Nashville Startup: The Skillery Pitches At Jumpstart Foundry Demo Day VIDEO

The Skillery CEO Matt Dudley pitching at Jumpstart Foundry demo day (photo nibletz llc)

Jumpstart Foundry demo day continues with the team from The Skillery. When their mentor introduced the team she talked about how CEO Matt Dudley started his entrepreneurial roots when he was just 7 years old and put up signs in his neighborhood advertising his services as a GhostBuster.

The Skillery in it’s simplest description is a platform to sell tickets to workshops. They are in the same space as Dabble and Skilshare but with a twist. Dudley and his team are specifically targeting small business owners who want to teach classes.

For instance, the local woman who owns a shop selling hemp and weaved products could start a class on The Skillery. Here in Nashville they’ve had teachers come out of the community that did whiskey tastings and even classes on the value of cotton diapering as opposed to disposable diapers. In fact the woman with the disposable diaper business saw 25-30 people come to her workshops that were listed and promoted on TheSkillery, and she was able to convert students to customers.

Dudley is charismatic and explained his pitch in a way that everyone in the room understood exactly what he was talking about but with the passion that would come with the next Instagram and not a learning platform. As for a learning platform, Dudley is quick to point out that The Skillery is not about online classes, it’s one of those startups that bridging the online world back with the real world, something that will be vital to the next wave a startups, according to the New York Times.

Check out Dudley’s pitch below:

Check out The Skillery here

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Iron Yard Demo Day Preview: Greenville Startup: MoonClerk

Iron Yard Labs is a 13 week accelerator program in Greenville South Carolina. It’s part of the Global Accelerator Network which was founded by Boulder Colorado based TechStars. The Global Accelerator Network affiliation gives the startup teams participating in the Iron Yard Labs session access to top shelf business benefits like free hosting, legal services, accounting services and more.

The inaugural class at Iron Yard will graduate next week on August 29th with a demo day in Greenville. In the week leading up to demo day we will have interviews with some of the exciting startups accelerating in the program.

We got to kick off this special section with Greenville ride sharing startup Ridepost you can read that interview here. You can also see our interview with Spent here.

Next up is: MoonClerk.

Sure it has a cute name but MoonClerk is a powerful platform making it easy for anyone to immediately and inexpensively set up branded, embeddable, and linkable recurring online payment forms with no technical skills required. It’s easier than creating PayPal payment forms and is perfect for anyone with any kind of service, product, digital product or even recurring donations.

While MoonClerk is a cute sounding name, Dodd Caldwell, co-founder of MoonClerk says in our interview below that there is a real meaning behind the name. First off they wanted to use the word clerk because it dealt with payments without having to say payment. Then, the team went with moon because it’s a satellite on a recurring orbit. Pretty smart huh?

Check out the rest of our interview with Caldwell, below:

Cincinnati’s Brandery & 9 More Accelerators From Everywhere Else Make Top 15 List

(graphic techcocktail.com)

The top 15 accelerators in the US has just been published by TechCocktail. They were the official media partner for the startup accelerator ranking project now in it’s second year. The ranking project was spearheaded by Aziz Gilani from DFJ Mercury and executed in partnership with Kristen Kamath a second year MBA candidate at the Kellogg School of Management at NorthWestern University.

After pitching a fit for coming in second place last year, Paul Graham’s Y-Combinator is again placed at the top of the top 15 accelerator list. An additional four accelerators from Silicon Valley rounded placed in the top 10; KickLabs (#3), i/o Ventures (#4), AngelPad (#6) and Mountain View based 500 startups at number 10.

To rank on the top 15 list of accelerators, the accelerator programs had to meet a certain criteria. The criteria factored in follow on capital, qualified financing activity and qualified exits. You’ll notice that four of the TechStars programs made it into the top 15 list, as did the most visible accelerators out there.

The best ranking for a startup accelerator “everywhere else” was Chicago’s Excelerate Labs which came in fifth. TechStars New York and Boston came in seventh and eighth place respectively. LaunchPad in Los Angeles placed ninth. Dreamit Ventures in Philadelphia came in eleventh place, TechStars Seattle, NYC SeedStart, Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator New York, and The Brandery in Cincinnati rounded out the top fifteen.

There were a lot of other accelerators across the country that were used in the research. The editorial team at TechCocktail came up with a great 22 page report called “Best Accelerator For Your Tech Startup” that can be downloaded for free at TechCocktail’s site here.

The report outlines some of the other accelerators across the country and pays close attention to some of the specialty accelerators that may be more inline with your accelerator goals. Actually after reviewing the entire 22 pages, the report will be a big help to any startup that is considering an any accelerator around the country.

Linkage:

Check out the complete review and report at here at techcocktail.com

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Memphis Startup: BioNanovations Shows Off Amazing TestQuick Technology

BioNanovations CEO/Co-Founder Charleson Bell Presenting at Demo Day (photo: nibletz llc)

It was Demo Day at the Memphis based ZeroTo510 startup accelerator this past Thursday. ZeroTo510 is the first cohort based medical device accelerator and was created with a partnership between Seed Hatchery and Memphis BioWorks.

We were really excited when Charleson Bell, the CEO and co-founder of BioNanovations presented their TestQuick technology on Thursday. First off, Bell and his partner Andre T Stevenson had spent some time with us a few weeks back during office hours. It was then that we learned how BioNanovations was preparing to really change the world. We all know that most startups say they’re going to change the world, the ZeroTo510 class is really going to do it.

Bell and Stevenson gave us a crash course in nano particles when we first met for office hours. Bell has done a great job of “dumbing down” the science behind their technology for laymen like myself.

We were fascinated by the BioNanovations team when we first met them. While Bell had been working on using nano particles to find bacterial infections early on and Stevenson had discovered the biomarkers for cancer before they had become cancer.

The BioNanovations team will most likely bring many great products to market but their debut product “TestQuick” will have a huge impact for millions of people suffering from bacterial infections.

Bacterial infections kill more people than AIDS, breast cancer and automobile accidents combined, every year. What’s even more troubling than that is the fact that over 1.7 million bacterial infections are hospital born. That means that people who have gone into the hospital for something else, incur some kind of bacterial infection. These hospital borne infections cost over $40 billion dollars.

That’s not all though. One of the most alarming facts in all of this is that these bacterial infections can claim a life or a limb in less than 48 hours, however the traditional diagnostic testing can take 4-5 days. Yes, unfortunately, the traditional way means that several people lose their lives before getting the diagnosis back on the infection.

What BioNanovations TestQuick product offers is a testing platform and reader that can confirm the type of infection and the level of the infection in under 30 minutes and patient side.

Bell was quick to point out his competition. That’s actually key in an investor pitch day.

BioNanovations main competition is a company called Nanosphere. They offer a diagnostic testing platform that comes back in three hours. Nanosphere received FDA approval and has 200 orders already. Their testing cassettes are $75 a piece and the machine to scan them is $100,000.

Compare that to BioNanovations TestQuick cassettes that sell for $100 a piece but the reader costs just $1000.

But that’s not all. Nanosphere’s technology has a three-hour turn around time, post culture. That means after the initial diagnosis. BioNanovations, TestQuick platform is the first pre-culture diagnostic tool, saving critical time and lives.

Check out Bell’s ZeroTo510 Demo Day pitch video below:

Linkage:

Check out BioNannovations here at their website

Investors, reach bell at charleson.s.bell@bionanovations.com

Here’s more Demo Day coverage from Nibletz

Memphis Startup: Restore Medical Kicks Off Demo Day With A $3.75M Purchase Order

We have no problem admitting that ninety percent of the ideas, and startups that are showing off today at Zeroto510’s demo day fly way over our head. There’s one thing we know real well though and that’s millions of dollars.

Today in Memphis Tennessee, Zeroto510, the first cohort based medical device accelerator in the country graduated their first class. For an overview of the accelerator and the startups presenting today, click here.

One of the startups we’ve gotten a chance to know here in Memphis is Restore Medical. We met co-founders Ryan Ramkhelawan and Shawn Flynn at an office hours event we held in Memphis in June. That’s where we first heard about there new and innovative way to sterilize surgical instruments.

Traditional methods of sterilizing surgical instruments have been in place since Flynn was a surgical assistant in the US Army 20 years ago. Yes, with all the innovation we’ve experienced in the country in the last two decades, the sterilization of surgical instruments still resembles the way a high volume chain restaurant washes their silverware for a dinner rush. Instruments are piled into a basket with no regard for blades, needles, pins and of course accidents.

Restore Medical has two key elements to their business; protecting patients from infections from dirty instruments and saving hospitals money. Restore Medical’s new sterilization process does both. Restore Medical’s process keeps the surgical instruments separated, or rather organized and spread out in a way that every instrument is equally sterilized throughout the process.

When we met at office hours the duo explained that there are a lot of faults in the current system. They should know this as both have had surgery support career paths for over 20 years. One of the faults is the fact that if one tool is missing from a set of tools for a procedure the operating room needs to call down for a brand new set. This can take up to two hours, on a rush. Doctors are faced with whether they are going to keep a patient under anesthesia for the wait or wake them up and put them back under. Of course both of those options can be costly and risky.

During the presentation today Flynn highlighted the fact that with Obama Care taking effect in 2014, there will be 30 million more patients in the system. Now is the time that hospitals need to streamline processes, cut down costs and maximize their certifications. Hospitals need to make sure that their infection rates are low so that they can be reimbursed for patients they take without traditional insurance.

Restore Medical can increase revenue for hospitals by $14.5 million dollars per year (each) and save $500,000 in hard costs.

Their technology, coupled with the revenue by changing to Restore Medical’s system has attracted 5 Wellstar hospitals to already putting in a purchase order. The purchase order hinges on Restore Medical getting their 510K. If their 510K is approved that purchase order is $3.75 million dollars.

Linkage:

Check out Restore Medical Here

Check out Zero to 510 here

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Memphis Gears Up For Zeroto510 Demo Day

When you think about Memphis Tennessee thoughts of music, culture, barbecue and Elvis Presley often consume those thoughts. You may not be quick to associate the birth place of Rock & Roll and the overnight package (FedEx) with startups, innovation and bio medical devices.

Since 2006 Memphians have band together to launch several entrepreneurial and startup resources. In fact the city of just under 650,000 residents has an infrastructure of resources for startups and entrepreneurs that would rival cities twice it’s size.

Four of those resources, Seed Hatchery, the local startup accelerator program; Memphis Bioworks Foundation, the local bio and life sciences incubator; along with Innova and MB Ventures (both venture capital firms) have created Zeroto510.

They’re calling Zeroto510 the first cohort-based medical device accelerator. To that end Eric Matthews the President of Seed Hatchery is working with Allan Daisley, who runs Memphis Bioworks, to apply the Seed Hatchery and familiar tech incubator model to medical device ideas, and turning them into startups.

Charleson Bell, a PhD candidate at Vanderbilt University, and the co-founder of Zeroto510 resident company, BioNanovations explained: “Doctors and researchers have great ideas that often times get shelved because they don’t have the resources or skills to apply a business model to those ideas”.

That’s exactly why Seed Hatchery and BioWorks started Zeroto510. Chief Brand Officer at LaunchYourCity, the company that manages Seed Hatchery told us: “In addition to seed capital and mentorship the six companies in Zeroto510 also receive advice on marketing their idea and pitching it to investors”.

Mike Hoffmeyer CEO and Co-Founder of Memphis based Paytopia was a recent graduate from the 2012 class at Seed Hatchery, and told us “I consider myself a smart guy but after a few minutes of Zeroto510 pitches I was totally lost”. Hoffmeyer is helping the Zeroto510 residents with refining their pitches into laymen’s terms.

For a better understanding to Bell’s company for instance. Bell and his co-founder Andre T. Stevenson developed separate research projects at Vanderbilt. Bell had discovered a new nanoparticle that could be used with far better accuracy than what’s currently available, to identify and track virus’, bacteria and infections. Prior to Zeroto510 Bell would roll through his presentation despite losing people’s attention because he was talking over their heads.

Now his pitch includes a great description of a nanoparticle “imagine taking one piece of human hair and dividing it by 1000, that’s roughly the size of a nanoparticle”. The PhD scientist seems a little uneasy about the example because you can’t objectively measure one piece of human hair, but it gets the point across.

The name Zeroto510 comes from the term 510K clearance which is the clearance given to medical devices. With a 510K a similar device or process that has already been approved by the FDA is compared to the new process or device, which fastracks the approval process at the FDA.

The goal around ZeroTo510 is to take the medical device and process startups from 0 to a point where they are ready for their 510k

There are six startups in all going through the current session at Zeroto510 which are:

BioNanovations uses nanotechnology to more quickly diagnose specific types of bacterial infections. Rather than treating with broad antibiotics and waiting days for test results, TestQuick provides physicians a portable option that can recognize a flesh-eating bacteria in only 30 minutes.
HandMinder is building a glove-like device that aids the rehabilitation process for stroke victims. Self-contained and battery-operated, the glove provides an affordable and convenient alternative for regaining motor control.
Nanophthalmics brings engineering concepts to clinical medicine, creating microscopic tools with etched glass for ocular surgery which will help remove scar tissue for patients with retinal or corneal diseases.
Randall Surgical is working on soy-based surgical positioners, an eco-friendly alternative to the foam currently used that contains petroleum and releases toxic chemicals when incinerated after use.
Restore Medical Solutions increases the speed and effectiveness of the sterilization process necessary for surgical instruments. Their product could lead to cleaner tools and the ability to perform more surgeries in a day- wins for both hospitals and patients.
Urova Medical is building UroGuide, a device that can be implanted during an outpatient procedure that provides a permanent and safe solution to stress urinary incontinence in women.

Like most incubators, the current session at Zeroto510 will culminate with an investor pitch day later this afternoon. If the program is effective, the audience will have no trouble understanding the brilliant minds behind these startups.

Linkage:

More about Zero To 510 here

Check out LaunchMemphis.com

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Nashville Startup: PhotoRankr Prepares For JumpStart Foundry Demo Day INTERVIEW

It’s Demo Day month in Tennessee. Last week was Demo Day at the Gig Tank, Chattanooga Tennessee’s startup accelerator themed around the city’s one gigabit fiber optic network.

This week is Zero to 510’s Demo Day in Memphis Tennessee. Zero To 510 is the first cohort based medical device startup accelerator in the country. Their teams are preparing for this week’s big event with a series of rehearsals in Memphis this week. This makes the third big startup event in just as many months in the river city. 48 hour launch kicked off the summer, then there was Startup Weekend and Demo Day this Thursday.

200 miles east of Memphis the seven remaining teams in JumpStart Foundry are preparing for their Demo Day next week. Solidus Partner Vic Gatto told us last week that there were 10 teams originally but three teams couldn’t keep up with the rigorous training, working and perfecting their startup and dropped out of the program.

PhotoRankr is one of the seven startups preparing to present next week. They bill themselves as a community and a marketplace for passionate photographers. Of course right off the bat we noticed that PhotoRankr has an actual up and working product. The website for PhotoRankr is polished and aesthetically appealing to anyone, especially those photographers with a nose for design.

Within PhotoRankr members can get genuine feedback from fellow photographers. They can also find link minded photographers that they would want to learn from. They can find photographers based on portfolio, location or skill level which means the user can have role model photographers and peers to exchange experiences with.

PhotoRankr also offers a marketplace for their users own work. PhotoRankr members can sell their original work for whatever price they would like. It gives a much more creative and artistic source versus traditional stock photography sites.

In reading all of the profiles for next weeks startups it’s a tough call. We got a chance to talk to the PhotoRankr team in the interview below. Check out the interview and then after that hit the link and check out PhotoRankr yourself.

Interview with South Carolina Startup: Ridepost

There are a lot of startups out there trying to challenge everyday corporate models like the hotel and the car with peer to peer sharing services. Ridepost, a South Carolina startup incubating at Iron Yard, is looking to enter the world of peer to peer vehicle sharing. Sure there are other startups tackling the same issue, but it’s going to come down to scalability, go to market strategy and execution.

Ridepost will eliminate the need for a taxicab and other for hire vehicle services by connecting passengers and drivers in a safe and social setting.

Ridesharing in this setting isn’t new around the world, just in the US. In fact it was traveling abroad where Ridepost co-founder Marty Bauer, first experienced ride sharing and wanted to bring this money saving way to travel back to the U.S. Bauer realized that ride sharing wasn’t about getting in the car with strangers it was about traveling.

We got a chance to talk with Blair Deckard, Ridepost co-founder and head of marketing, about their startup. Check out the interview below:

Chattanooga GigTank Mentors Log Over 600 Hours

One of the biggest things that’s struck me about the Gig Tank and Gig Tank’s demo day is how the entire city has come out to show their support. Last night we talked about how various businesses throughout downtown Chattanooga participated in the event by holding events.

We went to a reception at co.lab as well as CraftWorks headquarters. There were other events earlier in the day that we unfortunately missed.

This morning there was a bike ride organized, a tour of the Hunter Museum and a tour of the world famous aquarium here in Chattanooga. Chattanooga as a whole seems invested in the success of the entrepreneurs and students who’ve been hard at work the past three months in anticipation of the big day today.

Chattanooga is also invested in the gig itself. It’s exciting that 1 gb fiber is available everywhere in a 600 square mile radius. This morning we had the opportunity to have breakfast with Hamilton County Mayor Jim Coppinger who admittedly isn’t a big “tech” guy but certainly understands the opportunities that come with the smart grid and the 1gb fiber.

The entire “gig” is part of his county. There are 340,000 folks in Hamilton County and of course the biggest part of that is the approx 170,000 people living in Chattanooga.

Coppinger is excited about where the “gig” goes for infrastructure, beyond running communications for power and water for residents and businesses. Coppinger is excited about what the gig will do for education in his county. Currently he has high schools with 500 students and on the other end of the spectrum, schools with 1500. Using remote teaching, relying on the back bone of the gig would mean that students county wide would have a consistent quality of education.

Mayor Coppinger, who served as Fire Chief before being elected Mayor, is also excited about what “The Gig” can do for public safety and first responders.

On the entrepreneurship side Mayor Coppinger is ecstatic about what’s happening with the Gig Tank along with the 60 companies being grown at a small business incubator on the north shore. That incubator has held 60 companies at a time and generally employs 300 per session.

Chattanooga’s support came out this morning when Four Bridges Capital and co.lab’s Charlie Brock pointed out this morning that the mentors for the GigTank entrepreneur’s track offered up a cumulative total of over 600 hours of mentorship during the three month session.

Mentor’s really got engaged with the entrepreneurs and the students as well and have provided more guidance than one would expect, which all lends itself to the buzz going on in Chattanooga surrounded by “the gig”

Linkage:

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Tennessee’s Venture Community Is All Eyes On Chattanooga’s Gig Tank

Entrepreneurship and startups are a hot bed of activity this month in the great state of Tennessee. As we reported earlier, there are three different accelerators graduating this month, all with their own demo day. Possibly because it’s the first of the three graduations, or possibly because they have a unique program, Chattanooga’s Gig Tank has attracted a lot of attention from the entire state.

The City of Chattanooga along with the Chattanooga Chamber of Commerce have organized an entire press junket tied to various events throughout the city that are celebrating the graduation of the first Gig Tank class of entrepreneurs and students.

A little background.

Chattanooga was actually the first city in the United States to offer gigabit ethernet to the household, not just the node within a 600 mile radius. Every house and every business within Chattanooga’s gig footprint have the fiber piped to their home. The backbone of what is referred to here are “The Gig City”, is a smart grid. The City of Chattanooga has deployed a smart grid to communicate information from electric meters and other utilities for all residents and business’ within the footprint.

Now, it’s the decision of the resident or the business, if they want to also utilize that same fiber line for data services, tv and telephone. The “Gig” was deployed last year, a year ahead of Kansas City and Google. The gigabit ethernet in Kansas City functions more like a traditional cable company. The gigabit ethernet goes to the node, or the street, then Google signs customers up to bring the service down to the home. Of course one of the big things to consider in all of this is there aren’t wireless routers that can support wireless transmission of a full gigabit data stream, wirelessly to the device. Most traditional computers also can’t function at the gigabit speed. Right now, end users will experience speeds from 30-100mbps which is of course a huge feat in itself.

The GigTank is a traditional accelerator program that was designed for startups to utilize that huge bandwidth to develop startups. Unlike most traditional accelerators the GigTank had two classes, an entrepreneur class which received a $15,000 seed investment and a chance to win $100,000 in additional funding Thursday morning. The other class is a class of student led startups that received free room and board, but did not receive a seed investment. The students are competing for a $50,000 prize.

Also unlike most traditional accelerators, all of the startups will pitch the judges in a closed door session Thursday morning ahead of the actual pitch presentations on stage tomorrow.

Needless to say all of this excitement in Chattanooga has attracted a lot of attention. When commenting to a local reporter StartupTN President and President of Nashville’s Entrepreneur Center, Michael Burcham said “There will be 500 people here tomorrow who’ve either started companies, or invested in companies, and most of them are coming from out of town”. If the buses the city are running specifically for the event from the area hotels are any indication, there are definitely a lot of people from out of town here.

Jared Nixon, a partner in Daymond John’s Shark Branding, is one of those out of town guests. He’s here in Chattanooga to scope out the startups that are participating in the event, but he’s also intrigued by the infrastructure around the gig itself.

There are folks in town from Warner Brothers, Mozilla, US Ignite and other nationally known companies and ecosystem partners.

Even the Nashville centric Burcham, who happily announced that 70% of the investors and 90% of the venture capital is in Nashville, is eager to see the ideas that come out of the GigTank which is equally important to Burcham in his role as StartupTN President. Burcham says he looks for two main components in deals he does, the “idea” and the competition. If there’s no competition in the space, he stays away from that idea because there’s no market. One of Burcham’s strongest suits is nurturing good ideas. He does this on a daily basis through the Entrepreneur Center and Jumpstart Foundry, Nashville’s GigTank counterpart.

While there are a lot of startups presenting at Gig Tank’s demo day with similar ideas happening all over the country, these startups had a huge internet pipe to work on, and hopefully these ideas will win far more than the $150,000 available from the GigTank itself. Hopefully there are some multi-million dollar ideas in the bunch.

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Bizdom Cleveland Startup Accelerator Gets A New Bizdom

Bizdom is a startup accelerator program with locations in Detroit and Cleveland. Both Detroit and Cleveland have growing entrepreneurial and startup ecosystems, where Bizdom’s program and facilities naturally fit in.

Bizdom was launched in Cleveland by one of their biggest tech startups turned successful giant companies, Quicken Loans Inc,and Chairman Dan Gilbert’s Rock Ventures. Gilbert is passionate about technology, entrepreneurship and Cleveland is also the majority owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers.

The Bizdom program is actually one of the earlier startup accelerator programs. They hold three month sessions and provide startup companies, selected for their program, with $25,000 seed investments for 8% equity. Startups selected for the Bizdom program at either location are given office space, internet access, access to a wide variety of mentors, business services and other perks.

The Cleveland program has been operating out of the Quicken Loans Web Center inside the MK Ferguson Building at Quicken Loans Arena. Now they’re moving to their own 7,000 square foot space at 250 W. Huron Road in the 250 Huron Building. The Bizdom Cleveland headquarters will be inside the five story commercial building which sits directly below the Ritz Carlton Cleveland Hotel.

“Establishing our Cleveland headquarters at 250 Huron solidifies Bizdom as an anchor in the city’s growing tech hub,” said Ross Sanders, chief executive officer of Bizdom. “Much like our Detroit headquarters, we have designed a collaborative and dynamic space that fosters an atmosphere for our entrepreneurs to truly excel,” he said.

The Detroit Bizdom location moved to a new headquarters in the Madison building in Detroit back in March. Space is one of the values that is very important to Gilbert which explains why both locations have relocated prior to their next session.

“The opportunity came open at the Madison and part of Dan Gilbert’s vision is that place matters,” says Maria LaLonde, Bizdom’s recruiting and development leader told XConomy about the Detroit move. “We’re trying to create a great tech community where our entrepreneurs are closer to mentors, closer to funding sources, and can collaborate in an open workspace.”

Both locations offer four seasonal sessions a year and have graduated over 50 startups.

Linkage

Check out Bizdom here

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Bull City Stampede Launches Seven New North Carolina Startups

Last week, people from all over the Raliegh/Durham/Chapel Hill area, known as the Triangle, showed up for the final presentations of the Bull City Stampede startup program. The end result was seven new North Carolina startups were launched.

Bull City Stampede is a sixty day accelerator program which provides startups with office space, furniture, wifi and other resources that they need to grow their companies. The 60 day program culminated with a demo day event to a packed house, at Beyu Caffe in downtown Durham, North Carolina.

This sessions Bull City Stampede Class included some tangible product startups in the fashion industry, jewelry industry, financial services, social media and even a jazz non profit. This variety showed off the new types of businesses and startups that are calling the Raliegh Durham area home. This is great news for the region as they plan for the launch of their Startup North Carolina regional partnership of Startup America which launches on August 20th.

“This was a special group of entrepreneurs that supported each other and built better companies because of their time with startups outside of their industry,” said Adam Klein, Startup Strategist for the Greater Durham Chamber of Commerce. “We had non-software companies receiving help from the techies and vice versa. It shows the power of putting creative people together in a creative environment.”

While the event launches seven startups out of North Carolina, one of the startups Alekto, relocated from Washington DC for the Bull City Stampede program and has decided to stay in North Carolina. Five of the startups will continue growing their business in NC.

The Bull City Startup Stampede also partnered with Pruvop, a digital products lab in downtown Durham, to award one startup a prize package including $5,000 in custom software development & consulting. Pruvop co-founder Adam Schultz announced The Art of Cool as the recipient of the software package. The Art of Cool is a jazz presenting non-profit working to launch an international jazz festival in Durham.

“In addition to sharing the vision of a prospering, culturally vibrant Durham, we were personally impressed by Cicely’s (AOC founder) drive, hunger for feedback and the ability to pivot and grow rapidly based on the feedback she was given,” said Schultz. “It’s organizations like hers that we love to work with.”

“The Stampede is the launching ground for startups in Durham,” said Matthew Coppedge, Director of Marketing at Downtown Durham, Inc. “We are part of the pipeline developing in Durham that helps early-stage entrepreneurs go from concept to market quickly.”

To date Stampede has done a good job of accelerating startups and then keeping them in North Carolina. So far 28 companies have gone through the program and 15 have remained in downtown Durham, a statistic that you don’t typically find with accelerators who open up their applications nationwide or globally.

Bull City Stampede has provided this list of all of this sessions class and their Twitter handles:

• Alekto empowers consumers through innovative credit reporting management services. @AlektoCo

• Directed Deposits helps individuals find and fund high interest, FDIC-insured savings accounts that are good for your wallets and the issues & communities you care about. @DirectedDeposits

• Freshly Given embraces minimalist style, creativity & sustainability through accessories, handmade from genuine re-purposed leather. @FreshlyGiven

• Offline Media is envisioning a world where “social” means more than just sitting behind a computer. @offlinemedia

• Seam Happy designs and makes custom promotional products, decor, and apparel. For business, home, and general happiness. @SeamHappy

• Social Media Phobia Solutions is a fearless digital media consulting and business management firm. @BreeLDavis

• Sweeps helps you get just about anything done by motivated college students for $25 per hour. @SweepsJobs

• The Art of Cool Project is dedicated to preserving, presenting, and promoting the local vibrant, varied, and surprisingly under-appreciated jazz and art scene in Raleigh-Durham. @theaocproject

Linkage:

Check out Bull City Stampede Here

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Startups,It’s Demo Day Month In Tennessee: Chattanooga, Memphis And Nashville

There are a lot of spring/summer accelerator programs “everywhere else”, Tennessee has three significant programs that will be coming to a close in the coming weeks and culminating with a demo day at the end of their session. Chattanooga, Memphis and Nashville are exploding with startup and entrepreneurial growth and it shows in the graduating classes of Gig Tank (Chattanooga), Zero To 510 (Memphis) and Jumpstart Foundry in Nashville.

The next few Thursdays will be filled with great companies, great entrepreneurs, great angels and venture capitalists and great national coverage provided by nibletz.com, and to our ever growing list of some of the top members of the venture community that subscribe to us by email and follow us on Twitter. We’ve seen 17 startups that we’ve covered in the last year, pick up traction starting with a story written on nibletz.com and seen by the venture community “everywhere else”, which is what is why our mission, as the voice of startups everywhere else, is so important. We’ve received thank you cards, thank you emails and heck even some cash from these 17 startups and at last count they were collectively funded to over $20M.

That trend will hopefully continue over the next three weeks as we continue to case the national spotlight on one of the fastest growing startup ecosystems in the country, the great state of Tennessee.

Chattanooga

The Gig Tank started back in May. This is a unique accelerator program because it’s really two programs in one. First there is an entrepreneur track. The entrepreneur’s track started May 14th. All of the teams selected for that track received a $15,000 seed investment, lodging and a host of services from GigTank sponsors. Their season ends with a demo day and a $100,000 cash prize up for grabs for the most disruptive business plan.

The second track for GigTank is a student track. The students started their track on June 11th. They just needed to come up with a great idea to utilize Chattanooga’s gigabit internet, the first gigabit internet in the country (sorry Google). The students are competing for a chance to win a $50,000 prize and the chance to pitch their idea in front of a solid group of angels and VC’s.

GigTank comes to a close with a demo day on August 9th.

Click here for GigTank’s Website

Memphis

Memphis is bursting at the seams with entrepreneurial and startup activity. In the last few months alone we’ve covered their 48 hour launch event and Startup Weekend Memphis.

Memphis has a great infrastructure set up for entrepreneurs and startups, with most of it being based at Emerge Memphis. Launch Your City, Launch Memphis and of course the Seed Hatchery accelerator play a key role in the Memphis tech community.

August 16th it will be all eyes on Memphis again as the Zero to 510 accelerator holds their demo day. Zero to 510 is a medical device accelerator program and a joint venture between BioWorks and SeedHatchery. It’s the nation’s first cohort-based medical device incubator. The program is funded by Innova Memphis an early stage investment firm.

The companies presenting at demo day on the 16th are:

BioNanovations- a startup using bio nanotechnology for rapid detection and monitoring of bacterial infection

Handminder- has developed a technology that will help rehabilitate those with loss of function in their hands and fingers from a stroke.

NanOphthalmics- This company uses nanotechnology to more effectively treat corneal abrasions which leads to faster healing with less pain.

Randall Surgical- These guys have created an environmentally friendly alternative to traditional patient positioners used in 20 million+ surgeries in the US every year.

Restore Medical- has found a way to drastically cut down the time it takes to sterilize instruments in the OR while cutting costs and insuring compliance under the upcoming radical changes in healthcare.

Urova Medical- They’ve come up with a new way to treat feminine stress urinary incontinence.

Click here for ZeroTo510’s website

Nashville

Jumpstart Foundry is in it’s third year and they keep kicking out hit after hit after hit. One of our favorite Tennessee startups, RentStuff (who recently moved to Chicago’s 1871) is a product of Jumpstart Foundry. Co-founded in 2010 by serial startup founder Marcus Whitney, the Jumpstart Foundry follows the traditional accelerator model that has been so successful in other regions.

According to their site they’ve seen a 62% success rate to date, which is actually VERY high and quite impressive. Jumpstart Foundry (not to be confused with the national Cleveland based Jumpstart Inc) has seen a good number of their graduates see post program capital. Wannado (2011), Daio (2011), RentStuff (2011), Bizen (2010), NextGxDx (2010), and Spitsecnd (2010) have all received additional growth capital.

This years class is equally as impressive and will share their ideas on Demo Day August 23rd. Here are the companies presenting at their demo day:

Contigo Financial, an online consumer lender offering a suite of responsible loan products through the workplace.

Jamplify (formerly OKDJ), a social media marketing platform which turns fans into active promoters of online content.

The Skillery, a marketplace for classes and workshops led by experts in the community.

Evermind, the first consumer-friendly senior monitoring system. If you can plug-in a surge protector and use a smartphone, Evermind is easy.

Wax, an app that allows extreme athletes to compete with one another by completing tricks and challenges.

PhotoRankr, the first online photography marketplace to leverage the power of social media.

OurVinyl, allows users to discover new music through video. The modern day MTV minus the re-runs.

Click here for Jumpstart Foundry’s Website

Zack Miller Talks To Nibletz About The New Norfolk Startup Accelerator Hatch

Hampton Roads Virginia is a thriving community anchored by Norfolk, Virginia Beach, Hampton, Newport News and Chesapeake. They’ve got a lot of great technical talent coming out of the military bases in the community and a great feeder system of colleges like Norfolk State, Hampton University and Old Dominion University. They’ve also been put on the map with efforts like Start Norfolk.

So it was only natural that one of their own entrepreneurs Zack Miller decided to start an accelerator program for the region. He decided to put it in Norfolk which is the epicenter for Hampton Roads. Hampton Roads already has three accelerators in Innovation Research Park, Hampton Roads Technology Center and James City County Incubator. The region needed something like Hatch.

We got a chance to talk with Miller about Hatch. He talks about the importance of an accelerator in the region and also gives us a break down of Hatch’s first class in the interview below.