Sisasa Is Bridging The Gap Between Young Adults And Community Banks

Sisasa co-founders Alejandro DInsmore and Deborah Tien (photo: NMI 2013)

Community banks are great. Often times community banks have more 1:1 resources to give to their customers. They can offer education, guidance and products that benefit local businesses, local residents and bolster the local economy.

But what happens when a college student or young adult leaves home for another city?

Well often times they turn to one of the mega banks like Bank of America, Wells Fargo or Chase. There the college student is just another number and they often times have questions that they just can’t get answered by an automated phone system. This is a real problem for college students.

“Students often find themselves incurring fees they don’t understand and can never get a real person to talk with them about it so they pay it and move on” Sisasa co-founder Alejandro Dinsmore told us before GigTank’s demo day on Tuesday. “We hear horror stories from students and their parents on a regular basis”.

What they found though, is that many of these students resort to the mega banks because they have better mobile apps. Bank of America and Wells Fargo have real time banking on their mobile apps. If you deposit $10 into a Bank of America or Wells Fargo branch, you can leave the teller station, check the app and see that $10. Community Banks are often not as up to date, relying on systems implemented years ago trying to sway young people in this digital age.

That’s how Sisasa is solving this problem. By offering a better mobile banking app for community banks they can help the bank attract or retain this important customer. If a young person has a good experience with a community bank they are more likely to stay with that bank as they continue to grow. That community bank could finance their first car or that first house, but in an internet 2.0 (almost 3.0) age, and in the age of mobile, without that technology the community bank is dead in the water.

Sisasa, who’s team hails from Michigan, Boston and everywhere else, developed their current product at the GigTank in Chattanooga. Dinsmore tells us that they blew up their original idea after their first meeting with their lead mentor. After pivoting that mentor’s company is now one of their beta customers.

Sisasa private labels their mobile banking app for community bank, giving those local community banks features comparable and at times even better than their mega bank counterparts.

We got a chance to talk with Dinsmore just minutes before their GigTank pitch. Check out our interview below.

Checkout more GigTank Demo Day startup coverage here

St. Louis Gets New Financial Startup Accelerator SixThirty, Named After The Gateway Arch

The infamous St. Louis gateway arch is both 630 feet high and 630 feet wide. That’s where Cultivation Capital and The St. Louis Regional Chamber came up with the name for a new startup accelerator aimed at financial services startups.

The new SixThirty accelerator will invest $100,000 into four financial services startups twice a year (8 total). Those startups selected will go through a four month accelerator program from St. Louis’ proven leaders in the startup acceleration space. In addition to the typical startup accelerator training, Six Thirty will focus on offering mentors and a curriculum focused around the things financial services startups needs.

St. Louis is rich in financial services companies. Edward Jones, Scottrade, Stifel Financial, Wells Fargo Advisors, and US Bancorp CDC all call St. Louis home. The St. Louis financial services sector currently employs approximately 85,000 people—and is growing rapidly. Employment in financial investment services expanded by an incredible 84% between January 2007 to September 2012 in St. Louis, according to a recent Wall Street Journal article. During the same period the four largest financial services metros lost employment, according to data cited from Moody’s Analytics.

The founding team of the SixThirty accelerators is made up of three individuals with deep ties to the St. Louis startup scene:

Jim McKelvey, co-founder of Square, and general partner at Cultivation Capital
Hal Gentry, serial entrepreneur, and general partner at Capital Innovators
Joe Reagan, president and CEO of the St. Louis Regional Chamber

“We saw a real opportunity to leverage our regional strengths as a financial hub,” Jim McKelvey said in a statement. “Between the growth capital, the experience of our founding team, and the connections with the financial services community, SixThirty will be a welcome addition to the St. Louis startup scene.”

“This is a particularly important initiative, considering the local strength of the financial services industry in St. Louis and how they strive to constantly improve their services,” said Daniel Ludeman, CEO of Wells Fargo Advisors and Chair of the St Louis Regional Chamber, and founding co-chair of the Chamber’s Financial Forum. The Greater St. Louis Financial Forum is charged with accelerating economic development throughout the region in the financial and information services sector.

The Chamber is making a three year financial commitment to SixThirty. Reagan, referencing the recent launch of the Regional Entrepreneurship Initiative, said “We were inspired by the Initiative’s call to action and thought this was a great way to make an impact in a hurry.”

You can find out more about Six Thirty or apply to their first cohort here at sixthirty.co

JumpStart Inc Announces Its Next Partnership, Heads to the Mid-South

JumpStart Inc. has an impressive record. Founded in 2004, they have grown an ecosystem in northeastern Ohio basically from scratch. The numbers look something like this:

$29 million in funding to pre-seed stage companies
1000s of hours of human capital to more than 400 companies
3,000 new jobs

In 2010 JumpStart received funding from outside sources to take the lessons learned in Ohio to other parts of the country. Since then they have partnered with 15 other regions to grow local startup ecosystems and create jobs. JumpStart’s approach involves working with local leaders to identify a region’s strengths and build from there.

They have a presence in regions like upstate New York, Baton Rouge, Detroit, and central Georgia.

And, now they’re coming to Memphis.

“After two years of discussions, we’re excited to kick off this collaboration with JumpStart,” co-president of Start Co Andre Fowlkes said in a press release. “Working with JumpStart further supports our mission of relentlessly building companies and founders for the advancement of Memphis’ entrepreneurial ecosystem.”

We write a lot about Memphis here at Nibletz. Part of that is because we’re based here, but it’s also because we believe in the possibilities in this city. Currently the city has a 9.5% unemployment rate, the highest of all metro areas of more than 1 million people. That number is pretty bleak, but entrepreneurs like ones that Start Co helps launch are a bright spot in the city.

Memphis also has a history of racial tension, which probably comes as no surprise. Yet the Fowlkes and co-president Eric Mathews know that to really pull Memphis employment up, everyone needs to engage. With their history in Cleveland, the folks at JumpStart have experience in reaching out to diverse groups of people and encouraging entrepreneurialism.

“2/3 to 3/4 of our talent isn’t even in the game,” said Mike Mozenter, President of JumpStart’s regional consulting arm, at a press luncheon yesterday. “How can that be good for any of us?”

So, how do JumpStart and Start Co plan to grow jobs in Memphis?

Like any good startup, they are still in the customer discovery phase of the project. Over the next few months, they will be talking to local leaders, universities, and entrepreneurs to begin to figure out what Memphis needs. At the end of the discovery phase, they hope to have a 5-year plan that will accelerate Memphis’ growth as a leading startup ecosystem.

The Accelerate Memphis Project hopes to secure at least $50 million in investment capital and another $15 million for technical assistance, support, and pre-seed investment money in the next 5 years.

Memphis and JumpStart are a natural partnership, and both expect great things for Memphis in the coming years.

Mozenter said in a statement: “We chose to work with Start Co because of their track record in supporting high growth technology startups in the Memphis market. Our organizations have complementary missions, and I have been impressed with the resources and support that Start Co offers startups.”

Check out the JumpStart Inc and Start Co websites to learn more about those organizations.

Monitor Your Older Loved Ones With Sensevery, No Smartphone Required [video]

The GigTank, Chattanooga’s startup accelerator named after their gigabit ethernet, graduated its second class on Tuesday afternoon. Seven startups from across the country and around the world worked through the dog days of summer at improving their companies, iterating, and bringing products to market. When the accelerator announced this year’s application process, co-founder Sheldon Grizzle was looking for startups working on the “the internet of things.”

One of those startups hails from India and is using “the internet of things” to unobtrusively monitor elderly loved ones. As co-founder Bentley Cook said in his presentation, he would call his grandmother on a regular basis, ask how she was, and she always said she was good. But really, what does good actually mean?

Many older folks don’t want to tell their younger family members that something’s wrong. Either they don’t want to be a burden or they don’t want to give up their independence.

Back in the 80’s Life Alert had a system that allowed an elderly person to hit a button and yell out to a speaker box that they’ve had some kind of problem. The token line was “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up.” We all remember the commercials and how big and gaudy the pendant was for Life Alert.

Sensevery is building an unobtrusive device that allows family members to monitor a loved one without disrupting their lifestyle. Cook went through a bunch of devices, including a 1980’s digital watch-looking device, and acknowledged the fact that nobody wanted to wear something like that.

Cook even went as far as to dis Solidus portfolio company, EverMind, which makes a device that monitors an older person’s power habits to see for disruptions in their daily routines. Cook said in his pitch “If your doctor wants to know how often your coffee maker was on, then you’ve got a problem.” Solidus is one of the investment backers of the GigTank program. Aside from that awkward reference, Sensevery may be onto something big.

Their system uses a small bracelet style monitoring device no more obtrusive than a FitBit or other lifestyle monitor. Now typically these devices are synced to an app and a smartphone, but really how many folks in that older generation have a smartphone or the patience to program one.

For those people Sensevery has developed a syncing device that plugs into the wall, and voila. The wall device sends the data from the bracelet to the cloud where loved ones and family members can access the data in the cloud from any internet connected device.

The data coming from the bracelet can quickly tell the person monitoring if something’s not right. Alerts can also be set up to tell the monitoring person the minute something breaks from the norm. If all of a sudden there was no heart rate picked up, the device would also summon emergency personnel.

Cook, along with co-founder Parth Suthar, are hoping that others quickly see the value in the Sensevery platform.

Check out Cook’s GigTank pitch below.

No really click on this link right now, you won’t regret it.

GigTank Demo Day Kicks Off With Princeton Startup Mira

Chattanooga’s GigTank accelerator kicked off their second annual demo day on Tuesday afternoon. In perusing the startups in the second cohort before they took the stage, we quickly realized that startups from around the world were accepted into the program in the first GigCity in the U.S. (sorry Kansas City).

GigTank attracted startups from Bulgaria (HutGrip), The Cayman Islands (Tidbit.co) and of course across this country. One of those startups hailed from Princeton and chose to come to Chattanooga for access to the extremely fast internet and the wide range of mentors, lead mentors, and seed capital that Sheldon Grizzle, Mike Bradshaw, and the team at GigTank have provided.

Mira is the latest startup to tackle the offline retail experience with data points and information typically only found online. Now we’ve talked with a few startups in the space, but what they lacked was an actual hardware/software platform in the store that would allow the customer to get an online experience within the walls of the retail store.

During the presentation they talked about a woman, Michelle, who is looking for running shoes specifically for a 10k. She forgot to do research so rather than postponing the purchase or going “window shopping,” she was able to use the Mira Pod, an in-store interactive sign to choose the shoes that she needed. After she went through her personal experience, she was able to try the shoes on, pay, and get on with her day.

There is definitely value in bringing that kind of web experience into a retail outlet. Check out the pitch below to better understand Mira.

You can find out more about Mira here at shopwithmira.com

Here’s our interview with Mira Designs:

And here’s their pitch video:

Twelve Cities Founder And Thiel Fellowship Liason Nick Arnett On Three Themes For Building Great Cities

While Brad Feld’s book on Startup Communities has become a bible to many people trying to jumpstart startup ecosystems across the country, one entrepreneur has been looking at not just the startup community but the city as a whole, and he’s been doing it since he was 15.

At an age when many high school students are considering the football team, the wrestling team, or a homecoming date, Nick Arnett was sitting in on economic development meetings in his hometown of Fort Wayne, Indiana. It was there that he started working on an idea to visit 12 great cities and see what they had in common.

The project officially began in 2011 when a team of individuals, spearheaded by Arnett, went on a series of twelve trips throughout the continental United States. Arnett pointed out to a standing room only crowd at the Fireside Talks event on Monday night that Chattanooga was the first city they visited.

The group working on twelve cities started noticing three big themes that existed across all twelve cities. Arnett said it doesn’t matter if they were talking to the Mayor of Grand Rapids, Michigan or a resident in Tucson, Arizona. these three themes always come up.

The importance of openness and embracing the weird. Arnett explains in the video that being open and embracing everyone in the city is crucial for entrepreneurship. A city needs to embrace those who are working on startups, their own ideas, or freelance. Long gone are the days of everyone going to work at the plant.
The ability to make a difference no matter who you are. A lot of cities have a gap between their older leadership and younger leadership that makes it hard for one group to make a difference. Cities that don’t have that gap are more successful.
The importance of social connectivity, connecting the connectors. Having your local city connectors connect with another city’s connectors. Cities need to leverage these kinds of people that have both strong internal and external connectors.

Arnett really goes deep into all three of these themes in the video below. If you’re working on a startup community, do you have the city component as well? I’ve seen a lot of startup communities that are struggling because the city is still stuck in old ways. Make your city great, and your startup community will be greater.

14 Year Old Social Entrepreneur Jack Skowronnek Has Been At It 4 Years Already

Accelerator week in Tennessee kicked off on Monday evening with a VIP reception for the GigTank accelerator and then an event called Fireside Talks, which featured members of the Thiel Fellows Program and local Chattanoogans under the age of 20 who are doing great things.

The Fireside Talk event was kicked off by serial entrepreneur, angel investor, advisor, mentor, and “Mr. Chattanooga” Stephen Culp. Culp, who speaks on entrepreneurship and is passionate about startups. wanted to be brief and insisted that the focus be on the young entrepreneurs who he said “had me questioning what I was doing at age 20”.

Before he left the stage though Culp drove home three major points:

everyone has entrepreneurism in them
entrepreneurism isn’t just for profit
entrepreneurs need support

The second point was manifest Monday evening when Jack Skowronnek took the stage. This unique 14-year-old didn’t start some social mobile game, nor did he develop some kind of note taking app for school students. Rather, Skowronnek is a social entrepreneur. The best part: he’s been doing it since he was ten years old.

It was when Jack was 10 and going into the sixth grade that his elementary school teacher in Chicago recommended he read the book “Drums Girls and Dangerous Pie” by Jordan Sonnenblick. He told the standing room-only audience at the Chattanooga Theater Center that “you’d never guess what the book was about,” and of course who knew that a book with a title like that would be about a boy who shaved his head in solidarity with his brother who has cancer.

Shaving one’s head to support someone with cancer isn’t anything new. Former President George HW Bush just recently shaved his head when he found out that members of his secret service detail had shaved theirs in solidarity with one of their agents whose son Patrick has leukemia.

What’s unique about Jack is that upon completing the book he immediately told his parents that he needed (not wanted) to shave his head. After stating his case his parents allowed him to do just that. Along with shaving his head he started raising money for St.Baldrick’s, a national non profit organization that encourages people to shave their head and donate to help cancer patients. In two years Jack had raised over $5,000 for the charity.

When he moved to Chattanooga, he continued to shave his head and raise money. His story got picked up by local radio stations and Paul Smith, General Manager at the Chattanooga Market, heard about Jack and immediately contacted his mother Dawn Skowronnek. Smith wanted to host Jack’s head shaving event at the market, a very popular destination in Chattanooga.

As the event evolved, Jack was convinced to start his own charity to help the Children’s Hospital Foundation, which would keep the proceeds at a local level and help more than 50 Chattanooga area children with cancer. Jack’s foundation was christened Jack’s Chattanoggins, incorporating Chattanooga and noggin.

Young Jack moved the audience near tears when he told the story about a girl named Kennedy who he had befriended at the hospital. Kennedy had suffered through losing a lung and a leg to cancer but remained positive and upbeat. At one point she donated $20 to Jack’s campaign, even though he found out from the girl’s mother she never parts with her money. Jack also realized the significance of his efforts when the people he was trying to help were turning around and donating as well.

Last year Kennedy passed away, which made Jack start doubting his efforts. He explained that he attended the young gir’ls wake but couldn’t bring himself to come to the funeral. Jack dedicated the most recent Jack’s Chattanoggins event to Kennedy’s honor. It was also the most successful to date.

Jack obviously has hair in the picture above. In between events he grows his hair out so it can be shaved again. At the last event even the Mayor cut a lock of Jack’s blonde hair for the cause.

Jack plans on continuing this kind of work for the rest of his life. His entire family and the city of Chattanooga back him 100%. Jack’s looking forward to starting the 9th grade on Thursday and continuing to change the world one hair at a time.

Jeff Bezos To Purchase The Washington Post

Jeff Bezos is no stranger to entrepreneurs and startups. As the founder of Amazon, he has become one of the wealthiest men in the world off of what seemed to be a crazy idea. Amazon has grown to the number one online destination for e-commerce and web sales. Millions of products are sold across Amazon and its partners.

Amazon has also been an instrumental player in developing startups both in their hometown of Seattle, across the country, and around the world. Many web based businesses rely on Amazon’s Web Services (AWS) cloud system for their infrastructure and web presence. They’ve found a way for people to pay with “credits” vs a flat monthly rate, which for some entrepreneurs makes it easy to grow and scale their startups and businesses.

Through Amazon’s launch in 1995 to today. Bezos has remained committed to entrepreneurship and startups and even now still mentors young startup founders. He’s also helped advocate for startups to the government and speaks at startup events, making him one of the most successful and one of the most respected entrepreneurs.

Late Monday evening The Washington Post reported that they have agreed to sell the historic newspaper to Bezos directly (not to Amazon). Bezos will take the company private and according to the Post’s Publisher Katharine Weymouth, he will be able to “experiment with the paper without the pressure of showing an immediate return on any investment.”

The paper has been in Weymouth’s family since 1933 when Eugene Meyer, a member of the Federal Reserve’s board of governors purchased the paper. In 1946 Meyer was succeeded as publisher by his son-in-law Philip Graham whose wife Katharine Graham served as chairman and CEO until 1993. Her son, Donald Graham, succeeded her at the Post. Weymouth is Katharine Graham’s granddaughter and Donald Graham’s niece.

Over the past few years the post has tried to become more progressive with their online and social offerings. Laura O’Shaugnessy (Graham’s daughter and wife to Living Social founder Tim O’Shaugnessy) is the general manager of SocialCode a Washington Post startup that helps companies expand their brand on Facebook.

Bezos plans to remain true to the readers of the Post and plans to be in it for the long haul. “I don’t want to imply that I have a worked-out plan,” Bezos told The Post in an interview. “This will be uncharted terrain, and it will require experimentation.” He continued, “There would be change with or without new ownership. But the key thing I hope people will take away from this is that the values of The Post do not need changing. The duty of the paper is to the readers, not the owners.”

Bezos plans to keep Weymouth in her position as publisher. Also, what may come as a relief to the newsroom, Bezos says there will be no layoffs of the company’s 2000 employees as a result of the transaction.

The paper has been in the Graham family for eight decades, and although no clear long term plan was announced on Monday, Bezos may be planning on keeping the paper in his family for generations as well.

Bezos was not a surprise bidder. The Post reports that Bezos and Donald Graham have been friends for years, often turning to each other for advice. Graham was influential in the way newspapers are displayed on Amazon’s Kindle devices.

You can read more about this historic transaction here.

Photo: Jeff Bezos

UpTech Accelerator Announces Second Cohort

On Friday morning UpTech, the Northern Kentucky accelerator just outside of Cincinnati, announced their second class, dubbing it “the next eight big ideas.” UpTech reports on their blog that 78 startups applied to the program and were narrowed down to 22 semi-finalists. The eight startups selected represent a variety of spaces, a few of them we’ve already covered here at Nibletz.

The eight startups will move into the accelerator’s new Covington headquarters on September 9th. They’ll also receive $50,000 in seed capital, an executive mentor, access to an entire network of mentors and advisors, a one-year Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce membership, a one-year Greater Cincinnati Venture Association Membership, and access to resources from Northern Kentucky University’s Center for Applied Informatics.

These are the eight startups that made the cut:

3DLT.com: Recently named “Innovative World Technology” by SXSW V2V, 3DLT.com is the “iStockphoto” for 3D printable designs.
Bearhug Technologies, LLC: Bearhug Technologies is a web-based, connected care platform for behavioral health providers. It enables behavioral health providers to securely use the Internet to locate, connect, and communicate with other healthcare professionals.
Bright!Tax: With clients in over 50 countries worldwide, Bright!Tax is a cloud-based, US income tax preparation firm most sought after by the six million Americans who are living abroad.
Inteo: Inteo is an interactive tool for mathematics-based studies which continually measures and updates student performance. The software provides real-time insight into student achievement, which helps teachers tailor coursework and assess preparedness for state exams.
Liquid: Liquid builds mobile software to collect, store, analyze, and organize any and all data.
New Home Marketing Services: New Home Marketing Services is helping home builders better understand their business opportunities and their competitive landscape with the world’s first customized, real-time data portal to daily marketplace activity. New Home Marketing Services provides powerful data tools through an easy-to-use dashboard that allows for enhanced decision-making regarding inventory management and profitability.
Tixers: By trading your tickets to Tixers, they guarantee the value of your ticket, and you receive points (credit) almost immediately that you can use for other tickets on Tixers.
Touritz: Touritz allows local historians and tour guides to create and upload walking tours and videos, which can be viewed and downloaded to mobile devices. Touritz is cultivating a community of tour creators to share local landmarks and historic sites, art gallery and museum tours, scenic locations, and family destinations.

You can find out more about UpTech here.

Now check out this huge startup conference right across the river.

Tennessee Prepares For Accelerator Week

Last year August was Demo Day month in Tennessee. During the month of August (on consecutive Thursdays no less), Chattanooga’s GigTank, Memphis’ Zeroto510, and Nashville’s Jumpstart Foundry all held their demo days. The month of August was a true testament to the strong commitment to startups and entrepreneurship that exists across Tennessee.

We were fortunate enough to attend all 3 accelerator demo days and a variety of startup events that went along with those programs.

This year, Tennessee has condensed it all into one week, sans the Jumpstart Foundry demo day which is on August 22nd.

The week kicks off in Chattanooga, Tennessee today with some pre-events surrounding GigTank’s demo day on Tuesday. On Demo Day, the current class of startups who spent their summer in the GigTank will show off their work. The startup accelerator, now in it’s second year, gets it’s name from being the first accelerator on citywide gigabit ethernet.

The gigabit ethernet, and big entrepreneurial ideas, are why Bob Metcalfe, the creator of ethernet, is the keynote speaker for the GigTank’s big day.

Wednesday the festivities move about 150 miles northwest to tiny Spring Hill, TN. Spring Hill is home to a major GM plant and, this year, the Southern Middle Tennessee Entrepreneur Center’s autoXLR8R. autoXLR8R focused on technologies applicable to the automotive industry, and as per usual the companies will graduate with a demo day.

Finally we head to Memphis where ZeroTo510 will hold their second demo day on Thursday. ZeroTo510 is the first cohort-based medical device accelerator.

Stay tuned to Nibletz all week long for coverage of demo day week in Tennessee and then again August 22 for Jumpstart Foundry’s demo day.

Don’t forget everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference is also in Tennessee, in February!

Google Backs Minnesota Game Startup That Diagnosis ADHD

CogCubed is a Minnesota based startup that is using an interactive video game platform to help diagnose Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), a disorder which has affected 5.4 million children since 2007, according to the CDC.

CogCubed uses gaming platform Sifteo, which debuted two years ago. Sifteo is a set of interactive blocks with small screens on them. Developers have programmed them to do a variety of things.

In the case of CogCubed, Minneapolis child psychiatrist Monika Heller and her game developer husband Kurt Roots invented a game where children use one cube as a mallet to hit a gopher that appears on the other three cubes, according to a report in the Star Trubune.

As the game continues, obstacles such as birds and other animals start appearing on the other screens. The player must continue to focus on the gopher.

Roots and Heller have incorporated 70 different data points in the game to discern things like when the player’s attention drifts and if the player is fidgeting. The couple told the Star Tribune that the game can even help improve a child’s attention span.

While a clinical diagnosis would still require a psychiatrist, Heller is hopeful that they can get CogCubed into homes to help parents with an early diagnosis.

“Six to 12 months is the average waiting period to see a child/adolescent psychiatrist [for a comprehensive evaluation],” she said.. “How phenomenal would it be if Mom could have an assessment tool at home?”

CogCubed is awaiting FDA approval for a version of the game that can be used as a diagnostic tool.

They also have data from a study that validates Roots’ and Hellers’ claims. The study at the University of Minnesota matched a psychiatrist’s diagnosis 75% of the time. The current standard, a computer test called “The Continuous Performance Test,” is accurate about 62% of the time according to Heller.

CogCubed has raised $20,000 from Google. They’re also a finalist in the Minnesota Cup.

You can find out more about CogCubed here at CogCubed.com

Photo: StarTribune

Detroit Startup UpTo Closes $2 Million Series A, It’s Like FourSquare For The Future

Check in apps have come and gone. Of course the biggest player in the space is still probably FourSquare. After that is Facebook checkins or even Google Plus. I personally find the only time I actually use FourSquare is when I’m at a big tech event. Judging by my FourSquare feed, I’m not the only one who has resorted to part time checking in.

But what if there was an app that could tell you where I’m checking in later. I don’t necessarily want to open up my schedule to everyone in the world,but between events, being a parent, and the sneaker strapped startup road trip, I typically catch up with someone a few weeks later and they were like, “hey I can’t believe I missed you at xx event.” I’d imagine most of my colleagues and most of our readers are pretty busy people. Typically if I check in on FourSquare or Facebook or even on Twitter, at an event, it’s too late to get on my schedule.

Well Detroit startup UpTo is taking that pain away. By opening up the parts of your calendar you want to share socially, your friends, colleagues, and family members can see where you will be later in hopes that maybe you can schedule something social or for work.

I like this idea a lot, and so do investors.

UpTo raised a pretty hefty seed round of $875,000 back in 2011. Now they’ve just closed on a $2 million dollars Series A round.

The downtown Detroit-based startup currently has 9 employees and plans to add even more. They also plan on evolving the platform to include interest-based entries like concerts and sporting events. They’ve incorporated more calendar features and even a business-to-business component as well.

“UpTo is now a full calendar with social networking instead of the other way around,” Founder and CEO Greg Schwartz told Xconomy. “A lot of users wanted to use UpTo as an every day calendar. We realized we could be highly differentiated from every other calendar.”

Detroit Venture Partners, Venture Investors, and Ludlow Ventures all participated in the round.

“[The $2 million round] allows us to really focus on building our sales team and the growth of B2B,” Schwartz says, adding that the company plans to hire four or five people within the next few months. “Right now, we’re focused less on selling and more on building our network,” he says. “We want to grow our customer base to the point that we look back and say, ‘I can’t believe we had calendars that were so static.’ ”

You can check out UpTo here.

Triangle Startup Factory Considering St. Louis For Next Location

Techstars, Dreamit Ventures, and even Bizdom are successfully running accelerator programs in multiple states. It’s a growing trend with accelerators that do well with their original programs, typically in their hometown.

The Triangle Startup Factory has been very successful over the past few years. It’s one of the more popular startup accelerators everywhere else. The program had its first cohort in the fall of 2012, and this spring they completed their third class. The Triangle Startup Factory infuses each company with $50,000 in seed capital and hands on mentorship from their network of active angels, successful founders, and experienced technology experts. This combination is often a recipe for a stellar program.

Chris Hievly, the co-founder off Mapquest and the co-founder and Managing Director at the Triangle Startup Factory will be in St. Louis on Wednesday for an evening startup and networking event called Plug in2 STL, according to techli.com. The regional tech blog, founded by entrepreneur Edward Domain, says that Hievly is highly considering St. Louis for his next accelerator program, and those with creative startup ideas should attend the event to help court Hievly and the startup factory.

The free event also includes a tour of the new @4240 startup space. If you’re in the St. Louis area, you can get free tickets by following this link.

photo: Trianglestartupfactory.com

This huge national startup conference in Cincinnati is encouraging startups to “start where u are”

Startups In The Fastlane: Flashstarts Startup RegulatoryBinder

While Richard Arlow was pursuing a dual MD/PhD at Case Western Reserve University he experienced the pain first hand that so many doctors, researchers and scientists experience far too frequently.

“I realized that my clinical collaborators were killing themselves to painstakingly record data in hundreds of pages in paper regulatory binders. They would get audited and after two days of searching, the auditor could always find some way to show that the documentation was not accurate, complete or current. Their trial would then be completely shut down, sometimes just over a single missing signature.” Arlow told us in a FastLane interview.

We’ve heard this before from our friends going though the ZeroTo510 accelerator in Memphis, and others in the medical and life sciences startup fields. We also found out that restarting a trial, even after being shut down for something as small as a signature can cost thousands upon thousands, if not millions of dollars. This of course is a huge pain point and a huge problem.

Arlow is hoping to solve this problem with his SaaS solution for the regulated medical industry. RegulatoryBinder is an enterprise document management (EDM) web app specifically for clinical trial regulatory documentation. When researchers, scientists, and doctors integrate their research with RegulatoryBinder, the system will help them keep all of their documentation organized, current and in compliance, saving millions of dollars.

Check out our Startups In The Fastlane interview with Arlow below:

Where is your startup originally from?

Cleveland, OH

Tell us about your current team?

As the sole founder of RegulatoryBinder.com, I am a medical geek who unexpectedly became an entrepreneur. I was trained as a biomedical engineer and started a device company at Lehigh University in PA. The company created a clinical grade device, several patents, and was named one of BusinessWeek’s Top 25 Under 25 in 2010.

As for my education, I went to Case Western Reserve University to pursue a dual M.D. / Ph.D. degree again in biomedical engineering. I conducted clinical trials, particularly supercomputer simulations for medical research. I have presented at conferences and have been published in top journals, including Elsevier Neuroscience.

Throughout my involvement in clinical trials

So, I started RegulatoryBinder.com and have since taken leave from the M.D. / Ph.D. program to pursue this opportunity full-time. I have built a strong team of advisors and developers that compliment the vision.

What does your startup do?

We are a software and service provider for the regulated medical industry.

We developed the first clinical trial regulatory software (CTRS). The software is an enterprise document management (EDM) web app specifically for clinical trial regulatory documentation.

We are also the only hosting provider that assumes responsibility for eRecord regulation compliance for instant, risk-free use.

Without RegulatoryBinder.com, institutions need to perform additional procedural controls (i.e. training, backups, tech support, access control) and validate software technical controls, in order to comply with regulations. The performance of these controls comes with additional cost, time to implement, numerous procedures and still the risk of non-compliance.

Existing comparable eClinical software takes $3-5M and over 1 year to implement. We bundles these procedures and risk for the user whining their license cost, and provide them with the ability to electronically complete their regulatory binders in the shortest possible amount of time. We can thus exceed both customer and regulatory expectations while lowering total cost.

What are your goals for the accelerator program?

Throughout the rest of the accelerator program, I plan to close more clients, finalize our next major release and start our next funding round – while ensuring that the needs of existing customers are still being met.

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

Iterate everything. As a startup, you have to iterate—or rethink, adjust, change everything you think you know. Iterate your client and investor materials. Iterate your product. Iterate your quality, support and sales strategies. Then iterate your vision, which will cause you to iterate all the former. Of the most importance, iterate how you iterate and manage operations. Have defined and realistic goals, metrics and timelines for all iterations.

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

Doctors don’t make great businesses (on average), so if I want to make a great business, I need to focus 110% of my energy solely on that goal.

I became a doctor to help individuals.

I’ve become an entrepreneur to make a great business and help society.

What is your goal for the day after demo day?

It’s just another day. I’ve got to talk with potential clients, support users, engage the developers and raise money.

Why did you choose this accelerator?

I was not looking to join an accelerator. I did not need the money or experience of being in an accelerator. And, if you look at the math or history, almost all companies from accelerators fail.

I chose FlashStarts because of the team, environment and enterprise-IT focus. It was the right choice for me and has enabled me to scale the company.

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

I am a Clevelander.

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

I was gratefully surprised by the integration of business, development and designer interns that work with my team.

This enabled me to start assigning tasks and focus on core deliverables, like learning how to be a CEO. :)

Where can people find out more?

www.RegulatoryBinder.com

Check out more of our Startups In The Fastlane interviews here.