Meet The Five Startups In Indiana’s Velocity Accelerator

We already know that Indianapolis has a strong startup scene. Fort Wayne and Valparaiso are also bursting at the seams with new entrepreneurial activity. But, right across the river from Louisville, in Jeffersonville, Indiana, Velocity is about to graduate their first class of startups.

Each of the five teams in the Velocity accelerator received $20,000 in seed money in exchange for a small amount of equity. They also received free workspace and access to mentors from across Kentucky and Indiana.

We’ll be on hand to see these startups graduate from the program in front of a room full of investors later this summer. In the meantime here are the five teams that are accelerating at Velocity.

Collabra- Collabra allows musicians and fans to create, collaborate, and share music in a new and innovative way. Combining a novel song arrangement platform with an easy-to-use recording suite, Collabra enables musicians around the world to connect and create music while engaging fans in the creative process for the first time ever. Due to its low-barrier-to-entry approach, for musicians and fans, as well as a robust feature set, Collabra has the potential to change the music creation process forever.

Large Insights- Large is laser-focused on generating insights from data to increase client revenues, and we do that by establishing digital and social business goals, tracking activity and measuring success.

Change My School- Change My School is a platform for students, teachers and parents to upload and watch videos. It is available to users of all ages and provides a video contest platform. The winning videos each month receive $1,000 for items such as supplies, projects, or technology. It also provides students and teachers opportunities to incorporate creativity, video technology and project based learning into their classrooms.

Steel Fashion- Steel Fashion provides a free styling software service that allows men to style clothes they have, want, or are looking to purchase. They can discover and purchase new brands easily by identifying brands they already like. Confidence and creativity are easily harnessed when visiting Steel Fashion.

Greek Pull- Greek Pull enables a Fraternity or Sorority chapter to reach their target markets in an efficient way. Those target markets are potential new members, their alumni and the Greek Community. Because of this, GreekPull differs from other social media solutions because GreekPull is focused on bringing those target markets to chapter houses. The network is exclusive to Greek Life and helps chapters with efficient marketing. We bring Fraternity and Sorority target markets to Greek Chapters so they can be easily contacted, creating an efficient communication tool.

London Startup Dressipi Partners With Ebay For Fashion Discovery

Ebay has been looking to broaden it’s horizons and be more than just an online auction site. Over the past year and a half to two years, we’ve seen Ebay develop a more robust e-commerce site, leaning on its auction business less and less. I remember when Ebay was just starting out, and you could get that real good deal on some artifact that meant something to you but not necessarily to the seller. Those days have just about dried up as the auction portion has become home to liquidators, drop-shippers, and professional storage auction shoppers.

But, the company’s newest partnership may have the thrifty Macklemore taking a look a second look at the former pillar of the online community.

Ebay has announced a partnership with Dressipi, a London startup for fashion discovery. The partnership will begin as a six month trial for Ebay users in the UK. Those users will use Dressipi’s Fashion Fingerprint, a fashion profile of sorts. Once the user completes their ideal Fashion Fingerprint, Dressipi will then scour Ebay site for Buy It Now options and auction listings for fashion items that fit the user’s tastes.

Dressipi combines big data, social media, and old fashioned customer service to return the most relevant results.

Ebay users in the UK can start using Dressipi here.

Los Angeles Startup Treats Amateur Athletes Like Superstars

A brand new startup in West Los Angeles is hoping to make amateur sport players feel like superstars, giving them the tools that they need to organize and manage their sports leagues, pick up games, and teams. With Sportifik the founders want amateur athletes to have fun, meet new people, and keep up with sports that often fall to the wayside.

Still a little over two weeks away from launch, the team behind Sportifik is “throwing the pigskin around,” meaning they’re putting the finishing touches on their platform and making sure it’s ready for the after work league and the local pick up game.

In the meantime we got to talk with Marco Franzoni, Sportifik’s co-founder and CEO about this new twist on sports.

What is your startup called?

Our startup is called Sportifik. A mix between sports and fantasterrific, only with a k.

What does your company do?

We are creating a global community of athletes and changing the way people participate in sports. We are providing amateur athletes and avid sports fans with the best means to easily organize and manage their sporting activities through a user friendly one-stop-shop mobile and web solution. Our platform will enable users to seamlessly organize sports games in a fun and rewarding way while enabling them to meet members of their local communities who share a passion for the same sport.

Our goal is to push new boundaries, make any game feel like a national championship, and make every amateur player feel like a superstar.

Who are the founders, and what are their backgrounds

We are three co-founders and friends.

Marco, our CEO, is an all-around athlete hailing from Italy with a consulting background. He’s the soul of this operation. It’s his inspiration and drive that brought us together in a common belief that sports should be uniting people.

Josh, our CTO, is an avid golfer with various experiences in web development and startups. He’s the heart of the operation as he is the one keeping us going (as well as the most important person in our lives today).

Chris, our head of biz dev, is passionate about all sports and comes from investment banking and social enterprise backgrounds. He’s the brain at Sportifik – not in that he’s intelligent but he makes sure everything is running correctly and logically.

Where are you based?

We’re currently based in West LA where we think the outdoors environment is the best to start an active sports venture.

What’s the startup scene like where you are based?

Pretty amazing. For years the LA and Santa Monica startup scene have been growing. It’s a phenomenal environment of smart dedicated people who are always looking to help each other out. We’ve been really fortunate to kick things off on the shores of Silicon Beach.

What problem do you solve?

We solve the problem of having to spend copious amounts of times and several different platforms to organize sports games. We spent too much time every week trying to get people together at the same spot to play soccer or basketball for games that would inevitably get canceled anyway. We thought there’s a better solution out there.

Why now?

People are becoming more active and mobile and at the same time we’re busier than ever with a ton of different things to do. Finding the time for collective sports games has become harder but they’re no less important in our lives.

What are some of the milestones your startup has already reached?

We launched a beta product in April and collected a bunch of early adopters. We’re re-launching on the 31^st of August (join us for our launch party through our website!).

We’ve also created a promotional clip to feature the community and outreach aspects of what we do. This includes supporting our friends who have a wheelchair basketball team and are looking to raise money for their upcoming season. If you are interested in helping Alvin and his team, get in touch with him at alvin.malave@gmail.com.

Finally, we’ve established an informal sports hierarchy internally. Josh is our golf master, Chris rules the ping pong table and Marco does pretty much everything damn well.

What are your next milestones?

Launching (see above)! We’re looking to get as many users as possible starting in West LA and the UCLA community and expanding as soon as possible to the rest of LA. We’re going to be looking to partner with local sports leagues, stores and venues to offer a more comprehensive service to our users and drive local businesses.

Where can people find out more? Any social media links you want to share?

Follow us on Facebook (www.facebook.com/sportifik), Twitter (www.twitter.com/sportifik_), WordPress (www.blog.sportifik.com), and youtube (www.youtube.com/sportifik)

Sioux Falls Visual Marketing Startup Lemon.ly Launches Full, A New iOS App

Lemon.ly, a visiual marketing startup based in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, is known for eye popping infographics and graphically pleasing data-driven campaigns. Companies like Samsung, Planters, and even the Grammy Awards have used Lemon.ly for infographics, data visualization, interactive, design, and presentations.

The company boasts a solid rock star team, including co-founder and CEO John T. Meyer who is speaking at Everywhere Else Cincinnati in September.

Now they’ve taken their eye for design and user experience and turned it into possibly the easiest to use, read, and understand mobile app for goal tracking. In fact the name in itself is totally awesome: it’s called Full.

Full lets the user track, measure, and visualize what’s important to them, with a simple, clean, and easy to understand design. With Full you can track anything from your workout regimen to how many books you’ve read. On their blog, lemon.ly even suggests you can track how often you call your mom (you know, the important stuff).

Features include:

> Add an unlimited amount of monthly goals

> Quantify how many times you want to achieve your goal

> Swipe to ADD, SUBTRACT, EDIT, or DELETE your goals

> Visualize your goal history to see how you did and improve next month

The app is available now in the app store here.

See Lemon.ly co-founder and CEO John T Meyer at this huge startup conference.

Minnesota Firms Launch Tech Search For Elderly Focused Products And Startups

Baby Boomers are the largest generation in history, and now they are getting older. While the elderly will soon become the biggest demographic segment in the population, one of the unique things about this segment is they are the first group that started integrating with new ideas in technology. People entering their 60’s and 70’s now were likely to have used computers in their workplace and cell phones in their daily lives.

That’s why the time is ripe for startups and inventors catering to older segments of the population to bring their products to market.

To assist in that goal, St. Paul Minnesota based AgePower.org has created a program for entrepreneurs building products catering to this segment

MoJo Minnesota, an innovation cooperative, and Ecumen a Minnesota organization providing housing and care to over 10,0000 elderly residents in the state, have teamed up to launch the “Age Power Tech Search.”

The program is a hybrid: part incubator, part accelerator, and part customer discovery program. Startups will submit their idea, company, or product to a team of judges from MOJO Minnesota and Ecumen. They will then pick 4 companies that will be in the program and get to test market their product to Ecumen’s robust network of elderly clientele.

The selected startups will also get access to mentors through both organizations and access to local investors through MOJO Minnesota. In exchange the program will take a small equity stake in the company, Venture Beat reported.

Eric Schubert, Vice President of Ecumen told Venture Beat in an interview that the elderly segment is often overlooked in technology.

When asked about what kind of ideas they are looking for, Schubert told Venture Beat, “Is there a technology that can help an elderly person live independently? How about helping them maintain social connections? Or improving the rehabilitation experience after a surgery?”

Interested entrepreneurs and startups can submit their ideas through October 31st here at Agepower.org

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Facebook Acquires Pittsburgh Speech Recognition And Translation Startup

On Monday morning Tom Stocky, Director of Product Management at Facebook, announced that the social networking giant had acquired Mobile Technologies, the Pittsburgh startup behind the app Jibbigo.

Jibbigo is an app with the kind of technology you’d think the NSA would be after. The app allows you to record someone talking in a foreign language and translates the voice snippet for you in both text and spoken word in the language selected. This is the kind of technology that everyone has wished they had at one time or another. You know, you’re riding the subway and you hear a loud argument in another language? Jibbigo is perfect for that.

Now obviously Facebook is going to use this technology for translating and speech recognition, but its specific uses have yet to be announced. What Stocky did say, by Facebook post of course, was “I’m excited to announce that we’ve agreed to acquire Mobile Technologies, a company with an amazing team that’s behind some of the world’s leading speech recognition and machine translation technology.”

Facebook already integrates Bing’s translation technology into news feeds and posts. Anthony Sarvas at ITProPortal speculates that they could use the technology for improving their mobile ad network and expanding a mobile ad campaigns reach.

The Pittsburgh-based team will relocate to Facebook’s Menlo Park headquarters. Terms of the deal were, of course, not disclosed.

“With this deal we will welcome some of the industry’s most talented people to our engineering teams in Menlo Park, California,” Stocky said in the Facebook post.

Find out more about Jibbigo here.

SoftBank’s Joe Medved And Mercury Fund’s Blair Garrou To Speak At Everywhere Else Cincinnati

Today’s been a big day for Everywhere Else Cincinnati. Earlier this morning we announced that Greatist founder Derek Flanzraich had joined the already amazing line up for the conference taking place in Cincinnati September 29-October 1st.

The Everywhere Else conference series is aimed at startups “everywhere else,” cities across America where startups are fueling the new economy. Startups in areas that aren’t traditional tech hubs, like Silicon Valley, often have a common set of challenges including access to capital, access to talent, and not knowing which resources are available to tap into.

At Everywhere Else Cincinnati, startups, angel investors, and VC’s from everywhere else will be able to learn and collaborate with like minded people in similar situations. We’ve compiled an amazing list of national speakers who will offer a range of discussions from starting up everywhere else, to raising money everywhere else, to accelerating everywhere else, and even what VC’s and angel investors are looking for when they turn to startups everywhere else.

After our huge conference in Memphis last February, a theme kept recurring: the need to “Start Where U Are.” This conference will help startups realize that in most cases starting where they are is the best scenario for them and the community.

We already have VC’s from some of the nation’s most respected firms attending or speaking at the conference. Two more of those VC’s, Soft Bank Capital’s Joe Medved and Mercury Fund’s Manging Partner Blair Garrou, will share their insight into what VC’s are looking for and how startups, who often have the odds stacked against them in the first place, can make sure they look good and ready in front of investor.

Both VC’s are distinguished in their fields, have an active role in their startup communities and advisory roles with their startups. Both investors have also been on the Business Journal‘s 40 under 40 in addition to other great accomplishments.

Joe Medved joined SoftBank Capital in 2005. He’s been investing in digital media companies for over nine years, from seed through growth stage. He focuses on supporting primarily Seed and Series A stage companies with special interests including consumer and enterprise mobile, gaming, and social marketing.

Prior to joining SoftBank Capital, Joe was an Associate with Constellation Ventures, a media and communications venture capital fund under Bear Stearns Asset Management. Prior to Constellation Ventures, he was an Associate and Analyst for the Technology, Media and Telecommunications Group with JPMorgan Investment Banking.

In 2011, Joe was selected by the Boston Business Journal for its 40 Under 40 class. He is Co-Founder of the Digital Media VC/Corp Dev Connection, a group that brings together active investors and corporate development professionals from large corporations focused on digital media. Joe is also Chairman Emeritus of the New England Venture Network (NEVN), one of the largest venture capital organizations on the East Coast.

Blair Garrou is a co-founder and Managing Director of the Mercury Fund (formerly DFJ Mercury). The Houston-based VC firm makes investments in technology and energy where they even support their own accelerator called Surge. Garrou’s reach to accelerators doesn’t end there, though. He is a big believer in the accelerator model and is a mentor at The Brandery and often speaks to other accelerator cohorts across the country.

Prior to co-founding the Mercury Fund, Blair was the CEO of Intermat, Inc., a leader in product information management software (acq. by IHS). Before Intermat, Blair was a Principal of Genesis Park LP, a Houston-based venture capital and private equity firm, where he focused on the firm’s software investments, including Intermat, FuelQuest (acq. by Saracen Energy), and SAT Corporation (acq. by Invensys). Prior to Genesis Park, Blair helped launch and was the Director of Operations for the Houston Technology Center (HTC), the largest technology incubator in the state of Texas, and he led the formation of the Houston Angel Network, one of the largest and most active angel investment organizations in the U.S. Previously, Blair was an investment banker with BMO Nesbitt Burns, and an auditor with Deloitte & Touche. Blair is a licensed CPA in the state of Texas. He received a B.S. in Management with special attainments in Commerce from Washington & Lee University.

Medved and Garrou join this already amazing list of speakers

Naithan Jones, Founder AgLocal
Derek Flanzraich, Founder Greatist
Andrew Warner, Founder Mixergy
Andy Sparks, Co-Founder Mattermark
Wil Schroter, Founder Fundable
Jake Stutzman, Founder Elevate.co

Jonathon Perrelli, Managing Director, Fortify Ventures
Justin Gutwein, Filmmaker and Entrepreneur startupland.tv
Mark Hasebroock, Founder Dundee Venture Capital
Jason Healy, Founder Blu
John Bracken, Founder Evite and Speek
Dave Knox, CMO Rockfish, co-founder Brandery
Patrick Woods, Managing Director a>m ventures
Sarah Ware, Founder Markerly
John T. Meyer, Founder lemon.ly
Raghu Betina, Managing Patner The Starter League
Ryan O’Connell, VP Influence & Company
Blake Miller, Managing Director Think Big Accelerator
Michael Bergman, Founder Repp.

Startups hurry only 4 Startup Village Booths left at the early bird discount rate!

Event Registration Online for Everywhere Else Cincinnati – “Start Where U Are” powered by Eventbrite

Square’s Jim Mckelvey Spearheading Another St. Louis Tech Effort

Although based in Silicon Valley, Square’s co-founder Jim McKelvey continues to make waves in the St. Louis startup community. Just last week we reported on a new financial services startup accelerator called SixThirty. McKelvey is one of the founding partners of that accelerator.

He is also very active in Cultivation Capital and Arch Angels, St. Louis’ premier angel network. He sits on the board for both LockerDome and Bonfyre, two prominent St. Louis startups that we’ve covered a bunch here at Nibletz.

Next Tuesday McKelvey will hold a press conference in St. Louis to announce the complete details of his latest project called LaunchCode. McKelvey leads a group of St. Louis entrepreneurs in a collaborative effort to increase the region’s development talent base and strengthen the burgeoning startup and tech community.

Many coders possess great talent but lack the experience necessary to land a job. LaunchCode helps new coders overcome this hurdle by pairing them with experienced developers in companies that have job openings. Through pair programming – a system used in Silicon Valley involving two programmers, two keyboards, and one monitor – the new developer receives training and experience until he or she is up to speed and receives a full-time job. More than 50 St. Louis companies of all sizes, from Fortune 500 corporations to thriving startups, have already signed up. Employer companies include World Wide Technologies, Monsanto, Savvis, Enterprise, Build-a-Bear, Lockerdome, Express Scripts, and more.

McKelvey is joined by Chris Sommers (co-founder of Givver and Pi Pizzeria), Dan Lohman (co-founder of Pushup Social, Cubical.com and Lab 1500), and Chris Oliver (Lead Developer of Givver) on LaunchCode’s founding team.

With McKelvey’s multiple interests in the St. Louis startup community, fueling an effort to teach more developers is a natural step for the St. Louis startup community.

You can find out more about LaunchCode here

Greatist Founder Derek Flanzraich Added To Everywhere Else Cincinnati Line Up

No, we did’t misspell “greatest” in that headline.

Greatist is an web startup about health and wellness. It’s an expert community driven resource that helps you reach fitness, health, and happiness goals. Whether you’re looking for great healthy recipes, workout tips, or even how to get over a hangover, Greatist offers a variety of wellness and health related content.

While the content on Greatist.com is overflowing, the team at Greatist encourages their users to take it slow, one week at a time. The startup’s mission is to inspire and inform the world to make at least one healthier decision per week. Whether you want to lose weight, eat better, get stronger, get motivated, relieve stress, or just start working out, Greatist offers the content you need, in an easy-to-read format for all of their users.

Derek Flanzraich has been an entrepreneur since his first “lemonade stand” startup dog walking business. All the while friends, family members, and new acquaintances would ask him what drove him, and one of those main ingredients was health and wellness. That’s why he created Greatist.

Flanzraich has been featured by Forbes as an up and comer. That’s also why Andrew Warner, the founder of Mixergy, (and another Everywhere Else Cincinnati speaker) interviewed Flanzraich on his popular site Mixergy, home of the ambitious startup.

Flanzraich told Warner in the interview that he thought of product first, in his case the content on Greatist, before he thought about revenue and traffic, a healthy recipe that seems to be working out.

Flanzraich can talk about his experience building a school newspaper in middle school, a political forum in high school, or a web TV show and network at Harvard. He can also talk about how he joined Clicker, a startup that sold to CBS for hundreds of millions, right before exit. He even picked the startup route over joining Google. Then he can talk about building Greatist into the greatest. Why people come, why they stay, and what he has learned in his career in new media.

Check out Flanzraich’s site, Greatist, here

Flanzraich joins the growing list of confirmed national speakers for Everywhere Else Cincinnati:

Naithan Jones, Founder agLocal
Andrew Warner, Founder Mixergy
Andy Sparks, Co-Founder Mattermark (backed by NEA and a16z)
Wil Schroter, Mr. Ohio, founder of Fundable
Jake Stutzman, founder evlevate.co
Jonathon Perrelli, Managing Director, Fortify Ventures
Justin Gutwein, Filmmaker and Entrepreneur startupland.tv
Mark Hasebroock, Founder Dundee Venture Capital
Jason Healy, Founder, Blu
John Bracken, Founder e-vite and Speek
Dave Knox, CMO Rockfish, co-founder, Brandery
Patrick Woods, Managing Director a>m ventures
Sarah Ware, Founder Markerly
John T. Meyer, Founder lemon.ly
Raghu Betina, Managing Patner, The Starter League
Ryan O’Connell, VP Influence & Company
Blake Miller, Managing Director, Think Big Accelerator
Michael Bergman, Founder Repp.

Get your ticket or Startup Village Booth for Everywhere Else Cincinnati below.

Saving Detroit: Grand Circus Is One Of Many Startups Hoping To Reinvigorate Detroit’s Economy

When we think of startups, tech, and entrepreneurs we don’t usually think of the industrial revolution, or the invention of things like the automobile. We don’t often equate names like Henry Ford, William C Durant, Charles Stewart Mott, or even Berry Gordy. Decades ago these were the innovators and entrepreneurs that bucked the system, created companies and created jobs. Henry Ford created Ford Motor Company, Durant and Mott were behind General Motors, and Gordy is the king of the R&B music we know today, the founder of MoTown.

All we think, when we hear Detroit today, is $10,000 mansions in foreclosure and a city government that’s filed for bankruptcy. Now it’s up to the next generation of entrepreneurs and innovators to refuel the city that was once a thriving mecca of modern day technology, innovation, and entrepreneurship. Detroit startups are at the foreground now of breathing life back into one of America’s industrial beacons.

One of those startups is Grand Circus. While Grand Circus is a startup itself, they are on the ground floor of Detroit’s technological revolution. Grand Circus is 15,000 square feet of tech training space. But we’re not talking about traditional certificate-based classroom learning.

“…we dismiss that true skill comes with a certificate. We focus instead on outcomes that matter. With project based instruction our training delivers real world expertise. We call it training with a purpose. Our curriculum is based on the latest in technology, business, and design, and we have partnered with the best and brightest. Our instructors are real world practitioners who are at the top of their field and committed to the success of their students. [We’ll offer] More than 30 different classes this fall – including Build an iPhone App, The Design Process, and Digital Marketing,” Grand Circus’ Kelly LaPierre told Nibletz in an interview.

Michigan, and Detroit specifically, already have a handful of great startups, that if successful will continue to create jobs in the Motor City. But this time instead of motors they’re using keyboards, computers, laptops, the internet and iPhones. We’ve recently covered myfab5, a Detroit startup making restaurant reviews and decision making much easier. Two weeks ago we reported on UpTo, a Detroit shared calendar startup that raised a $2 million series A. DVP (Detroit Venture Partners) has also graced the pages of Nibletz quite a bit over the last year. So there’s no doubt that people in Detroit are stepping up.

Grand Circus is making it even easier for people to step up by learning the skills that they really need to create the next wave of startup companies. They will also play an instrumental part in grooming the next generation of employees for these startups.

We got a chance to interview the team behind Grand Circus. Check out the interview below:

What is your startup called?

Grand Circus – named after Detroit’s historic Grand Circus Park that our new space overlooks in downtown Detroit. We are located in 15,000 square feet of space in the newly renovated Broderick Tower.

Who are the founders, and what are their backgrounds?

Grand Circus was kick-started when co-founders Damien Rocchi and Brad Hoos met while working at Detroit’s collaborative tech space in the M@dison building. “We saw the opportunity and quickly converged on a mission to create an amazing home for tech training in Detroit, a city with immeasurable talent that is just starting to reach its full potential,” said Rocchi.

What’s the startup scene like in Detroit?

Detroit startup scene is booming – SA Today names Detroit one of the “10 Great Places to be Inspire by Innovation” Fast Company’s piece “How A Young Community of Entrepreneurs is Rebuilding Detroit” called the city a “refuge for techies looking to tackle real problems.” The New York Times also spotlighted Detroit’s tech scene, nothing that hiring in the city’s tech sector is pulling developers from the coasts. Detroit has seen a 10 percent year-over-year increase in tech job listings, which makes the city the fourth in the nation for total employment in the tech industry.

What problem do you solve?

There is an ever-growing need for tech professionals in Detroit’s burgeoning digital hub. “As Detroit continues to grow and evolve its technology core, developing creative and talented technology professionals is critical. We are excited about the important role Grand Circus will play in the city’s continued revolution,” said Josh Linkner, Managing Partner of Detroit Venture Partners.

Why now?

“Detroit’s tech scene is dynamic and there’s a certain vibe and feel that exists here that you just have to experience,” said Hoos, COO and Co-Founder of Grand Circus. “We’re excited to be at the epicenter of Detroit’s tech earthquake just as it’s making waves.”

What are some of the milestones your startup has already reached?

Grand Circus joins Detroit Venture Partners’ (DVP) portfolio, a venture capital firm formed by Detroit business leaders Dan Gilbert, Josh Linkner, and Brian Hermelin.

What are your next milestones?

Classes start this fall

Where can people find out more? Any social media links you want to share?

grandcircus.co or www.facebook.com/GrandCircus or @grandcircusco

Join lot’s of Michigan and midwest startups at this huge, national startup conference Sep 29-October 1 in Cincinnati.

Startups In The Fastlane: Jumpstart Foundry Startup ZingFin

One startup is tackling personal investment by polling the best social media information to help anyone have a better grasp on investing. ZingFin is currently accelerating in Nashville, Tennessee at JumpStart Foundry, and we’ve got them in the Fastlane.

Accelerators are a big part of the startup ecosystem globally. Good accelerators aren’t always rosy. They pick the best of the best in their application phase, and then through mentorship and in-depth insight, they turn the idea upside down to get it to market.

ZingFin is one of the teams that will graduate from Jumpstart Foundry on August 22nd. The JSF demo day is often standing room only with over 400 in attendance, so pressure is on for all of the startups. For ZingFin though, the pressure may be greater.

They’ve put together a product that integrates social media into a dashboard that helps investors make more educated decisions for their personal investment portfolios. Hopefully the room full of investors will be chomping at the bit to try out this new product. Some of the accelerator’s investment backers, like Vic Gatto of the Solidus Company, have already been spreading Zingfin out to their social networks.

So what does ZingFin do exactly?

They stay on top of trending stocks. “Zingfin’s text analytics filter the more relevant conversations that impact stocks on social media channels such as Twitter® and Stockwits®. You’ll make sense of the aggregate market trends before anyone else sees them coming,” the company says on their website. They also tout the fact that Cornell researchers have found that Twitter mood predicts the stock market at an accuracy of 87.6% in predicting the up and down changes in closing values of the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

They also use social media to help identify industry and opinion leaders and they also connect the dots with “indepth visualizations”.

To find out more we talked with Balaji Viswanathan, co-founder of ZingFin in our Startups In The Fastlane interview. Check out the interview below.

Where is your startup originally from?

Boston, MA

Tell us about your current team?

We are a team of 3 – Balaji, Manju, Anup. Balaji has a MS in Computer Science and worked for Microsoft Redmond as a developer for 4 years. Balaji is the CEO and manages the technology execution. Manju is an electronics engineer and she has a background in operations and database management. She is the COO and manages the operations & administration. Anup has an MBA and has expertise in user experience & product development.

What does your startup do?

We help investors be in the know of market trends and pick the right stocks based on social sentiments.

What are your goals for the accelerator program?

To fine-tune product and get the product-market fit.

What’s one thing you’ve learned in the accelerator?

To perfect on that one thing that will gain us the initial advantage. We can always scale from that point.

What’s the hardest piece of advice you’ve had to stomach so far?

Really making the product focus.

What is your goal for the day after demo day?

To hunt for angels who can help us move to the next stage.

Why did you choose this accelerator?

The mentoring is hands-on and Nashville is a city that is on rise.

If you relocated for the accelerator are you staying in your new city?

We moved from Boston. We might temporarily move back to Boston and then will keep traveling back and forth. Depending on our funding we will decide on the final location.

What’s one thing you learned about an accelerator that you didn’t know when you applied?

The fact that Jumpstart has so many mentors who are so interested in getting us successful.

Where can people find out more?

Here is our landing page: Zingfin.com, Our blog is at zingfin.quora.com.

What’s your twitter handle?

@Zingfinapp

Find out more about JumpStart Foundry here.

Teams, This Baltimore Startup Has The Answer To Sharing Passwords

When you’re collaborating remotely or even if you’re working in the same office, sometimes it’s necessary for teams to share passwords. Here at Nibletz our core team needs to share site passwords, social passwords, analytics passwords, and more.

There isn’t really an easy way to share passwords amongst your team. If you’re a team with employees rather than just co-founders, there may be a risk in sharing a spreadsheet filled with all of your important passwords. If there is a great element of trust on your team it can just be cumbersome and inconvenient.

Well a Baltimore startup called, TeamPassword (see how easy that is to remember) has come up with a way to share passwords across your teammates and keep them safe and secure.

We got a chance to talk with Alex Zaremba about TeamPassword. Check out our interview below.

What does your company do?

We do collaborative password management, for teams that need to share and manage passwords in their company. Think 1password with sharing. Our mission is to replace that shared excel spreadsheet companies use to keep track of their accounts.

Who are the founders, and what are their backgrounds?

TeamPassword was founded by a group of friends with decades of combined tech experience. Their combined experience covers every facet of product development, including deep experience with product design, programming, UI and UX, Marketing, Sales, and operations.

Where are you based?

Sunny Baltimore MD.

What’s the startup scene like where you are based?

It might be surprising, but Baltimore has a great community for start-ups. Since I’ve been on the scene, I’ve seen a huge growth in the number of institutions and programs focused on fostering and accelerating entrepreneurship. Additional, we have a great technology community with a huge Ruby on Rails and Javascript meetups, which is a huge advantage when it comes time to scale our team.

What problem do you solve?

We solve the password management and sharing issues for Companies, which really has two components: Productivity and Security.

Right now, the prevailing method of managing passwords is a spreadsheet, shared some way with all the employees on a need to know basis. There are a number of problems with this:

1) It’s really inconvenient to get to and update, which means

2) It’s usually out of date

3) There’s no great way to segment the data; meaning your marketing team sees your server credentials, and

4) If this document got into the wrong hands, or, leaves with a disgruntled employee, you’re in trouble.

Here’s how we solve these problems: when users interact with TeamPassword through their Chrome extension, they have instant access to the accounts that are shared with them, and only the accounts shared with them. They can fill the username and password directly into the password, making getting into the accounts they need to do their job easy. Additionally, since users don’t need to remember the password, you can use a long, secure, randomized string.

Why now?

Why not? If TeamPassword would have been around while I was working at my past 3 companies, I would have been the first in line to get signed up. Having a great shared password solution mirrors the trend in software being replaced by the web: servers, error tracking, social media, banking, invoicing, and all important business operations are handled online. Companies have great systems to manage finances, employees, paperwork, so it’s about time we have a system to manage the information that protects everything we do.

One piece of enabling technology is the proliferation of Javascript frameworks—all of the tricky encryption we do at the user level would of been really hard to do even a year or two ago, we’re riding the wave of pushing more intelligence to the browser.

What are some of the milestones your startup has already reached?

We launched at a Startup Weekend late last year, incorporated in January of this year, powered through our alpha, and just recently launched into open beta. We now have dozens of customers, growing daily.

What are your next milestones?

We’re working on increasing our user base by a large factor over the next few months, and we also have some very cool, top secret technology in the works that we think people will get excited about.

Where can people find out more? Any social media links you want to share?

TeamPassword.com and @teampassword are the places to go.

Now check out: Here’s how NOT to pitch nibletz, or any other site for that matter.

Here Are The 48 Finalists For The 2nd Annual Silicon Prairie Awards

Silicon Prairie News is preparing for their 2nd annual Silicon Prairire Awards, celebrating the startups, entrepreneurs, and achievements across the Silicon Prairie region.

There are 48 finalists in categories including Startup of The Year, New Startup Of The Year, Innovation Of The Year, Mobile App Of The Year, Executive Of The Year, Designer Of The Year, Student Entrepreneur of The Year, Investor Of The Year, Service Provider Of The Year, Silicon Prairie Champion, and Silcon Prairie Ambassador. The finalists will be narrowed down to 12 award winners and revealed on August 29th.

The awards ceremony will take place at Hoyt Sherman Place in Des Moines, Iowa, with a keynote by Brandery co-founder and CMO at Rockfish (and eecincinnati.com speaker) Dave Knox.

Here are the finalists from SPN.

Startup of the Year

The startup everyone was talking about. The one that made marked progress toward solidifying its success, having an all-around banner year.

New Startup of the Year

The new kid on the block that quickly made a name for itself, and for good reason.

Innovation of the Year

This product prototype, release, or advancement made people look twice because it broke a mold, introduced a new way to solve a problem, or challenged a status quo.

CandyCam, SkyHook video robotics
EyeVerify, eyeprint technology
Higher Learning Technologies, NCLEX Mastery
opendorse, athlete endorsement platform

Mobile App of the Year

This app featured a notable design and user interface, broke the mold for what we’d expect from a mobile app or reached a high number of downloads.

Battle Bears by SkyVu Entertainment
Bodeefit
NCLEX Mastery by Higher Learning Technologies
Leap2 Search by Leap2

Executive of the Year

This C-level executive, president or founder led a startup to the next stage, hit milestones and overcame odds.

Ben Milne, Dwolla founder and CEO
Nick Bowden, MindMixer co-founder and chief engagement officer
Paul Jarrett, Bulu Box co-founder and CEO
Toby Rush, EyeVerify founder and CEO

Technologist of the Year

This team member, freelancer, or consultant made a significant contribution toward development of a startup’s product.

Kelly Kerns, ABPathfinder co-founder, COO and chief architect
Matt Secoske, Social Assurance co-founder
Reza Derakhshani, EyeVerify chief scientist
Riddhiman Das, Galleon Labs co-founder and EyeVerify software developer

Designer of the Year

This team member, freelancer, or consultant made a mark on a startup’s product by providing an amazing user experience or beautiful design.

Jake Stutzman, Elevate owner
Justin Kemerling, MindMixer chief design officer
Rick Knudtson, Flywheel co-founder and CCO
Stephanie Jarrett, Bulu Box co-founder and CMO

Student Entrepreneur of the Year

This student or group of students—college undergraduate or younger—built a notable business, launched a praise-worthy app or created an impactful entrepreneurial initiative.

clusterFlunk (Joe Dallago and AJ Nelson)
John Ruiz (e-Beacons)
James Verhoeff (Pickit)
Sourabh Chakraborty (HIVE)

Investor of the Year

More than funding, this investor provided the all-around package, being a connector and champion of their portfolio startups.

Service Provider of the Year

This lawyer, accountant, marketer or other service provider made things happen for startups, simple as that.

Bart Dillashaw, Koley Jessen
BlackOps Development
Chris Brown, Van Osdol & Magruder
Matt Westenburg, FUSE Coworking and SP Group

Silicon Prairie Champion

An individual, company or organization that selflessly gave their time, resources or expertise to advance the Silicon Prairie community.

Brian Ardinger, NMotion managing director
Cameron Cushman, Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation senior advisor
Kevin McGinnis, Sprint vice president of product platforms
Amanda Styron and Andy Stoll, Seed Here

Silicon Prairie Ambassador

An individual from the region who has moved away but continues to advocate on behalf of the Silicon Prairie community.

Calvin Pappas, founder of SelectOut and University of Nebraska-Lincoln graduate now at AVG in San Francisco
Rahul Gupta, Big Wheel Brigade co-founder and former Omahan
Royce Haynes, hackstar at TechStars in Boulder and former Kansas Citian who contributed to Silicon Prairie News
Steven Chau, Startup Weekend web developer in Seattle and former events chair for the Social Media Club of Kansas City

Go vote here.

Kauffman Foundation’s 1 Millon Cups Heads To Georgetown, Delaware

The Wednesday morning coffee and networking event called 1 Million Cups, created by the Kauffman Foundation, has added its 10th location and its first northeastern city. It’s not New York, Providence, or Boston. Instead, the latest community to join the 1 Million Cups family is on the Georgetown, Delaware, campus of Delaware Technical Community College. Georgetown, Delaware, sits about 20 miles from the Delaware and Maryland beach resorts.

1 Million Cups began in April 2012 in Kansas City, the hometown of its founding organization, the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. Kauffman Labs is a program of the Kauffman Foundation.

With its launch on the campus of Delaware Technical Community College in Georgetown, 1Million Cups is on target to expand its network to 20 cities by the end of 2013. Program leaders also plan to have at least one international city in the mix this year.

“We are thrilled to welcome Delaware entrepreneurs to the 1 Million Cups family,” Thom Ruhe, vice president of entrepreneurship at the Kauffman Foundation said in a statement. “Georgetown represents not only our 10th city overall, but it is our first Northeastern community and the first time 1 Million Cups has partnered with a community college. We expect to learn things in this new environment that can be applied as we continue to introduce the program to ever more diverse audiences and locales.”

The 1 Million Cups model is consistent in every market. Every Wednesday morning in each city, two early-stage startups present their companies to a diverse audience of mentors, advisers, and other entrepreneurs. Each founder presents for six minutes and then fields audience questions for another 20 minutes. The program is run entirely by local entrepreneurs who serve as community organizers.

Entrepreneurs, innovators, and interested community members from Georgetown and the surrounding region will meet at 9 a.m. each Wednesday at Java 101 in the Student Service Center on Delaware Technical Community College’s Jack F. Owens Campus. The college also hopes to attract attendees from its other two campuses in the state. The first week’s presenters will be Lead Your Way Solutions, a leadership and organizational development startup, and fast-casual restaurant go brit! fish + chips.

“We’re extremely pleased to be partnering with the Kauffman Foundation to bring 1 Million Cups to the College and to the citizens of Delaware,” said Dr. Orlando J. George Jr., president of Delaware Tech. “We look forward to hosting this very exceptional program at all of our campuses to support entrepreneurs statewide.”

Georgetown joins Kansas City; Des Moines, Iowa; Houston; St. Louis; Cedar Rapids/Iowa City, Iowa; Reno, Nev.; Chattanooga, Tenn.; Denver; and Chapel Hill/Research Triangle Park, N.C., in offering 1 Million Cups locally. Additional cities slated to launch 1 Million Cups in the next two months are Columbia, Mo.; Lawrence, Kan.; Orlando, Fla.; and San Diego.

1 million cups is great for startups everywhere else, so is this.