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Ottawa Startup NoteShares Wants Social Document Sharing INTERVIEW

Ottawa entrepreneur Brenden Palmer knows there’s a better way to share documents. There’s more to sharing documents than just allowing access. That’s what separates his Ottawa startup NoteShares, from cloud based document storage lockers DropBox, Box.com and their hundreds of clones.

Palmer tells nibletz.com:

“We are not a hard drive in the cloud, and that is not what our premise and model is. We focus on creating a social community around user uploaded content. The point of using the platform is to share your documents and content, whereas other services and platforms like Dropbox, and Box.com simply allow you to have access to that content anywhere (which we offer as well). The differentiator is the ease of use and access that allows you to share this content and these documents with others who are using the platform. We don’t just allow access to share this content, but the social aspect around the document is the most prevalent aspect of our service and platform. Another thing that differentiates us is that we are launching our platform as a free web service.”

We wanted to dive in and make sure that Palmer wasn’t just another DropBox copycat. Obviously DropBox has been very successful and in their success they’ve generated a startup a day.

Adding a social aspect to documents makes them more open to discussion, commenting and discovery. Traditional cloud based lockers are really just dressed up ways to share attachments.

We got a chance to talk with Palmer in depth about Noteshares. Check out our interview below:

Ft. Lauderdale Startup: clearCi Makes Finals In Upstart Competition

Last month we covered Ft. Lauderdale startup clearCi by way of our content partners at StarTropica. ClearCi simplifies competitive intelligence, which for any company, can be a big factor in their success.

Back in the 70’s and 80’s “competitive intelligence” may have been viewed as spying, however it’s common practice in today’s business world, in fact if you’re not doing it you could end up losing customers, and an overall grip on your business. The problem though, is in the fact that there is so much competitive intelligence available. clearCi makes it easy for companies both big and small to streamline their competitive intelligence and find the most important information available, to make decisions.

The young Ft. Lauderdale company is making in impact in South Florida, and now across the country. They’ve been selected as a finalist in not one but four categories in the upcoming 2012 Up-Start Cloud Awards. The finals for the awards will be held in San Francisco on December 12th where Emmanuel Trenche and clearCi’s founder and CEO, Joe Levy, will be on hand to help garner votes and pitch their startup.

“The first round was entirely based on gaining votes from our customer base and general public,” said Emmanuel Trenche, VP of Marketing Communications at clearCi. “Going up against Microsoft, Dell and SIlicon Valley startups made us think creatively to stand out.”

clearCi was selected as a finalist in the following categories:

Best Cloud Business Intelligence/Analytice
Best Big Data Solution
Best Cloud Service Provider
Best Industry Application

Linkage:

Check out clearCi here

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Startups Get Your Seed Hatchery Application In Before Christmas (Dec 23 Early Application Deadline)

While Santa is making his list and checking it twice, early stage startup founders across the country and around the world are checking off startup accelerators on their list. Seed Hatchery, the startup accelerator in Memphis Tennessee should be one of those accelerators. They’re looking for the type of entrepreneurs that are committed to growing their startup long term and aren’t afraid of hard work.

Seed Hatchery is now taking applications for their third class. The cohort based accelerator will begin in February and run for three consecutive months. At the end of the session you and your company will be ready to pitch real investors for opportunities to invest in your business. In the meantime you’ll be backed by the 3M’s Money, Mentors and a marine style bootcamp, in Memphis.

Although sometimes overlooked, Memphis is one of the most entrepreneurial minded cities in the world. Going back nearly 100 years, Memphis Tennessee was the epicenter for this little thing called “cotton” you may have heard of it. It was cotton and the cotton exchange that spurred one of the largest investment banks in history, Lehman Brothers.

Beyond that, other globally known phenomena like rock music (the blues), Elvis Presley, and R&B radio have their roots firmly planted in the Bluff City.

Is that not enough? Perhaps you’ve heard of this company that delivers packages via planes and trucks, overnight, yes FedEx was born and based in Memphis. Holiday Inn was born in Memphis as was Serv Pro, and Autozone. Even Debbi Fields, Yes Mrs. Fields as in cookies, calls Memphis Tennessee home.

With an entrepreneurial pedigree like that you can be assured that the mentor pool for the 2013 Seed Hatchery CoHort will be stronger than most regional accelerators Seed Hatchery’s size.

Seed Hatchery was the partner for the recent Zeroto510 medical device accelerator in Memphis where 5 of the 6 teams received follow on funding of over $100,000. One of the teams went on to immediately raise over 2 million dollars. While some startup communities are still just getting started, Seed Hatchery is backed by Launch Your City which has been working on strengthening entrepreneurs and their startups for the last six years.

If you’re a Memphis area entrepreneur or in any area and ready to relocate to Memphis it’s a great place to work and a great place to build a business. Not only that, but even though the accelerator is in the thick of the winter, it’s never ver cold in Memphis.

If you’re startup is chosen to participate you’ll receive a seed investment of $15,000, access to a very strong mentor network and a strong investment community. Seed Hatchery is looking for startups that are in the area or willing to relocate for the entire 90 day cohort and stick around Memphis to tap into the investor, entrepreneurial and startup community in the region after that. To kick off your stay in Memphis TN every team and their members selected for Seed Hatchery will receive a free ticket to the three day startup extravaganza known as “everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference” where you’ll get to see the great speakers already announced and have a small group session with recent graduates from TechStars, 500Startups, The Brandery and previous graduates of Seed Hatchery.

Applying is free and the application is open now. It’s not for the faint at heart but if you’re passionate about your idea and hard working, if you’re not afraid of rolling up your sleeves this is for you.

Hit the links below.

Linkage:

Here’s the application for the 2013 Seed Hatchery cohort

Seedhatchery.com

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Interview With Berlin Startup VERSUS IO, Compare Anything

Last month we brought you a story about Berlin comparison platform startup VERSUS IO. They recently added 240 cities to their comparison platform which takes comparing two things and brings it down to it’s simplest form.

The internet is great for comparison shopping. Every major online retailer like Amazon, Best Buy, Carphone Warehouse and everyone in between, offers some kind of side by side comparison of products. Just about every time I go to make a major electronics purchase, I comparison shop something online.

Sure you may want to compare the iPhone 5 vs the Samsung Galaxy S 3, or the Galaxy Nexus vs the iPad Mini. But what if you wanted to compare other things? What if you wanted to take a European vacation and wanted to weigh France vs Italy. Well Versus IO allows you to do that comparison too.

With their recent addition of 240 cities to compare it makes deciding your next vacation a breeze. The team at VERSUS IO is in the process of creating the go-to site for comparing anything and they are well on their way. In fact they plan on providing comparisons on 640 different verticals.

We got a chance to talk with VERSUS IO, founder and CEO Ramin Far who previously headed MTV Networks’ North European online departments. Check out our interview below.

Kauffman Foundation Takes 1 Million Cups Startup Pitch Event Global

A startup pitch event that the Kauffman Foundation created this spring, is going global. The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation has been driving startups through global events by participating heavily with Startup Weekend, Startup America and sponsoring many startup and entrepreneurial events across the globe.

1 Million Cups is an informal weekly meetup, that until now, only occurred at Kauffman’s Kansas City headquarters. Each Wednesday morning two startups get to pitch a group of their peers over coffee. The Kauffman Foundation has already seen 64 pitches during the first 35 meetings.

Last month, during Global Entrepreneurship Week, Des Moines Iowa became the second city to host 1 Million Cups events. Nate Olson, a Kauffman Foundation analyst, and the 1 Million Cups coordinator hopes to add 20 more cities by the end of 2013. In Q1 2013 the foundation plans to bring Cedar Rapids IA, Omaha Neb, Lincoln Neb, and possibly Columbia MO online as well.

“We are expanding from the interior of the country outward, so don’t look for us on the coast just yet” Kauffman Foundation Vice President Thom Ruhe said in an email to the Kansas City Business Journal. Rhue hinted that bigger startup hubs, like Silicon Valley, are more “entrepreneurially aware”.

The Kansas City meetups host 120 people each week, from the tech sector. They’re attracting entrepreneurs, wantrerpreneurs, outside advisers and others.

To continue their expansion the Kauffman Foundation is seeking out entrepreneurs in other cities that can host the weekly pitch events and of course provide free coffee.

Linkage:

Check out 1 Million Cups Here

Source: KC Business Journal

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Accelerate Baltimore Extends Application Deadline To December 21st

The holidays are upon us but for entrepreneurs and startup founders across the state of Maryland, across the country and around the globe who want to build their startup in Charm City, they’ll probably be on pins and needles, waiting. AccelerateBaltimore, the startup accelerator program put on by The Emerging Technology Center has extended their program application deadline to December 21st, 2012.

Baltimore is a great city to build a startup in, just ask McKeever Conwell who decided to keep his startup “Given.to” (formerly No Bad Gift), in Maryland’s tech city. Conwell, a Morgan State graduate, has been through the AccelerateBaltimore program and he’s been out west. He decided Baltimore’s best for his company.

Baltimore has a thriving tech scene (I may be biased being born and raised there). Video game studios, mobile app companies, mobile ad companies and many more call Baltimore home. In fact, mobile ad company Millennial Media, is a Baltimore startup that recently went public to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. The company has over 38,000 mobile apps on it’s network.

If you want a taste of that pie and you want to learn from some of the greatest mentors around, you still have a couple of weeks to apply. You don’t have to be based in Baltimore, but you do have to be willing to move to Baltimore to participate in the program. It’s worth it.

And speaking of Mentors, the ETC just announced 14 mentors for the next AccelerateBaltimore session including: Chris Brandenburg, Co-founder and CTO of Millennial Media, Greg Cangialosi, CEO of Nucleus Ventures, Ron Schmelzer, CEO of Bizelo and Co-founder of Baltimore Tech Breakfast and Andrew Coy, Co-Executive Director of Digital Harbor Foundation, Ann Quinn of Quinn Strategy Group, Victoria McAndrews of CMD, and Russell Clark Co-Founder of Illuminis.

“AccelerateBaltimore™ is one of the recognized programs that has proven to assist in nurturing startups from idea-stage to viable business,” stated Michael Binko, co-chair of Startup Maryland. “Formal programs like AccelerateBaltimore™, MindShare, Distilled Intelligence and others in the broader region are a great extension to high-touch entrepreneur events like our own Pitch Across Maryland. The mentorship, working capital and creative office-space provided by ETC form a great foundation for entrepreneurs who are eager to accept guidance from peer-mentors as well as program facilitators.”

The next AccelerateBaltimore session will begin in February. Six startups will be part of this next cohort and will receive $25,000 in seed funding. They’ll also participate in an intense development program, have free office space, a high level advisory team and more.

Linkage:

Apply to AccelerateBaltimore here

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Interview with Japanese 500startups Startup: Language Cloud

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

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

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

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

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

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

New Orleans Food Ordering Startup: Couchster, Set To Debut Dec 17th

After a long day at work, school or even at the gym, a lot of people just want to chill on the couch and order in. That’s the idea that’s driving New Orleans entrepreneur Sean O’Neill and his food ordering startup Couchster.

The New Orleans startup is an online food ordering site, optimized for mobile, but O’Neill is hoping to add native mobile apps in the not so distant future. While mobile food ordering isn’t necessarily new, it is new to New Orleans. According to our friends at Silicon Bayou News, O’Neill is aiming to make ordering food easy and more accessible.

Couchster serves up online menu’s so that ordering from your computer, mobile device or tablet can be a cinch. In a city known for it’s delicious food and variety at that, Couchster is a welcomed addition. O’Neill already has over 125 restaurant locations on board. While he’s not officially launching until December 17th, the menus for all of Couchster’s restaurant partners are already posted for users to view.

Couchster is bootstrapped to the hilt. O’Neill believes he shouldn’t try and raise money until he has proven his concept. So after having this idea for over a year, he went out and worked 8-5 everyday and saved every dime he could so that this past June he could quit his day job and work on Couchster full time.

As long as the rollout in New Orleans goes well O’Neill plans to expand to other cities in Louisiana like Shreveport and Baton Rouge, and then after that he wants to take Couchster outside of the state.

Linkage:

Couchster can be found here

Source: Silicon Bayou News

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Spanish Startup: Fiona Is Your Artificial, Virtual Cloud Based Assistant

There’s a cool new social robotics startup in Spain, called Adele Robots, that has created a collaborative, artificial, virtual, cloud based assistant. Her name is Fiona.

We’re not talking about Sims or avatars here, Fiona has features and skill sets that have been acquired by community collaboration, that the company calls “sparks”. One user may add a cool character trait while another may add a skill to make Fiona smarter. All of these sparks can be dragged and dropped when users create their own Fiona’s that are customizable to them.

As the company evolves, users will be able to use these cloud based, social robots for customer service, as a personal assistant or even for research. Think Siri with crowd sourced attributes that ends up actually looking like an avatar and having a personality of sorts.

Confused? Watch the video:

Now that you have a clearer understanding of what exactly Fiona is, we got a chance to talk to the founders of Adele Robots about Fiona. Check out the interview below.

Burlington MA Startup: Acquia Raises $30 Million

Burlington startup, Acquia, provides enterprise tools based on the open source Drupal web platform. If you’re not familiar with Drupal, it’s the backbone architecture for such popular websites as The White House and the Economist. The platform was created by Dries Buytaert, who also serves as CTO for Acquia.

The startup has now picked up a cool $30 million dollar round led by Growth Capital and Goldman Sachs. Accolade Partners, North Bridge Venture Partners, Sigma Partners and Tenaya Capital also participated in the round. They are looking to add between 120 and 140 new jobs within the next 12 months. They are also planning on using the money for more international expansion.

Acquia generated $21.8 million in revenue in 2011 according to the Boston Business Journal. CEO Tom Erickson plans to double that this year. They are also looking at a possible IPO within the next two years.

This latest round brings their total venture funding to $68.5 million since 2007. The company was founded by Buytaert and Vice President Jay Batson.

They currently employ 260 people. 140 of those work at the corporate office in Massachusetts. They also have offices in Washington DC, California, Amsterdam,Paris and Oxford England.

Linkage:

Check out Acquia here

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California Startup: RaffleForGood, A New, Easy To Use, Raffling Platform

As the holiday season continues we will continue profiling as many social entrepreneurs and their startups as we can. Greg Hoffman and Ben Daniel are two of those entrepreneurs. Their California startup, RaffleForGood, is exactly what the name suggests, a raffle platform to do some good.

With the rise in use of the internet businesses big, small, for profit and non profit want to use the internets vast reach to offer prizes in raffles to raise money for charity. The problem is, that posting a product on the internet, and raffling it off isn’t just time consuming, but there are mountains of legal red tape that prevent companies from raffling things off at their own whim.

RaffleForGood handles all of that for their users. They’ve simplified the raffling system down to just about listing a prize and starting the raffle.

“Basically, Raffle For Good is an online fundraising platform for organizations to raise money through an interactive, skill-based raffle system. Companies donate items to causes they support. The causes then list the items on their personal Raffleforgood.com subdomain, at which point they direct their supporters to purchase tickets. It’s a fun reinvention of the raffle designed to make online fundraising more effective, engaging, and exciting, for all parties involved.” Hoffman told us in an interview.

Check out the rest of our interview with Hoffman below:

Canadian Startup: Student U Is Building Student Communities INTERVIEW

When Facebook exploded into global social network domination by opening it’s gates to those that were not college students, a gaping hole was created in the social space. A few startups have begun trying to fill the hole for the “student social network”. One of those startups is Canadian startup Student U.

At it’s roots, Student U is a new social network for students. Through their app you can make no friends, chat, share pics, manage multiple profiles and much more. Checkout out their website you’ll see that Student U is part social network, part student portfolio and part student dating site. The founders have put a big emphasis on flirting and dating.

Once the user begins engaging with the Student U platform they can “give presents”, “share emotions” and “fall in love”

Student U also went mobile first the right way and introduced an iOS app, Android app and a Windows Phone app all at the same time. Naturally, students are using the smartphone as their key to the internet a lot more than any other device so it’s fitting to have a three fold mobile strategy.

We got a chance to interview StudentU take a look at the interview below

Memphis Social Entrepreneur Sarah Petschonek Takes Volunteer Experience Nationwide

30 Year old Memphian, Sarah Petschonek left her Nashville job in September of this year to return home to Memphis, Tennessee. Petschonek who has a socially motivated work background and a PhD, wanted to find a more impactful and meaningful path for her life.

Being a lifelong volunteer since childhood, and with the support of her family and closest friends, she did the most logical thing and went back to volunteering. This time around it would be different though — a mission.

For the entire month of November, including today, Petschonek worked each day, every day at a different volunteer organization. She blogged about each day of her journey on her website at confessionsofavolunteer.com.

Along the way she volunteered helping children, senior citizens, homeless people, urban farmers, students and more. When local CBS affiliate, News Channel 3 caught up with Petschonek she was volunteering for SAVE an organization that provides vision services for students.

“Each time you volunteer you generate a ripple effect across the community and you create positive change in the world. You don’t have to be perfect in order to be the perfect volunteer. Whatever your talents and interests, you have the potential to inspire yourself and everyone around you!” Petschonek said.

Her volunteer days go back 22 years to when she was 8 years old. Her and her two siblings would pull a wagon around Jacksonville Florida, passing out fliers and collecting food for the needy.

With this 30 day stint coming to an end, Petschonek has decided to do the next logical thing and take her volunteer experience across the country. She will begin the next leg of her journey in Portland, Oregon and travel to Boise, Salt Lake City, Kansas City, St. Louis, Nashville, Atlanta and back to Jacksonville to rekindle the youthful social entrepreneur that started this all.

Petschonek’s Memphis journey yielded media coverage from the prominent local media outlets. Her blog is already averaging 30,000muv. All Petschonek hopes to do is inspire people to donate just one hour of their time, whether it be once a week, or once a month to whatever cause they can relate to. The results are already amazing including a local law firm giving 10% of their revenues to the local food bank and many others giving personally with time, money, and resources.

Petschonek has launched an indiegogo campaign at indiegogo.com/volunteerbound to help fund the nationwide expedition. While she realizes that a journey like this may be more comfortable in the summer months, winter time is when people, and volunteer organizations need the most help.

People can stay up to date with Petschonek’s nationwide adventure at her blog site confessionsofavolunteer.com and contribute to her journey through links on that page or directly at indiegogo.com/volunteerbound.

Linkage:

Check out Sarah’s blog here

Support her on indiegogo here

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Sarah Petschonek will be here, will you?

Los Angeles Startup: Upperatus Is Making A Difference With T-Shirts INTERVIEW

Yesterday we brought you the story about Utah based startup HeadCase who is trying to make a social difference with their unique, premium headphones. Today we’re turning to Los Angeles and social entrepreneur Jeff Kudlishevich and his LA startup Upperatus.

Kudlishevich’s startup, with a really cool name, is taking uniquely designed t-shirts, pairing them up for social causes, injecting celebrity spokespeople and donating a portion to charity. We’re not talking about 50 cents or a dollar, no that’s all been done before. Upperatus builds in $11 of each t-shirt sold to the paired up non profit organization.

This month Upperatus has teamed up with classical singer Nathan Pacheco and artist Dan Mccauley to donate $11 per shirt sold to Save The Bay (The Santa Monica Bay for those of you keeping track).

The Upperatus site describes this month’s charity below:

The Santa Monica Bay is the centerpiece of Los Angeles’ beach culture, and the geographic center of the LA region. Stretching from Malibu to Palos Verdes, the bay is where millions of Angelenos relax and work. Because of their economic, ecological and recreational value, our waterways and the ocean are critical resources worth protecting.

Santa Monica Bay beaches average 45 million visits per year

The Bay generates more than $1 billion in visitor spending annually.

Tourism accounts for more than 500,000 jobs in the greater L.A. area

The population of Los Angeles has skyrocketed in the past 100 years and it’s putting a lot of pressure on our environment. In the mid 1980s, improperly treated sewage led to dead zones in the Bay and harmful water quality. Thanks to the efforts of Heal the Bay and its supporters, the EPA mandated stricter sewage treatment processes, resulting in greatly improved water quality.

Despite the amazing gains, your Bay faces ongoing challenges, from marine debris to overfishing. The good news is that you can help protect our beaches and oceans. And remember, watersheds connect you to ocean, no matter if you live on the coast or 60 miles inland.

If you haven’t noticed, with the holidays upon us we’re featuring more social entrepreneurs. Upperatus is another great way for the slacktivists to get involved, and you get a cool shirt in the process. What makes Upperatus even better is that they’re changing the shirts and the causes every month so you aren’t stuck with the same shirt and your money going to the same cause.

We got a chance to interview Kudishevich. Check out the interview below.