Huge Crowdfunding Festival: One Spark Kicks Off In Jacksonville Next Week

The first OneSpark festival will kick off next Wednesday night in Jacksonville Florida, and it’s going to be huge. The festivities kick off at 6pm at Hemming Plaza with an opening ceremony.

The kickoff event will feature party band The Sunbears, free food, drinks and plenty of opportunity to network with creators from all over the world.

Once the event kicks off Jacksonville will turn into one huge in person crowdfunding festival from Wednesday (April 17th) through Sunday (April 21st).

What is a “crowdfunding festival”,

Well think SXSW music and SXSW interactive meet in Jacksonville Florida, where the weather looks to be perfect. Then add creators who’ve created something in either the arts, music, science or technology. Now think Kickstarter and taking those project creators and bringing them into the real world.

This is the first festival of it’s kind. Creators will be staged in venues throughout downtown Jacksonville where attendees will be able to see their creations, ask questions, hear pitches and then decide if they want to crowdfund the creator in person. Talk about eliminating the risks of online crowdfunding.

Event organizer Elton Rivas and the OneSpark committee have wrapped the crowdfunding concept up into a huge event that has three main focus areas:

The creator zone: This is where you can go from venue to venue and see all of the creators and their creations, think gallery hop with some ultra cool new ideas and creativity overflowing like a volcano.

Pitch Decks And Stages: You’ll be able to hear live pitches and keynote speakers throughout the five day festival in these areas.

Entertainment District: here OneSpark will showcase all of what Jacksonville has to offer in the entertainment realm. Party with creators, VIPs, A-listers and jam out to some of the best musical offerings in Jacksonville.

Learn more about OneSpark at beonespark.com

Stay up to date with our OneSpark coverage here.

58% Interested In Startup Equity Investments

Guest post by Andrea with SeedInvest.com

A new study conducted by EarlyIQ, the Crowdfund Professional Association (SeedInvest sits on the Executive Committee) and Crowdfund Capital Advisors has just been released, bringing with it some very encouraging statistics. The first national study of its kind, the study was an online survey of 480 respondents nationwide (with a minimum of $25K annual income), and found that 58% of all respondents indicated a high interest in early stage equity investment.

This figure was obtained by the fact that when asked to indicate their level of interest in equity crowdfunding on a scale of 1 to 10, 58% were in the range of 7 to 10. 22% fell into the 1 to 4 category, which meant little or no intent, 20% chose 5-6, which meant they were unsure. The survey also found that investors were likely to make two to three investments annually, giving on average slightly under $2,000 towards each investment. SeedInvest advisor Jason Best remarked, “The passage of the JOBS Act was a key milestone for democratizing capital in the US. This research demonstrates the broad appeal in middle-America and we believe demonstrates a mandate rollout of equity crowdfunding in the US.”

While we are excited about the public’s enthusiasm towards crowdfunding, perhaps the most important fact to consider from this study is that investment intent quadruples overall when a neutral third party provides review of the management team. When respondents who were likely to invest and had an annual income of over $75,000 were presented with a company of which they had no prior knowledge, 68% said they would invest only with third party information, with a further 16% saying they would invest even if there was third party information of a similar company but none of the target company itself.

Continue reading at Seedinvest.com

Nashville: Jumpstart Foundry Startup, Jamplify, Raises $600K

One of the highlights at the 2012 Jumpstart Foundry Demo Day in Nashville Tennessee last August, was how many startup teams actually had a product ready to go. Jamplify was one of those teams.

Jamplify crowdsources people for promoting the bands, brands and products that they love. Rather than crowdsourcing for actual capital Jamplify is crowdsourcing for social capital and human capital, and then there’s the payoff.

Jamplify is like the kickstarter for fan based, crowd based musical promotion. As a fan of a band or a promotional ambassador you can agree to promote a band or musician. Based on your social graph and the amount of people that you actually touch with the campaigns short, trackable url you will become eligible for prizes from the band or artist you’re promoting.

What’s even cooler is you wouldn’t know it if you saw them pitch, but Jamplify was founded by two friends that met while they were coworkers in New York at Goldman Sachs. Andy Pickens and Moses Soyoola, left one of the most prestigious addresses on Wall Street and spent last summer iterating, developing, pivoting and reworking Jamplify to the product that it is today.

They’ve already started seeing great results. Business Insider reports that Jamplify was able to drive 190,000 views to a 15 year old pop stars YouTube video. What’s even more impressive is those 190,000 views were referred by 670 fans, meaning each fan drove about 280 views.

Their $600,000 round came from a number of unnamed Nashville and New York based investors and will allow the team to continue working on a product that’s been tried,proven and is developing traction.

Here’s their pitch video from the Jumpstart Foundry demo day:

We cover high growth technology in the South and Everywhere Else.

89 Year Old Grandma Reaches Her Kickstarter Goal

Pearl Malkin,Happy Canes, Kickstarter,startups

89 Year Old Pearl Malkin creating one of her “Happy Canes” (photo: CNN)

Kickstarter, the most popular crowdfunding platform in the world, saw $319 million dollars pledged for a wide variety of projects last year. With Kickstarter anyone can get their project funded.

Even 89 year old Pearl Malkin, has successfully had a kickstarter project funded. Her project called “Happy Canes” raised $3,606 from 154 backers, BusinessInsider reported.

While Malkin is a vibrant woman at 89, at one point she was stricken with vertigo which required her to use a cane. She felt that traditional canes were drab and boring and livened her cane up with flowers that she glued to the cane herself.

She decided she would make a go of these canes for others and with the help of her grandson, put on a Kickstarter campaign. “I want to be an example to young and old people that age shouldn’t be a barrier for what you want to do in life,” she said.

Here’s the original video from CNN:

OffBeatr is Kickstarter for Porn, more here

Planning On Crowdfunding Your Startup? DC Startup CrowdCheck Has You Covered [video][sxsw]

Crowdfunding is about to take the world by storm. With the passage of the JOBSact last year, companies will soon be able to crowdfund early stage investment rounds up to $1 million dollars, from anyone with a pulse and an internet connection.

This will make it really easy for early stage investors to get into some great startups, as well as the person down the street who wants to try out investing in startups.

Crowdfunding will also create a huge market for fraud . Last month we reported on Baltimore startup Asurvest, which will provide insurance to those looking to crowdfund startups.

At SXSW we discovered Washington DC startup CrowdCheck. This company plans to do the due diligence for startups that want to be transparent and offer as much information as possible to potential investors. Startups that utilize CrowdCheck’s services will look more appealing to investors because all of the leg work will have been done already.

CrowdCheck will offer a “badge” or “seal” for startups that use their service. This seal will show that the startup has been through the CrowdCheck process and then link to their CrowdCheck portfolio which will have the information that investors want to know, and that most angel investors look for in traditional angel and seed rounds.

Crowdfunding investors will have a better piece of mind about the startups that use CrowdCheck and they will know they aren’t taking part in a fraudulent transaction.

The team behind CrowdCheck has both legal, and securities backgrounds that make them well versed in all kinds of investment deals. Startups that use CrowdCheck will not only have an advantage while crowdfunding, but should they decide to go for a more traditional angel or seed round, most of the paperwork will have already been done.

Check out our interview video below and for more information visit crowdcheck.com

Looking for more on Crowdfunding click here

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AustinPreneur and Angel Investor Jason Cohen On Deal Flow [video][sxsw]

On Friday at SXSW Jason Cohen the founder of WPengine, AustinPreneur and Angel investor sat on a panel with other local Texas angels to talk about angel investing. The standing room only crowd was made up of people who want to be angel investor and of course startup founders who want the inside track on what angel investors look for.

Cohen has invested in several companies and prefers a hands on approach. In the video below he says you can treat angel investing like a numbers game. The more deals you get into, you could sit back and relax and probably see some results. But what Cohen, and good angels do, is help cultivate the companies and the founders.

Angel investing can be a heavy gamble, but with the right angel investors, who are actually interested in helping the startup become successful, there’s a better chance of survival. When an angel investor invests their time and mentoring, even if the first deal is a bust, that founder or that team may have another idea that ends up being “the big one”

Cohen also warns that good angel investors need to have an investment thesis. They need to create a plan for their investment strategy that aligns with the things they know and where the investor can understand the deal, the idea, the team and the potential. Investors should then target deals that fit directly into that thesis.

Angel investors shouldn’t be looking for the get rich quick ticket. “The really hot ones go fast and they’re invisible” Cohen told the audience. He likens that to real estate in Austin and San Francisco. If you want prime real estate you’re buying it from someone already in it.

Check out Cohen’s remarks on video below:

Jason Cohen talks about the value of AngelList in this video from SXSW

Cincinnati Startup Nugg-it Raises $250,000 For Audio Nuggets

A Cincinnati startup called Nugg-it has created a new wearable technology that insures you won’t miss those spoken nuggets of wisdom you or your friends may utter at any moment.

The device, called the Nugg-it is designed to record audio continuously from a wearable device on your wrist. When someone says something note worth you just click a button and it’s automatically saved. These “nuggets” will be uploaded to socia media and preserved to compliment the current methods of social media and make your social media life more immersive.

“When you look at the whole social media landscape and what people are doing, pictures and video are extremely well covered in terms of people creating their own personal content. Audio we see as not well covered, and we felt (nugg-it) had a very good feel for the moments that people want to capture through audio and an intriguing way to do it,” said Douglas Groh, CincyTech’s entrepreneur-in-residence told Cincinnati.com.

Nugg-it raised $100,000 from Cincy Tech and another $150,000 from Design 2 Matter (D2M), the Silicon Valley based company that has developed the product. Nugg-it is hoping to close a $600,000 round in all and it looks like they shouldn’t have any trouble.

Mike Sarow, a former brand manager for Proctor & Gamble and Matthew Dooley, the founder of Dooley Media are the co-founders of Nugg-it.

Find out more at the source

Holy Peaches Atlanta’s Airwatch Raises $200M Series A

Airwatch, a company that has been bootstrapped since 2003, just closed a $200M series A round led by Insight Venture Partners.

The company helps untangle the mess created by companies that are going the BYOD (Bring your own device) to work trend. BYOD is saving companies a lot of money by allowing employees to use their own smartphones, tablets and laptops. The company cuts hardware expenses but headaches for IT departments mount.

Airwatch, offers a device management solution for IT departments that helps companies manage overall compatibility and security within their enterprise.

Business Insider reported that this is the biggest enterprise category funding to date. More at TechCrunch

Quick Tip A Fundraising Dealbreaker: Crazy Cap Table

So your product is out and your starting to get some traction (if you need more traction click here). It’s time to take that idea and go to the next level, but for that you need money.

Fundraising is the hardest part of a startups life. Many startup founders are inexperienced at fundraising, and perhaps the thought in itself is scary. Compound that with the fact that it’s traditionally it’s harder to raise money “everywhere else” and you’ve got the cards stacked against you.

So going forward with fundraising you need to make sure all your ducks are in a row. You want to make sure your deck looks great and your executive summary is clear and concise. You want to have your milestones and victories prominently showed off. You don’t want to waste an investor’s time.

Forbes recently posted some tips on deal breakers for inexperienced entrepreneurs. One of those is having a crazy cap table.

If you’re not familiar with a cap table, no worries, it’s the part of your corporate structure that defines who holds what in terms of equity.

A crazy cap table is a hodgepodge of small investors who may cause potential headaches for management and institutional investors.

How can you fix it?

While you may have given equity to anyone who liked your idea enough to give you a little bit of money, it’s time to start evaluating who gave you what, how much equity you gave them in exchange and what they will bring to your company down the road.

You can approach this and clean up your cap table by buying back your existing stock whenever you can afford it. You can also dilute those equity holders as you raise money. Be very leery of any investor that refuses to get diluted, and/or asks for preferred stock early on.

If you have an investor in your cap table that many not be a recognizable name to your future investors but bring something of real value to your company make sure that’s highlighted in your executive summary.

500 Startups And More Back Philippines Startup Payroll Hero

500 Startups, LX Ventures, the Futura Corporation, 8capita Partners, Ryan Holmes (founder of Hootsuite), Dan Martell (CEO of Clarity), Benjamin Joffee and other angels have all backed Philippines/Canadian startup Payroll Hero to the tune of $1 million.

Payroll Hero was dubbed the IT Startup Of The Year in the Philippines for their back end HR platform that provides payroll, attendance and scheduling services for companies both large and small. Tech In Asia says that the company is software that makes sure “people actually work”.

The company currently has customers in the USA, Philippines, Canada, Cambodia, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, and India. They plan on using part of this investment to expand across South East Asia.

Payroll Hero was one of 16 international startups to participate in Startup Arena, a pitch contest held over the summer. Ben Joffee, who is sometimes referred to as “Mr. Asia” was one of the judges at that contest and then put his money where his mouth is by investing in this round.

More available at the source.

Funding Round Up Everywhere Else: batterii, Bluefields, Nomi, Club W 2/18/13

batterii, Cincinnati OH $2.5 Million

batteri is a “co-creation” social network software platform. They recently raised $2.5 million dollars led by Cincinnati local private/public seed stage investor CincyTech. CincyTech contributed $500,000 to the round which included Los Angeles based investor Ken Salkin, batterii CEO Kevin Cummins and other unlisted individuals. The company reports that they have nearly a dozen clients. TechCrunch noticed that quotes from Nike, Crush Republic and ConAgra Foods were on their site. source TC

Bluefields, London England $1 Million

Bluefields is a social platform and management tool for recreational sports teams. The startup is originally from London and is an alumnus of both Seedcamp and 500 Startups. In addition to this latest one million dollar round, Bluefields just launched out of private beta.

During the private beta, TNW reports that there were over 60,000 sports teams players using the service.

Tony Hsieh’s VegasTechFund, Ballpark Ventures, Venrex, 500 startups and White Star Capital all participated in the round. Elliot Loh, Edward Wray, Christian Hernandez, Alicia Navarro, Chang Ng, Andy McLoughlin, Tim Fong, Richard Fearn, Andreas Koukorinis, Christian Lawless and Nathan Elstub all contributed as individuals. source TNW

Nomi, New York, $3 Million

Nomi is a retail “Experience Economy” startup helping to drive engagement for loyal retail customers, rather than having to race to the bottom in price wars. The company was founded by Marc Ferrentino who was formerly the Chief Technical Architect at SalesForce. Nomi takes relationship lessons borrowed from CRM and implements them in a real time environment that’s crucial to closing sales at retail cash registers.

Philadelphia’s First Round Capital led the $3 million dollar round with participation from Greycroft Partners, SV Angel, Forerunner Ventures, Ralph Mack, Dave Tisch, Andy Dunn (CEO, Bonobos), and Sam Decker (CEO, Mass Relevance and former CMO, Bazaarvoice).

Club W, Los Angeles $3.1M

Los Angeles based Club W claims that they are the “coolest wine club” . They are also the first company to offer a personalized and curated subscription model for wine. Their$3.1 million dollar round follows a $500,000 angel round closed this time last year. L.A’s Crosscut Ventures led the round.

“We look at wine and see a $34 billion annual market ripe for disruption,” says Adam Goldenberg, Venture Partner at Crosscut said in a statement. “Club W has great traction and a solid model. We realize we’re taking a contrarian position on eCommerce given the prevailing attitudes among venture capitalists but we’ll continue to bet on the early movers leading great teams in markets with huge potential.” source: bizjournals.com

DC Startup CrowdCusp Making The Best Of Things Before SEC Regulations

Crowdfunding is a hot topic these days. Hundreds of crowdfunding startups have surfaced over the last few months, patiently waiting as the Securities and Exchange Commission takes their sweet time figuring out regulations.

While crowdfunding is nothing new, the JOBSAct passed last year which will allow people to crowdfund startups for an equity stake without the normal regulations around venture capital and angel investing. Startups will be able to use this form of crowdfunding as a vehicle for up to $1 million dollars in funding, just as soon as the SEC defines the regulations.

This waiting period has put some crowdfunding startups on ice, while others have found ways around regulations without allowing startups to actually give up equity. In some cases prize packs, swag, and other gifts are donated by the company in exchange for someone’s backing. Other times it’s just about feel good donations.

CrowdCusp is a Washington DC based crowdfunding startup that has already started crowdfunding, sans the equity stake.

We got a chance to talk to the team behind CrowdCusp. Check out the interview below.

Powerhouse Team Behind Gui.de Raises $1 Million For Max Headroom Like News Startup

A new startup based in Miami, called Guide, promises to bring technology that will turn online news, social streams and blogs into videos guided by 20 different anchors or avatars. Included in the 20 anchors are a dog, a robot, and anime characters.

These characters will read articles, and present photos and videos like your personal guide to the content you’re looking at. The animated characters are the driving force behind the technology. If you’re thinking this sounds rather silly, well think again, as Guide has already raised $1 million dollars in funding from some credible heavy hitters in the video and entertainment industries.

The Knight Foundation, Sapient Corp, Bob Pittman (MTV founder), and Google’s employee 13, Steve Schimmel.

The Gui.de team is headed by Freddie Laker a former executive at Sapient with who’s been dabbling in startups for some time. Leslie Bradshaw, the company’s Chief Operating Officer, has a rock solid resume including being named one of the top five female executives in the technology industry by Fast Company magazine. Bradshaw was listed alongside Cher Wang of HTC, Marissa Mayer of Google and Mary Meeker of KPCB.

The demo on the gui.de website looks like they paired Siri up with some video animation and use her to read the news. The technology may not quite be there yet, but with the team they have in place they should be able to put something spectacular together.

Gui.de is headed to SXSW to debut their product and strike up some buzz at the conference that’s known as the launch pad for Twitter, FourSquare, Zaarly, Ban.jo and more.

Find out more here.

Crowdfunding Insurance Coming By Way Of Baltimore Startup Asurvest

Clarence Wooten, a Baltimore native,who was the co-founder of ImageCafe, a startup sold during the dot com boom to Network Solutions/Verisign for $23 million, has backed a new startup called Asurvest in Baltimore. While Wooten has moved out west to Silicon Valley, he’s betting on a hometown company that plans on offering insurance to people investing via crowdfunding sites.

Crowdfunding legislation was passed last year, however it’s not expected to fully roll out nationally until early 2014, while the SEC establishes guidelines for the vehicle that will allow anyone to help back startups through their first million.

Asurvest was founded last month. They will provide insurance for private and professional investors using sites like Kickstarter, Fundable and Gofunding, according to bmoremedia

“These groups are highly visible. They attract investors. They have strong business models,” Asurvest CEO Luke Cooper told bmore . “We are in an incremental improvement mode,”.

Asurvest is looking to provide assurance for those investing even $1500 – $2000.

Crowdfunding for startups works much like it does for supporting artists and products on the popular Kickstarter platform which saw $319 million dollars pledged last year.

Federal regulators are still sorting out how crowdfunding will work. After that, it will be turned over to state governments. Cooper is currently working with the state of Maine to draft legislation. After that they will move on to Maryland and expand where they see the most need.

Source: bmoremedia

Be sure to check out the crowdfunding panel at the largest startup conference in the US, everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference