ShareThis, The Social Sharing Startup With Cincy Ties, Closes $30 Million Dollar Round

ShareThis, one of the most successful startups to come out of Cincinnati, has just announced the closing of a $30 million dollar round of venture funding.

The company, now based in Paolo Alto, has created a platform that makes it incredibly easy to share any kind of content across over 120 different social channels. ShareThis claims that they touch the lives of 95 percent of U.S. internet users across 2 million publisher sites. Whenever you’re cruising a website like AllthingsD, Cosmopolitan or any of the Food Network sites and you see the little green sharing icon that’s ShareThis.

The company was founded by native Cincinnatian Tim Schigel who before he founded ShareThis was the director of Blue Chip Venture Company, a Cincinnati based firm which participated in the startups latest round. Schigel is also the founder of the public/private partnership Cintrifuse that’s supporting downtown Cincinnati’s startup movement.

Back in April when ShareThis acquired Socialize they opened up a funding round and raised $23 million dollars. They left the round open and took another $7 million dollars before closing the round.

In addition to Blue Chip Venture Company, Blair Garrou of the Mercury Fund , Heidi Rozen of Draper Fisher Juverston and T-Venture also participated in this round. All of the investors had previously invested in the company.

Come see Cincinnati’s amazing startup community for yourself during this national startup conference!

New York Startup Is Paving A ClearPath For Legal Immigrants

Immigration is a hot topic for startups. But typically when we are talking about immigration and startups we’re talking about the laws that need to be changed to allow startup founders and technologists an easier path to create their companies here in the United States. We don’t typically come across startups that are looking to make the immigration process easier for people trying to legally come to the United States.

Many of the people that are crossing the border illegally are doing it because they want to get over here as quickly as possible, or they have something holding them back and preventing them from legally crossing the border. There are some people, though, who are coming over to the United States illegally because the legal process is quite cumbersome. There are a lot of forms that need to be filled out, kept organized, and turned in. Like with most bureaucratic processes, if one form is not completed correctly or signed properly, the whole process comes to a screeching halt.

Michael Petrucelli, who once led the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and Alan Samuels, a UK immigrant, and entrepreneur have founded ClearPath. Think of it as TurboTax for immigration.

Their platform keeps all of the important paperwork for the immigration process straight and organized.

“Clearpath allows immigrants to securely and confidentially fill out a variety of immigration forms online (including a new version of the site in Spanish and new forms in Spanish, like the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals application or the popular N-400 naturalization form) while the site checks data in real time for potential errors and compliance and then prepares the forms for submission to the USCIS. It’s the only online service of its kind that offers a patented, affordable online option for immigrants, costing a fraction of the fees typically charged by legitimate immigration lawyers or shady notarios,” Samuels told us in an interview.

Clearpath will make it easier for those looking to start their new lives legally in the United States. As the company grows it will also deter some of those trying to cross our borders illegally and get them to come into the U.S. the right way.

Check out the rest of our interview with Samuels below.

What is your startup called?

Clearpath

What does your company do?

Clearpath has developed a greatly simplified digital filing process for immigrants applying for visas and naturalization in the USA. Think of it as a TurboTax® for immigration.

Clearpath allows immigrants to securely and confidentially fill out a variety of immigration forms online (including a new version of the site in Spanish and new forms in Spanish, like the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals application or the popular N-400 naturalization form) while the site checks data in real time for potential errors and compliance and then prepares the forms for submission to the USCIS. It’s the only online service of its kind that offers a patented, affordable online option for immigrants, costing a fraction of the fees typically charged by legitimate immigration lawyers or shady notarios.

Who are the founders, and what are their backgrounds

Founder and Chairman, Michael Petrucelli, led the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and wrote many of its policies and procedures. CEO Alan Samuels, a UK immigrant, previously founded an education finance marketplace, lead the sale of Dotmenu to GrubHub, and managed a $100 million corporate product line for S&P.

Where are you based?

Clearpath’s corporate headquarters is in NY, with offices in Washington D.C. and Miami, Fl.

What problem do you solve?

Immigration law is comparable in complexity to the US tax code. It is no simple task to navigate the USCIS website, identify the appropriate form, or complete it correctly. Lawyers charge between $4,000 and $10,000 to aid this process. (Notarios charge around $3,000 but often provide fraudulent services.) Clearpath Immigration brings the knowledge of US immigration administrators to these consumers with a safe, secure, smarter solution for a fraction of those prices.

Why now?

With all the discussion around comprehensive immigration reform, what is clear is that there will be more people eligible for more statuses and, ultimately, more forms being filed. There may be up to 11 million people who will have a path to citizenship if the Senate version of the bill is passed. This will only add to the 100 million immigration forms that are filed yearly with the United States Citizenship & Immigration Service (USCIS). Hence the opportunity for tech-enabled solutions to streamline the byzantine immigration filing process.

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

Our product is live at www.clearpathimmigration.com and currently covers just under 30 different immigration forms including: citizenship, deferred action for childhood arrivals, bringing over a foreign relative, adjustment of status.

What are your next milestones?

We are in discussions with a number of potential partners to jointly market our services. Look for a pilot with one of the largest Latino organizations later this year.

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

http://www.clearpathimmigration.com

https://www.facebook.com/clearpathimmigration

https://twitter.com/iclearpath

http://www.linkedin.com/company/clearpathimmigration

See why hundreds are flocking to this national startup conference in Cincinnati Sep 29-October 1.

TechStars Austin Unveils First Class

Back in May Techstars, announced the formation of their Austin Techstars program. The accelerator is being housed at the Capital Factory in downtown Austin. Jason Seats, who was the director of the Techstars Cloud program in Houston moved over to Austin to head up the program.

Techstars reported receiving 850 applications for this first cohort in Austin. The team at Techstars was tasked with cutting those applications down to ten.

Here are the ten startups announced last night at an event at the Capital Factory.

Filament Labs build patient tracking and compliance software around mobile health, behavior tracking, and behavior change. One of its consumer products, HealthSpark, was 1 of 30 hand-selected apps within Aetna’s CarePass initiative.
MarketVibe (founded by the Whoosh Traffic team at Capital Factory) uses customers web analytics and shopping cart data to teach companies how to get more traffic, leads and sales.
Fosbury is a cross-platform digital wallet solution for designing, managing and analyzing campaigns on Apple Passbook and Samsung Wallet. Fosbury ensures retailers and other that their customers always have loyalty cards and coupons with them and provides a new way to interact with customers.
Atlas Wristband takes a new approach to wearable technology in the fitness industry. Atlas combines top talent from Johns Hopkins University, Phillips Healthcare and Maxim Integrated Products.
AuManil helps Online Retailers identify, manage and grow their most valuable customers – and create more of them. It enables shopper-facing agents to engage high value customers based on behavioral profiles and predictive insights. These targeted, personalized engagements lead to increased revenues, high retention rates, and better customer satisfaction.
Ube: controls lights and appliances from a smart phone, inexpensively. The company’s Wi-Fi enabled Smart Dimmers, Smart Plugs and Smart Outlets are competitively priced, easy to install, and provide the convenience of controlling your lights from your smartphone from anywhere in the world.
ProductGram: allows online sellers to extend their store from one outlet to many. Currently in development for Etsy sellers, the mobile app will push an attractive listing, not just a third party link to drive more product views to increase sales via other channels, with checkouts happening wherever engagement happens.
Testlio: opens a network of mobile testers to developers needing every last bug uncovered. The company has created tools for software testing that use real time chat, integrate issue reports into their existing systems, and do daily/weekly testing based on the customers own release schedule.
Accountable: streamlines and simplifies HIPAA compliance by providing a suite of tools and resources for firms, from necessary agreements and policies to risk assessments and employee training. All required pieces are tracked for completeness and time-sensitive expiration, with monitoring and alerts maintaining compliance. Audits are as simple as printing out a report and all requested information.
ProtoExchange: is a cloud-based network of professional 3D printing services that allow businesses to source the production and material capabilities of the network in a scalable, cost-effective, and time-efficient manner.

Startups In The Fastlane: Velocity Startup GreekPull

Crowdfunding is everywhere, there’s crowdfunding for your startup, crowdfunding for your movie, crowdfunding for the things you want and even crowdfunding for college money. Now, thanks to a San Diego startup that’s accelerating at Velocity in Indiana, there is crowdfunding for your fraternity or sorority.

Back in the olden days, before computers, internet, and crowdfunding, fraternities and sororities that were working on a project would have fundraisers, cash boxes, collection jars, and a treasurer to collect all the money. Then you had to trust that the treasurer didn’t spend the fraternity’s money on his own stash of brew and other college accoutrements.

GreekPull is working on a crowdfunding platform for fraternities and sororities that eliminates all these problems, makes it super easy for members to raise money for projects, and then securely collects the money so it can’t be squandered on the frivolous. Now when a sorority or a fraternity wants to hold a big clean-up project, restore a building, or buy toys for local needy kids the money is there. They can even use the funds for special events like spring formals and dances.

We got a chance to talk with AJ Agrawal about GreekPull and their team’s experience at Velocity. They’ll be graduating at the end of the month and think making the move from San Diego to Jeffersonville, Indiana was one of the best choices they’ve ever made. Check out the interview below.

What is the name of your startup?

GreekPull

What accelerator are you in?

Velocity Accelerator

When is demo day/investor day/graduation?

August 29th, 2013

Where is your startup originally from?

San Diego, CA

Tell us about your current team?

Eghosa Aihie- The Hustler: In charge of sales and marketing

AJ Agrawal- The Visionary: In charge of product development and investor relations

What does your startup do?

We’re a crowdfunding platform for Fraternities and Sororities

What are your goals for the accelerator program?

To complete our next seed round of $350,000

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

Never edit your product without talking to customers first, you’ll save a lot of time and money.

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

Always being ready to pivot. It feels like your starting completely over when you pivot and sometimes it’s hard to stomach that it’s all part of the learning process.

What is your goal for the day after demo day?

To further conversation with potential investors and customers.

Why did you choose this accelerator?

Over half the National Fraternities and Sororities are located in Indianapolis, so we are in an ideal location to get customer feedback.

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

Yes, however, we will most likely move a little closer to Indianapolis.

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

We’ve been amazed how nice the people in Jeffersonville have been to us. Coming from San Diego, we were unsure what to expect heading into Southern Indiana. Overall, the connections we have made has been priceless, and we look forward to staying in touch with all the people we have met.

Where can people find out more?

greekpull.com

Kansas City’s Think Big Accelerator Holding Demo Day August 28th

The multi-faceted startup support organization, Think Big Partners in Kansas City is preparing for demo day for their accelerator program companies and other midwestern startups from across the Silicon Prairie area. ThinkBig is graduating their second cohort, but this is their first demo day.

This week, ThinkBig Parters is hosting a two day “PitchKamp,” which will be taught by the ThinkBig Partners and help prepare the teams pitching on the 28th for demo day in front of investors and media.

Here are the ThinkBig Accelerator startups pitching at demo day.

Fully: Fully is a kiosk-based mobile phone charging station that provides digital out-of-home targeted advertising to the consumer.
Kahootz: Kahootz is a consumer-focused online calendar platform that provides users with easier ways to combine, share and manage all obligations and profiles on one easy-to-maintain social-based platform.
Keyzio: Keyzio is a consumer-driven marketplace that connects people and helps them find, buy and sell real estate.
Phone2Action: Phone2Action makes a digital take action advocacy platform to power organizations and individuals to make change happen.
WeeJay: Weejay is a rewards-based social jukebox for bars, restaurants, and other businesses.

Here are the other regional startups pitching as part of the demo day festivities.

Katasi: Katasi provides an effective technological solution to the growing epidemic of texting while driving through partnerships with telecom providers.
Moblico: Moblico’s mobile engagement platform uniquely combines cloud based backend services for app developers with content, communication and loyalty management tools for application marketers.
PlanetReuse/InvenQuery: PlanetReuse is a consulting and brokering company focused on matching reclaimed building material with designers, builders and owners. InvenQuery provides technology to help retailers of unique merchandise handle inventory, point-of-sale and ecommerce.

“As a venture investor, there are increasingly more quality, early-stage investment opportunities that are emerging from the Midwest,” said Pat Doherty, Managing Member of St. Louis-based Saturday Capital. “I look forward to working more with groups like Think Big Partners, who have helped identify and support growing and innovative companies that are attractive investment opportunities.”

If you’re in the area and want to attend demo day you can register here.

Blake Miller, the Managing Director of ThinkBig Accelerator is speaking at Everywhere Else Cincinnati, September 30th. A few discounted tickets and discounted startup village booths are still available here.

Startups In The Fastlane: NMotion Startup SynerScan

While EMR (electronic medical records) are nothing new, and innovation continues to change the doctor’s daily life, there hasn’t been nearly as much innovation centered around the nurses. Specifically, nurses that are making rounds at any hospital or treatment facility.

Nurse rounds are still often documented using a clipboard, pen, and paper. If nurses need to enter something into an EMR, they often do it at the nurse’s station, transcribing it from that pen and paper.

It takes so long that Bryan Health in Lincoln, Nebraska sought the help of a Lincoln startup called SynersScan to help solve that problem. Typically it’s the other way around. The startup comes up with an idea and then tries to sell it to the user. Now there are users built in, in the case of Bryan Health, with more users waiting in the wings.

SynerScan, which is currently accelerating at Lincoln’s NMotion accelerator, is creating a digital platform to manage nurses rounds.

Synerscan is the latest startup in the “Fastlane” interview feature that talks with a startup currently in an accelerator program. Check out our interview below.

What is the name of your startup
SynerScan Technologies, or simply SynerScan.

What problem are you solving
What we’ve done is develop a software solution that enhances the benefits of hourly nursing rounds in hospitals. This process is currently documented on a physical sheet of paper, causing a couple problems. 1) That sheet of paper is typically thrown away, providing little to no feedback to management, and 2) Backlogging and accountability of nursing staff has become an issue as a result. What we’ve done is digitize the entire process, uncovering a number of value adds in the process. For example, we can now provide visual cues for any staff member to know when a round is due, real-time operational insight for management, and revolutionary communication to friends and family.

The best part about our solution is that we began with market validation. We are currently partnered with Bryan Health in Lincoln, who actually came to us to solve this very problem. What most companies do is spend months developing a solution only to find out that nobody actually wants to use it. We had a top 50 cardiovascular hospital come to us and say “here is our problem, who is able to solve it for us?”. That validation out of the gate has had a huge impact on our traction and chances of success moving forward.

The ultimate goal in changing the process of nursing rounds is to increase patient satisfaction in hospitals. Hourly rounding has been proven to increase patient satisfaction, decrease falls, and provide greater quality of care as a result. A hospital’s patient satisfaction score is what determines the amount of reimbursement a hospital receives from Medicare and Medicaid. These scores also determine the salary and benefits of a hospital’s executive staff. For these reasons alone, incentives are very high for a hospital to increase patient satisfaction. Our solution provides just that.

Nmotionad
Why now?
A lot of these incentives have come about as a result of recent healthcare reform. Hospitals will be compared to one another relative to patient satisfaction, infection rates, and many other metrics. Hospitals will be driven by quality, service, and costs in order to compete. Government sanctioned funds will be given or taken dependent on where the hospital ranks in regards to these metrics. For this reason, it will become imperative that hospitals implement tools to maintain a competitive advantage in the industry.

The US healthcare system is at a critical point in increasing quality of care for patients. Hospitals will no longer receive reimbursement based on a “pay-for-reporting” model, where they were simply required to post patient satisfaction scores. Every hospital in the country will now be reimbursed on a “pay-for-performance” model, where the quality of those scores will determine each hospital’s reimbursement rate.

Who are your competition?
There are a number of companies recognizing the potential of increasing patient satisfaction in hospitals. What’s great is that there is no one single way of doing so. What’s frustrating is that there are a lot of unknown and unavoidable factors that affect a patients perspective of their care. First impressions, last impressions, and unforeseen occurrences can drastically alter a patients perception of their care.

Although companies like Scan Am and Walsh Integrated have similar solutions in the healthcare space, we have a few tricks up our sleeve that help differentiate us as serious players in the industry.

What’s your secret sauce?
What really sets us apart from our competition is the communication platform we have engineered to provide friends and family with relative insight on the condition of their loved one. With our solution, we are able to push nursing round information to a family members smartphone, tablet, or PC. If you have to be at work or home with the kids, no longer do you have to wonder about the kind of care your significant other is getting. The feedback we’ve received on this aspect of our solution alone has been outstanding. Since our launch at Bryan Health, we have helped family members from San Francisco, Dallas, Chicago, Minneapolis, Kansas City, and everywhere in-between see the quality of care their loved ones were receiving, all in real-time. Imagine you had a child or spouse in the hospital and the importance of a tool like this because quite clear.

Where are you/were you based before NMotion?
Born and raised right here in Lincoln.

Why NMotion?
There are some really cool and innovative things happening in Lincoln right now. Most people are oblivious to this fact. We are still highly referred to as a flyover state and this simply isn’t the case. Our entire founding team is comprised of University of Nebraska – Lincoln alumni, and one of our primary goals is to change the perception people have about Lincoln and the potential that remains untapped here. Jumping on the opportunity to be a part of Lincoln’s first accelerator program was a no brainer.

What’s one lesson you’ve learned since the NMotion session has started.
Before NMotion, our team was progressing at a steady rate. We were making informed decisions, building relationships, and learning everything as we went. What we realized very quickly after starting NMotion is that we weren’t moving fast enough. We were doing too much strategizing and needed to simply begin executing. We are now moving faster, breaking things, learning quickly, and repeating.

Where can people find out more?

Check out our website at SynerScan.com

Email us at info@synerscan.com

Scholarship Funds Set Up On Indiegogo For Teenage Pennsylvania Heroes

Back in July a 5 year old girl named Jocelyn Rojas was abducted from her Lancaster, Pennsylvania home. Meanwhile an incoming freshman, 15-year-old Temar Boggs, was helping a neighbor move a couch into her home. While they were moving the couch, Rojas’ mother hysterically asked them of they had seen her daughter. Boggs and friend Chris Garcia immediately joined the search for the little girl by foot.

Many sites, like the Huffington Post, reported that the two teenage boys thought it would be more effective to continue the search on their bikes. The neighborhood they all live in is filled with dead ends and strange cul-de-sacs. The local police were already on the scene and congregating at some of the intersections in the neighborhood. This made the abductor drive in and out of the backstreets and look very suspicious.

Boggs saw that suspicious maroon car and kept up with it on his bike for 15 minutes, eventually making eye contact with the suspect and the little girl. The suspect eventually wanted to flee and knew his cover was blown, so he pushed the little girl out of the passenger seat. She ran straight to Boggs. Many news outlets report that once in Boggs’ arms, the young Rojas didn’t want to leave the boy’s protection. He eventually convinced her that it was safe to go with the police.

If you choked up a bit during this story, you did the same thing as Mary O’Donnell, a complete stranger from Dunkirk, New York.

“I just felt like, ‘God, I would love to do something for these kids’,” O’Donnell told Lancaster Online by phone. “And I figured there were probably lots of other people who felt the same way.”

She jumped into action, launching a college fund campaign on popular crowdfunding website Indiegogo. Now we typically cover Indiegogo when someone is creating a new and exciting gadget or product. We’ve even used Indiegogo to crowdfund our sneaker strapped startup road trip. But after seeing how easy it was for O’Donnell to put some action where her mouth was, we found this story about crowdfunding to be an amazing one.

O’Donnell set out to raise $10,000 which she planned to give to Boggs and Garcia’s families for college. However, four days after putting up the site it was already over-funded. In fact with 23 days left, as we publish this story there is well over $15,000 raised. It looks like they’ll have no problem clearing $25,000.

Right about the same time David Reed, a 59-year-old retired pilot from Missouri also established a fund for the boys. He is hoping to raise $100,000.

“I’m sure that’s a lucky expectation, but with the cost of college these days, I figured it would be great to help them out. They certainly deserve it,” Reed said in an interview. His fund has raised over $2500 to date.

Tamika Boggs, Temar’s mother, has also set up a scholarship fund in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. More information on that can be found here.

Crowdfunding will be a hot topic at this national startup conference.

Put Congress In Your Pocket With This Nashville Startup

With smartphones in the pockets of tens of millions of people, information is extremely easy to obtain. You don’t even need to wait to get home to check something on the internet. You just reach into your pocket and hit Google or whatever your favorite information source is.

The information age, the internet age ,and now the mobile age has made government more accessible, and with that accessibility becomes accountability. Long gone are the days that any Congressman or other elected official can just sneak something passed the people. When a bill is before Congress, voted on, or signed, you can find all the information about it online. You can look it up on your phone as well.

Now a Nashville Startup called PocketCongress is looking to streamline all that information into an easy-to-use app. SouthernAlpha reports that David Swift was watching the news one night and wanted to look up further information on some legislation that was just reported on. He found the process of finding that information more cumbersome than he thought it should be. To make it easier he created PocketCongress.

We talk with Swift in the interview below.

What is your startup called?

Pocket Congress

What does your company do?

We are an easily accessible research tool for Congressional information. Search various ways in both legislation and legislator fields.

Who are the founders, and what are their backgrounds

I, David Swift, am a local business owner in Nashville and am constantly looking to become more involved in the tech world. I concocted this idea in early 2011 and refined it over the next few years. In August of last year, I connected with an old high school classmate, Joey Vadala. Joey is a long-time techie and computer genius, even since the high school days. He’s built a few apps and I was impressed. Looking for someone who would build the app for profit equity AND pull off a simplistic, usable UI/UX, Joey was a great fit. Joey absolutely crushed the fine design details and construction of the app. I handle the business aspect of things, marketing, etc. and Joey is working on 2.0 for Pocket Congress.

Where are you based?

Nashville, TN

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

Fantastic. There’s a lot of old money here, nearly all of it concentrated on the health care industry. That tide is slowly turning with all kinds of tech start ups popping up here and there. The new building of the Entrepreneur Center is magnifying a lot of start ups that wouldn’t get the attention otherwise.

What problem do you solve?

We solve the lack of true government transparency and the inability for the casual news-watcher to gather any real content on what’s being reported on their TV, what’s being voted on in their capital, and ultimately what’s affecting their lives on a daily basis. The entire concept of Pocket Congress is to further true government transparency and to aid in involving the casual political observer. The app is easy enough to navigate for a casual news watcher, but has enough information for a political junkie. The information is out there and is researchable, but not easily and quickly. Pocket Congress allows not only quick research & reference, but also tracking of legislation and social sharing of all information. Real government accountability and transparency must be done by the people, not the government.

Our app searches both Members and Legislation. In Members, one can search via: current location, name, ZIP code, committee, state, or browse. In Legislation, one can search via: HOT bills, number, locally sponsored, keyword, recent actions, and type. You can read actual legislation via .pdf. Anyone can interact with local senators and representatives by easily accessing their Twitter feed, biography, district map, committees, and all their social media outlets. One of my favorite features is the ability to tweet directly to a senator, send them an email, or call their office directly from the app.

Why now?

We need it now more than ever. (How many times have you heard that?) There are now more iPhone users in existence now than ever before. As a country, that’s more ready access than has ever been provided in the past. Never has Congressional members and the legislation they pass been so easy to access and share. Our phones are always with us, so an app is truly the timeliest way to access this type of information and a real vehicle for government transparency.

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

We have been featured in SouthernAlpha’s blog. We are followed on Twitter by a few Washington Post journalists, and have been retweeted by Congressional members, most notably Darrell Issa. After being in the App Store for 5 days, Apple chose us as a New and Noteworthy app in the Reference section. We currently headline the Reference section in the App Store.

What are your next milestones?

A segment on Mike Huckabee on FOX. We have a connection to him particularly, as I worked with him personally on his last book signing tour over a course of three weeks. He’s a large government transparency advocate. We would then like to leverage that appearance to other media outlets, including other politically-charged TV shows.

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

Website: http://pocketcongressapp.com

iTunes short URL: https://itun.es/us/VgmgL.i

Joey’s personal page: joeyvadala.com

Raleigh To Get New Living/Learning Accelerator, ThinkHouse

The Research Triangle Park (RTP) area of North Carolina is known for its, well, research, and lately, for its startup efforts. There are so many entrepreneurial things going on in Raleigh, listing them all could make your head spin. Obviously, this is a good thing. It’s good for the Raleigh Durham, area and it’s good for the economy.

Things like the American Underground, HQ, Triangle Startup Factory, and many more entrepreneurial efforts are making sure that entrepreneurs exiting out of some of the finest institutions in the south east (Duke, UNC, NC State) have access to continued resources and support.

Well now, HQ Raleigh co-founder Jason Widen and Chris Gergen, and entrepreneurial veteran in Durham, have teamed up for a natural next step, a living and learning accelerator.

In what is being dubbed the “ThinkHouse,” entrepreneurs are going to live and develop their ideas in one place. Many studies have shown that when you work and live in the same place, it can be a lot more productive. 4am brainstorming sessions don’t involve waiting for someone to come to the office, and at the same token, a 9am rock climbing, clear-your-head expedition can be easily arranged. While living and working in the same place may seem harmful and means more work focus, it’s actually the opposite.

With all that in mind the Triangle Business Journal reports that ThinkHouse will house a group of “entrepreneurs in residence” who will take a 9 month residency in the house. The entrepreneurs will be selected by a panel, like any other accelerator, and then they’ll be able to collaborate with each other, mentors, and a peer advisory board.

The group plans to open up 50 think houses in 50 cities within 5 years. You can find out more here.

Is This Brazilian Startup The YouTube Of Books?

The publishing industry is ripe for a disruption, and many of them. The traditional music industry where we used to buy records, tapes, and CD’s has been all but replaced by digital media. Many predicted that books would always be safe. People love the touch, the feel, and the smell of actual books.

Now Borders is gone, Barnes and Noble has shut down many of their stores, and the mom and pop shops are drying up. It’s unfortunate for readers. But just like in the music industry, it leaves a gaping hole for disruption. Everything from distribution, to consumption, to the publishing of digital books is all open terrain for the right startups.

One Memphis startup, Screwpulp, is well on their way to disrupting the self publishing model with their unique platform that calls for feedback in exchange for free books.

Brazilian startup Widbook is a digital collaborative reading and writing platform where authors can improve their writing, publish books online for free, and solicit feedback and work together with fellow members. It was launched in June 2012 and was instantly described by Mashable as “The Youtube of Books.” The platform recently reached a milestone 30,000 members and has over 1,100 published books with thousands being written.

We got a chance to talk with the team behind Widbook, check out the interview below.

Who are the founders and what are their backgrounds?

FLAVIO AGUIAR Co-founder and CEO at Widbook

Early career

• Founded Digitale.XY2 digital agency, a company headquartered in Campinas and São Paulo that has for 10 years worked with the planning of digital marketing, digital presence and consultancy.

• Was head of the merging process with Attitude Global group, one of the biggest commutation groups in the world.

• Has worked in the software development market as system analyst and participated in the official process of implementation and assessment of the CMMi methodology.

• MBA in Strategic & Economic Business Management from Fundação Getúlio Vargas (FGV) and Ohio University in the U.S.

ANDRÉ CAMPELO

Co-founder and COO at Widbook

Early career

• Founded Digitale.XY2 digital agency, company headquartered in Campinas and São Paulo that has for 10 years worked with the planning of digital marketing, digital presence and consultancy.

• Was ahead of the merging process with Attitude Global group, one of the biggest commutation groups in the world.

• He has been one of the directors of APADi – Associação Paulista das Agências Digitais (São Paulo Association of Digital Agencies) since 2010.

• MBA in Strategic & Economic Business Management from Fundação GetúlioVargas (FGV) and Ohio University in the U.S.

JOSEPH BREGEIRO

Co-founder and CTO at Widbook

Early career

• More than 13 years of experience as web developer and project manager

• Was the chief systems architect of e-Commerce of Fnac Brasil (fnac.com.br) and was responsible for its entire system development and support team.

• He participated in the official process of implementation and assessment of the CMMi methodology and was responsible for the study and implementation of several other technologies in others companies.

What’s the startup scene like in Brazil?

The company is based in Brazil, but plans a move to the U.S. in the future. The platform is virtual and has a presence in over 200 countries worldwide (with 60 percent of its users from the U.S.). The startup scene in Brazil is fairly new compared to the U.S. but it’s growing quickly. The government is starting to offer programs to support startups and lots of well-known events, like TED Global and the MIT Global Startup Workshop, are coming to Brazil.

What problem do you solve?

The publishing industry receives hundreds of thousands of manuscripts/book submissions each year and only a small fraction are reviewed, and even fewer accepted. Widbook offers members the opportunity to bypass the publishing house and publish their work quickly easily (while also getting valuable feedback from other members).

Why now?

The ebook industry is positioned to expand beyond the print book market by 2017 (driving $8.2 billion in sales by then). Widbook wants to offer more than just a platform for self-publishing; it wants to be the place where people go to read and write ebooks for free and collaborate and network with other members.

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

Dec. 2012 – Investments secured by W7 Brazil Capital

Feb. 2013 – Widbook 2.0 released

May 2013 – Widbook team attended NYC’s Book Expo America

June 2013 – Widbook CEO attended START Series event START SF (an invite-only gathering of 150 early stage startups and entrepreneurs)

July 2013 – 30,000 members reached

What are your next milestones?

The iOS app is in the works and set to be released soon (Android app is already available for download), and we hope to be at 50,000 members in the very near future.

Where can people find out more?

Widbook.com

Widbook on Facebook

Read this: How to nail your next VC Pitch

Palestinian Hacker Posts To Mark Zuckerberg’s Wall, Won’t Get $500 Reward

Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook Hack

(image: dailymail.co.uk)

The world’s biggest social network has a long standing policy of giving people who find and report security vulnerabilities in their network with a $500 bounty. There is a process set up where “white hat” hackers and other users can turn in their findings. Once the security team investigates and finds the breach, Facebook gives the reporter $500. That’s not going to be the case for Palestinian “security specialist” Khalil Shreateh.

The Daily Mail reports that Shreateh discovered a vulnerability in Facbeook that allowed anyone to post a message on the Facebook wall of any other user regardless of that user’s privacy settings. While it’s not as bad as hacking someone’s account and posting as that person, it could leave more high profile Facebook users, and even regular Facbeook users feeling vulnerable. Unlike LinkedIn, Google+, and Twitter, many people turn to Facebook for family communications and other networking with people they actually know.

When Shreateh discovered this breach, he reported it. Unfortunately either the Facbeook security team didn’t feel it was a worthy breach, or they just felt like ignoring it. Facebook eventually told him it wasn’t a bug.

So, Shreateh found a friend of Mark Zuckerberg’s, fellow Harvard alum Sarah Goodin. Goodin and Shreateh have no connection whatsoever, yet Shreateh was able to post on her wall.

When this still wasn’t good enough Shreateh used the same trick and posted on Zuckerberg’s wall.

‘Sorry for breaking your privacy,’ he wrote in a post to Zuckerberg. ‘I had no other choice…after all the reports I sent to Facebook team.’

That post was immediately removed, and Facebook security experts patched up the vulnerability that Shreateh had originally reported, hoping to earn the $500.

In a Hacker News post, Facebook Security Team member Matt Jones posted that the bug had been fixed. He also explained why Shreateh wouldn’t receive the bounty.

‘In order to qualify for a payout you must “make a good faith effort to avoid privacy violations” and “use a test account instead of a real account when investigating bugs,”’ Jones wrote.

Facebook said that Shreateh violated the privacy of both Goodin and Zuckerberg. Jones was quick to point out that Shreateh could receive the bounty for reporting future bugs.

Domino’s Realizes They Are Startup Fuel! Offering $500 Pizzavestments To Startups.

Domino’s is embracing the fact that their pizza fuels thousands upon thousands of hours of time spent working on startups. Pizza and Red Bull power hundreds of hackathons. I’ve spent many a Startup Weekend eating pizza for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Now the Ann Arbor-based pizza giant has embraced its relevance in the startup world with a brand new TV advertisement.

“Without pizza, school projects and music albums might go unfinished. Startups, unstarted. …No one’s coming up with a world-changing idea over halibut. No way. It has always been pizza,” the announcer says in the commercial.

“No one knows the power and possibility of a great idea more than Domino’s, having been the ones that truly revolutionized pizza delivery over fifty years ago,” said Russell Weiner, Domino’s Pizza chief marketing officer, in a statement. “Gatherings that create great ideas often include pizza — and we want to do what we can to fuel the next revolutionary concept that will also continue to be celebrated fifty years from now.”

This ad is part of a new campaign to show Domino’s support of startups. The company has also announced that they are giving 30 startups $500 pizzavestments, $500 gift cards for free pizza. These pizzavestment cards will be delivered in the above pictured pizza box shaped attache case. The company hasn’t announced how to get the pizza cards just yet.

They are also partnering with crowdfunding site, Indiegogo, to give people who support upstart projects free pizza as well, reports creativity-online.

Watch the new TV spot below and as soon as we find out how to enter to get that pizzavestment, we’ll pass it on!

Coca-Cola Changing The World, Not Just Making Sugar Water, With 9 Accelerators

I was one of the first people to see the Jobs movie at an early showing on Thursday evening. One of the big highlight scenes in the movie is when John Sculley recounted the conversation he and Steve Jobs had in New York when Jobs went to recruit the then President of Pepsico to become the CEO of Apple. Jobs once considered it to be the worst move of his career (or at least that’s what the movie and Walter Isaacson’s book suggest). In that conversation Jobs reportedly asked Sculley if he wanted to sell sugar water the rest of his life, or if he wanted to change the world.

Well it looks like Coca-Cola isn’t content on just selling sugar water either. Coke has made another global move towards innovatino by supporting startups with nine global accelerators. The company made a bold show of support for startups back in April when it was announced that they were a large corporate sponsor of Startup Weekend and now UpGlobal.

VentureVillage reported on Thursday that Coca-Cola has already started accelerator programs in San Fancisco and Sydney. They also just recently kicked off a program in Mexico City, with Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, Bangalore, Berlin, Singapore, and Istanbul all on tap as well.

Coke isn’t looking for the next wild flavor or even a revamp of its bottles or cans. They are looking for innovation in distribution and well being. Coca Cola’s global Vice President of Innovation David Butler gave a presentation in early August in Sydney outlining the programs.

“About a year and a half ago, the company stepped back and said – what are we not doing in terms of innovation?” Butler explained. “You can get lost in that word but essentially what we came down to is that there was a lot going on in this ecosystem, this community, that we weren’t part of…”

As to what Coca-Cola is looking for, Butler said it was up to the individual programs across the globe. When asked by an audience member; “So it could be as broad as a Coke-branded wearable device that helps you be healthy or it could be, actually Coke will do your deliveries for you?” one audience member asked.

Exactly, Butler replied. “Those are two ideas we’re working on right now.”

Venture Village also reports that this isn’t Coca-Cola’s first shot at startups and accelerators. In 2001 they formed a startup incubator in their hometown of Atlanta, Georgia, that offered $250,000 in seed capital for up to 12% equity. Bloomberg reports that the program eventually fizzed out for unknown reasons.

Check out Coca Cola’s “Innovation Stories” blog here.

CincyTech Closes Biggest Fund To Date

CincyTech, the public/private partnership, seed stage investor, and pillar of the Cincinnati startup community, has reportedly raised it’s largest fund to date. Earlier this month The Cincinnati Business Courier reported that CincyTech has closed on a $10.8 million dollar fund.

CincyTech Fund III, LLC combines a $5 million Ohio Third Frontier investment with $5.9 million raised by CincyTech from Southwest Ohio partners.

Like CincyTech Funds I and II LLC, Fund III will invest in companies focused on information technology and bioscience that are based in or willing to move to Southwest Ohio. The fund has the capacity to invest in at least 15 companies.

“Over the last five years there has been a significant increase in seed stage investment activity in the Cincinnati region. CincyTech Fund III will enable us to continue to invest in entrepreneurs in Southwest Ohio to create jobs and wealth to propel our region forward,” said Bob Coy, president of CincyTech.

CincyTech has a variety of investors that have participated in Fund III, including eight local institutions and 51 individual investors.

“The number of individual investors in Fund III represents a dramatic increase from the nine individual investors in Fund II. These individuals are the foundation of the larger seed stage investment syndicates that we organize for our portfolio companies. Based upon our past investment experience, for every dollar invested in a startup from Fund III, an additional $3 will be invested by other investors in the seed round prior to an investment by an institutional venture capital fund,” said Coy.

Local institutions that have committed to invest in Fund III include Castellini Foundation, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, The Christ Hospital, The Greater Cincinnati Foundation, and the Health Foundation of Greater Cincinnati.

CincyTech has invested in $15.3 million dollars in 43 portfolio companies, including ChoreMonster, Impulcity, Lisnr, VenturePax, Ahalogy and many more.

Speaking of Cincinnati, this huge national conference for startups everywhere else is in Cincinnati Sep 29- October 1.