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Portland Startup: CrowdCompass Acquired By Cvent for $10 Million

A Portland Oregon startup up that specializes in producing smartphone apps for conferences and events, has been acquired by event planning software company Cvent. CrowdCompass is Cvent’s second acquisition in just one week. Last week Cvent, who’s based in Virginia, acquired Austin startup Seed Labs.

“Let’s be clear: We bought this for their people,” said Cvent chief executive Reggie Aggarwal. “We’re going to let the management team run the place they way they’ve been doing it.”

Mobile apps and technology have been changing trade shows, conferences and conventions over the past few years. It’s already been seen that the more robust your tradeshow app is the better. South By Southwest 2012 had a great app that covered every speck of the event officially produced by SXSW. As did the CES app earlier in the year.

Last fall the Oregon company raised $1.3 million led by the Oregon Angel Fund.

CrowdCompass was founded in 2009 and makes apps that connect event go-fers to specific events, other attendees and social media.

CrowdCompass corporate portfolio includes event apps for

E*Trade, Daimler, and Intuit; and meetings industry organizations, like The Meetings Technology Expo; and associations, like the American Bar Association, Association of General Contractors and American Society of Anesthesiologists.

“Cvent’s success is predicated on delivering best-of-breed technology solutions to our event industry clients and partners. This acquisition is an important step to ensuring we continue to lead the industry in the adoption of mobile technologies,” said Reggie Aggarwal, Founder and CEO of Cvent. “We selected CrowdCompass because it was clear that they are a leading developer of native mobile apps for business and association events. With experience building hundreds of apps for a wide variety of mid-to large-sized public and private events, the addition of CrowdCompass gives us unparalleled expertise in creating mobile apps for events. We have offered mobile friendly event web sites for some time, but the CrowdCompass product takes the mobile experience to the next level.”

To date CrowdCompass has produced 435 event apps which have seen over 500,000 downloads for Blackberry,Android and iOS.

“Becoming part of Cvent will allow CrowdCompass to operate on a greater scale than it ever has before,” said Tom Kingsley, Founder and CEO of CrowdCompass. “Our technologies and expertise will be a great fit with Cvent’s unmatched reputation and client base; we’re looking forward to all the services we will be able to develop under the Cvent umbrella.”

“The CrowdCompass app demonstrates the excellence and innovation that attendees have come to expect from the Mental Health and Addictions Conference,” said Courtney Young, Digital and Social Media Specialist at the National Council for Community Behavioral Healthcare. “We had over 3,000 healthcare professionals and administrators in attendance, and the response to the app was overwhelming, with 80% of them downloading it. By offering the CrowdCompass app, we showed our attendees that we are listening to their demands and care deeply about their conference experience.”

Cvent was founded in 1999 by Reggie Aggarwal. Aggarwal took the company from a two person team to a team of over 900 in McLean Virginia, the city that was once home to America Online. Cvent has been profitable over the last ten years.

Linkage:

For more on Cvent check out their corporate website here

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Portland Startups: Portland Seed Fund Graduates 9 In Second Class

The Portland Seed Fund has graduated nine startup companies out of their second 90 day incubator program. Portland Seed Fund held a demo day this past Wednesday to unveil the efforts of all nine startups to an audience of west coast angel and venture capital investors.

All nine startups, call Portland home, and are at varying stages in development. Most of them are either web or mobile based startups. Each startup received a seed investment of $25,000 along with mentoring, services, and help with development.

“These companies have made major progress in 90 days, not just on their products but on their approach to revenue and customers as well,” said Angela Jackson, co-managing director and co-founder of Portland Seed Fund with Jim Huston. “Many of these companies have already raised additional seed capital during the 90-day period, getting a big head start on life after Portland Seed Fund,” said Huston.

Take a look at the nine companies:

Beeminder tracks your goals and makes you stick to them. It plots your progress along a Yellow Brick Road and if you go off track, they take your money. Founded by computer scientists with backgrounds in data analysis and incentive systems, Beeminder has thousands of devoted users. @bmndr

Cloudability is the simple way to track and control cloud costs across all of your IaaS, PaaS and SaaS. Just a year old and based in Portland, OR Cloudability already has 3,000 users in 80 countries managing $75M – and growing daily – of cloud spending. @cloudability

Gliph allows you to connect with others safely online without having to share personal and private information. @gli_ph

Globesherpa – Secure, convenient mobile ticketing for transit commuters and more. Secure, convenient mobile ticketing for transit commuters and more. @globesherpa

Good Works Now produces cloud-based solutions to modernize the infrastructure for non-profits to increase revenue, donor base, board accountability, and online reputation management. @goodworksnow

Indow Windows – the only non-tech or mobile company this term, Indow Windows makes thermal window inserts that press into place on the inside of window frames, offering double pane window performance without the hassle and price tag. It has developed a custom IT system for managing all aspects of the value chain: estimation, window measurement, and manufacturing. @indowwindows

SERPs.com is a search engine optimization monitoring dashboard. It deeply enhances Google Analytics with link, social & keyword data for daily insights to improve traffic. Early customers include simple.com and customink.com. @scottkrager

ShowKicker enables fans to crowd-source events on the web, capturing more money for artists and venues and gets fans into the right shows. It delivers pre-sold audiences for promoters and reduces their risk. ShowKicker makes the shows venues want to book and that people want to see. @ShowKicker

Superb.ly (formerly Tell it in 10) is an SaaS platform for investors, lawyers and entrepreneurs to collaborate on deal documents and due diligence. @superb_ly

Linkage:

For more on the Portland Seed Fund visit their site here

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UPDATED: Oregon Startup: Wild Squirrel Nut Butter Wins Investment On Shark Tank

(photo Sally Ho/The Oregonian)

We are diligently working on a piece now highlighting a string of investments that the Sharks have pulled out of since the show has aired.

In the case of Wild Squirrel Nut Butter, Shark Barbara Corcoran pulled out of the $50,000 investment for 40% that she had negotiated with the girls on the show.

Keely and Erica penned this tumblr entry after the embargo lifted on Friday highlighting the fact that Corcoran had pulled out of the investment, although they gained a lot of exposure and insight from Ms. Corcoran.

We are going to elaborate in a much larger piece about Shark Tank, which is still my favorite show of all time, however we want to add here that it’s not the fault of the Shark themselves. We hold accountable the producers who know well in advance that a shark has pulled out of the deal before airing. The producers of Shark Tank, Mark Burnett and ABC are doing the viewers, the startups and the sharks an injustice by not providing an update prior to airing that the investment didn’t actually work out.

There is plenty of time between the taping of the episode and the airing of the episode to provide the back story. The sharks are using their own money and they have to do their due diligence. Shark Tank provides a disclaimer in the beginning of every episode announcing it’s the sharks own money and that there is no pitch to the audience. They should also provide the same service at the end of each episode with an update as to what happens.

Below is the original story that we published this morning before being pointed to Keeley and Erica’s blog.

Two college girls from Oregon were featured on this week’s Shark Tank. They were cute, preppy, peppy and a little bit nervous, as anyone would be in front of the Shark’s on Shark Tank.

They came into the episode with their story about drive but didn’t have the numbers to attract an investment from Mr. Wonderful Kevin O’Leary, Mark Cuban, Daymond John or Robert Herjavec however they did catch the eye of real estate mogul turned Shark Tank investor, Barbara Corcoran.

Corcoran had made a gamble on a duo of political workers turned Barbecue company founders last season with their Pork Barrel Barbecue sauce. With the help of Corcoran the duo behind Pork Barrel was able to drastically improve their sales and distribution and they even opened up a restaurant.

The episode featuring Keeley Tillotson and Erika Welsh was taped last September, but as with all reality shows they are under a strict embargo from speaking a word about Shark Tank until after their episode aired. Prior to Friday nights showing, Shark Tank warned the girls to back up their website and expect lots of orders.

More after the break
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Portland Startup: Interview With ShopMyPin, Winner Of Portland’s Startup Weekend

Vanessa VanPetten, Shopmypins, Startupweekend portland

26 year old Vanessa VanPetten emerged from the chaotic Portland Startup Weekend as the winner with shopmypins (photo: V. VanPetten)

Portland’s sixth startup weekend will go down in history as one of the craziest startup weekend’s ever. If you were checking up on Nibletz over the weekend you would have read this story about a man who was asked to leave Portland’s startup weekend. After he left he started tweeting that he was going to come back with explosives and guns. The organizers of the event increased security and had the event on a near lockdown for the rest of the weekend.

26 year old Vanessa VanPetten emerged from the action packed weekend as the winner with her new startup idea “Shop My Pins”. It wasn’t easy for VanPetten though, even with the disruption on Saturday she was still pitted against 16 other teams.

Game it up, a startup geared at teaching kids coding for video games won the award for “Outstanding Customer Validation”. “Outstanding Business Opportunity/Business Model” went to Matchable, which is a cell phone dating app. “Outstanding Execution” went to 15 year old Jackson Gariety for HashTraffic, a cross platform hashtag maker.

The Williamette Week reports that 15 year old Gariety and his HashTraffic were big hits and that Game It Up had already talked to Nintendo, Electronic Arts and IBM who had already started showing interest.

More after the break
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Portland Startup: Churchkey Can Company Gets Tech Investors For Their Nostalgic Beer

This isn’t the first time that tech investors have backed a food and beverage startup. Tech Investors came out in droves to back Jonathan Kaplan, the creator/founder of the Flip video camera with his chain of grilled cheese restaurants called “The Melt”.

Entourage star Adrian Grenier and former Nike designer, Justin Hawkins have teamed up to found the Churchkey Can Company. Churchkey makes what’s being dubbed a “Pacific Northwest brewed Pilsner style craft beer”, however it’s not the beer itself that has everybody talking, but rather the can it’s packaged in. Churchkey Can Company is putting their beer into a flat topped churchkey opening can.

Before pull back lids you may remember having a can opener in the house that had a diamond shaped end on it. You would puncture the soup can on both sides and pour the soup our of one of the triangle shaped openings. The opposite opening made sure that the soup poured out smoothly. That’s the same idea behind Churchkey Can Company’s flat can. A style of beer can that dates back to the 1930’s.

ChurchKey Can Company’s flat top steel cans are made out of all recycled steel. Grenier and Hawkins turned to the Ball can company to manufacture the cans for them. According to some, the flat top can and the church key opening actually locks in the freshness.

“It’s about the joy of drinking good beer – from the people you drink it with, to where you drink it, and with this unique package, how you open it,” said Justin Hawkins, Churchkey’s co-founder and creative director. “We didn’t make these traditions, but are keeping them alive with Churchkey.”

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Oregon: StartupWeekend Near LockDown; Man Threatened Explosions And Guys

It’s unclear if the man removed from this weekend’s startup weekend event in Portand Oregon was a contestant or not. Oregonlive.com is reporting that a man who was removed from the event started tweeting threats of explosions, guns and violence.

The threatening tweets have been removed however as a precaution the rest of the event is near lockdown with only one guarded entrance being used for the remainder of the event.

According to the report, police responded to Portand’s first StartupWeekend event at 10:39am this morning. The man had gotten loud with event organizers and eventually left on his own. Later in the afternoon he started tweeting things that had event organizers concerned.

One of the organizers told oregonlive.com “They were very strange posts that were interpreted as maybe threatening to the people at the meeting,”

Portland State University beefed up security at the event and the StartupWeekend organizers offered refunds to anyone who didn’t want to stay after the disruption. From what we can tell the event has continued.

Portland Police spokesperson Sgt. Pete Simpson said “There’s no criminal act based on what the officer learned from talking to the people, but certainly concerning enough that calling the police was the right thing to do,”. Police apparently contacted the man again who said he has no intention on returning to the event location.

source: OregonLive

Portland Startup: Chifpify Raises $1.3 Million For It’s Twitter Commerce Platform

Imagine if one of your favorite online retailers was having a sale on a new cashmere sweater that you’ve been wanting forever. Imagine if they tweeted that sweater and all you had to do was reply to the tweet with the word “Buy” and in three days you’d have that sweater delivered to your home? Well that’s becoming a reality thanks to Portland Oregon startup Chirpify.

Chirphify’s founder and CEO Chris Teso, who started the company as “Sell Simply” plans on making buying things on Twitter that easy. “Everybody is trying to become that ubiquitous wallet,” Teso told website oregonlive.com.

It works pretty much as I described it above. A Twitter user registers both their Twitter and Paypal accounts with Chirpify. A Chirpify merchant solicits a sale on twitter for example “Red Cashmere Sweater $19.99 delivered” and those with Chirpify accounts can simply reply with “buy” and the transaction is initiated. Chirpify takes a small percentage from the vendor for facilitating the transaction.

Are people using it? Yes, in fact Nestle has been using it to sell PowerBars on Twitter. Teso is hoping to attract independent musicians who could sell downloads via Twitter to their Twitter followers.

Chirpify’s $1.3 Million dollar investment was led by Voyager Capital and included Ryan Holmes, Hootsuite’s CEO. Private investor Geoff Entress, BuddyTV CEO Andy Liu and Rudy Gadre a former Facebook executive participated as well. Angel investors with TIE Oregon also participated. Oregonlive reports that Portland incubator UpStart Labs provided Chirpify with an earlier backing of $50,000.

Linkage:
Find out more about Chirpify here

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Source: OregonLive

Portland Clean Tech Startup LucidEnergy Has Found A Way To Create Green Power In A Water Pipe

A CleanTech startup in Portland Oregon called LucidEnergy has announced that they’ve found a way to create clean energy in a segment of water pipe. Lucid’s method involves pipes that have been fitted with a simple 5 turbine system. These special pipes could be installed when a utility replaces a segment of pipe.

How effective is it?

Gregg Semler, LucidEnergy’s President and CEO says that a stretch of pipe carrying water downhill might be able to produce enough electricity to power 100 homes. Impressive. Not only that but all around it’s cheaper. Semler says that without any government subsidies the cost of installing his pipe method is three to four times better than solar or wind systems.

LucidEnergy’s first public test of this technology will start next week on April 26th. That’s when the project opens at Riverside Public Utilities in Southern California. Riverside has tested four generations of the system over the last two years. This last test has gone flawlessly according to cities assistant general manager for water Kevin Milligan.

“I think it’s great technology,” Milligan told the Portland Tribune. “It could be widely adopted by water utilities and result in some significant cost savings. And it’s green.” The power generated from the Riverside test site is said to be enough to power 14 miles of street lights. Milligan says that after labor and capital construction, energy is his third highest expense. At his water fields in San Bernadino, CA he pays $.13 to $.25 per kilowatt hour. The Lucid system produces energy at a cost of $.05 to $.09 per kilowatt hour which is a significant savings.

Riverside will be the first city to publicly test the service however there has already been interst from San Antonio and New York as well as Israel and Zambia.

source: PortlandTribune

Seattle: Google Backed CleanTech Startup AltaRock To Start Drilling In Oregon

In 2008 Google invested in a new CleanTech startup called AltaRock. AltaRock plans on building engineered geothermal systems in places where natural resources aren’t already available for such systems. AltaRock will create geothermal reservoirs in areas without natural flowing streams.

AltaRock had embarked on a demonstration project of this technology in California in 2007 however the project ran into technical difficulties and ended in 2009. AltaRock applied to work on a similar project in Oregon in May of 2010 which was just recently approved. Oregon’s Bureau of Land Management said they find no big environmental impact to the project.

For this project to work AltaRock needs to use special tools to drill wells that are a few miles deep. They will then inject cold water to fracture hot rocks. Electricity is produced by pumping water into the well where it will “flow along fissures of hot rocks and extend them” reports GigaOm. AltraRock needs to predict the paths of the expanded fissures to insure the production wells will intercept them. Each well typically costs a few million dollars. For the Oregon site AltaRock needs to build two new wells which they will use in conjunction with a well that’s 10,060 feet deep and already in place. The existing well will be used for injecting the water while the two new wells will be used to pump out the hot water.

AltaRock raised $26 million dollars earlier on in a round led by Google Ventures, Kleiner Perkins, Khosla Ventures and Vulcan Capital. They have also received a $21.4 million dollar grant from the U.S. Department of Energy.

An MIT study has said that the enhanced geothermal system could create 100gw of electricity by 2050.

Source: GigaOM

Chez Gourmet’s Burger Queen Takes Home Top Prize In Angel Oregon Competition

Yes this is a Veggie Burger by Chez Gourmet, you see why they won now huh?

A woman owned startup in Oregon has taken home the $250,000 first price in the Angel Oregon competition for her startup Chez Gourmet. Chez Gourmet is still considered in the startup stage despite the fact that founder Marie Osmuson first founded the company in 2006.

Osumuson created Chez Gourmet after a friend of hers, who is a well known local real estate agent, Barbara Durrett, sampled one of Osmuson’s veggie burgers at a family birthday party. Durrett encouraged Osmuson to try and sell her veggie burgers in local stores. Durrett also set Osmuson up with a food industry friend who agreed that the burgers were definitely good enough to sell. Durrett and Osmuson became business partners and their burgers started catching on.

Fast Forward to 2012 and Chez Gourmet has just taken home the top prize for the Angel Oregon competition. Chez Gourmet is expected t clear $2M in revenue this year and is on track to grow to $12M in revenue by 2015. Chez Gourmet was one of five companies to present yesterday at the Angel Oregon event held at Portland’s Governor Hotel.

A startup that makes social network analytics software called, Tellagence came in second place winning $94,000. The Portland Business Journal reports that this competition has been around since 2003. The 46 companies that have participated in the competition have generated $121 million in revenue and employ 741 people. They’ve also raised $81 million in venture capital and angel investment.

Here’s the linkage:

To find out more about Chez Gourmet visit their site here

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Source: Business Journal