything (and everything). We’ve reported on, or interviewed, quite a few here at nibletz, including KlutchClub, Bulu Box, FlavrBox and hip hop artist Nas’ subscription startup 12 society.

Today we’ve got Hawaiian startup Tealet. Tealet is about sampling tea just as much as it is about discovering tea. Tealet co-founder Elyse Peterson told us in an interview “Tealet tells the stories of tea growers around the world and allows tea drinkers to explore these teas through a bi-monthly subscription service.”

After the customer gets their tea bi-monthly tea samples they can go back to the tealet website and order larger quantities of the teas they like.

Tealet isn’t about mass produced coffee house teas or even the teas that you can pick up at your local Whole Foods or Trader Joes. Through Peterson’s personal experience, connecting with actual tea growers around the world, Tealet members are getting access to the most interesting and best tasting farm grown teas in the world. Check out the interview below to read how Peterson fell in love with farm grown teas and the farmers who make it.

Meet Rhode Island 500 Startups Startup: Waigo Translate (Translate Abroad)

Here at nibletz we’ve been fortunate enough to be chosen as the first test site for Markerly, our good friend Sarah Ware’s DC based publisher tools startup, and member of the just announced, 5th class at 500 startups. Through this great relationship we’ve got an awesome tool on the site, in Markerly, and exclusive early access to some of their cohorts.

Earlier this morning as the embargo lifted on this years 500 startups class, we brought you an interview with Australian startup Kickfolio. We also brought you an interview with Boston startup Privy.

Now we turn our sites again to the north east part of the country and Rhode Island startup Waigo Translate.

Waigo Translate is one of those uniquely cool startups that Dave McClure, Paul Singh and the entire 500 startups organization prides themselves on.

Waigo Translate is an app that turns your iPhone camera into a translation device. Waigo Translate current works with Chinese, Japanese and Korean, with more languages on the way. Yes that means you could use your phone to translate the written lyrics to Gangnam Style.

We got a chance to talk with Waigo Translate’s Marketing Director, Rob Sanchez. Check out the interview below.