Boulder Startup Mobiplug Gets $2.7M Series A Putting Home Control In Your iPhone

When a startup lands itself in the Boulder flagship Techstars program and then catches the eye of startup evangelist and venture capitalist Brad Feld it’s typically a recipe for greatness. Just check out how well Orbotix, the creators of the “Sphero Ball” have done since their time at Techstars.

Another recent Techstars Boulder graduate is following in the robotic balls footsteps by landing an impressive Series A round and a top level executive. Mobiplug, a company that brings home monitoring, control and automation to the palm of your hand via an iOS app, just landed the capital it needs to accelerate development. They also landed the leader they need to take the startup to the next level.

Feld’s Foundry Group led the $2.7 million dollar round. TechCrunch reports that Bullet Time Ventures, SK Ventures, Social Leverage, and Clarion Direct Investment, among others, participated in the round as well.

Mobiplug also announced that serial entrepreneur Tim Enwall, most recently CEO of Tendril, is now at the helm at Mobiplug.

Mobiplug consists of a small black box, that serves as a control hub, and an iOS app. Through the combination of the hub and the app, the user/home owner, can control everything from the lights, to the thermostat, electrical outlets, sprinklers and more. This can be done in the home or remotely, providing an extra element of security to the user’s home.

New CEO Enwall said in a statement:

“Getting wirelessly-enabled household items like locks, thermostats, lights, outlets and shades made by different manufacturers and based on different protocols to talk to each other is an enormous problem to solve, which is keeping this market from exploding. We’re fixing that.”

The Foundry Group’s Ryan McIntyre is joining Mobiplug’s board of directors. He also served as Mobiplug’s mentor during the Techstars program.

“I was really impressed by the co-founders and their ability to solve the thorny technical and interoperability problems that are currently holding back the home monitoring and control and Internet of Things (IoT) industry from mass adoption,” McIntyre said in a statement. “And when Tim Enwall decided to join Mobiplug, we felt confident that the addition of his experience and leadership to this already talented core team could really disrupt the market and lead this growing space.”

Linkage:

Source: TechCrunch, DailyCamera

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Israeli Startup Walkme Raises $5.5 Million

Less than two weeks ago we brought you an interview with Israeli startup Walkme. Walkme is the easiest way for companies, startups and anyone on the web to create walk-thru’s for your readers and end users.

No matter how easy or complex your task is, WalkMe wants to provide you with the tool to create an easy step-by-step “Walk thru” guide to everything. Walkme is a simple to use plugin.

Once you have it installed you just move about your screen in the natural steps it takes to do whatever process you want to teach. As you begin to complete each step you write what the step is, how to do it and add your text balloon and move on to the next step. You can easily create “walk thru” instructions while you’re creating your WalkMe walk thru. Anything from how to complete an order, to how to change your password, can easily be explained using Walkme. If you want to show someone an easy to use trick on your own website, you can create a WalkMe “walk thru”.

Basically if you can do the task you want to teach, and if you can use a mouse, than you’re in business.

Walkme’s $5.5 million dollar series B round was led by Gemini Israeli Ventures. Mangrove Capital Partners and Giza Venture Capital also participated. Mangrove Capital Partners provided an undisclosed amount of capital back in April for Walkme.

“Using online services is a necessity for everyone. However, businesses are struggling with ineffective and costly solutions to make sure their users are able to use their offerings,” said Eran Wagner, General Partner at Gemini Israel Ventures. “WalkMe is a disruptive system that can fundamentally change the way online services engage with their users online. WalkMe’s ability to increase visitor clarity, satisfaction and conversion while dramatically reducing help-desk costs, makes it a no-brainer for a business of any size. We look forward to seeing WalkMe maintain its explosive growth and become an industry standard for guidance by replacing video-tutorials and help sections on websites – just as GPS systems have become a standard replacement for maps.”

Dan Adika, CEO of WalkMe, said, “the demand for our online guidance solution is growing exponentially and we sought funding to support this growth. We now have thousands of registered businesses that are utilizing WalkMe’s revolutionary technology to better guide their users online. With this round, we’ve found investors who shared our vision of creating a company that changes the way people use the web.”

Linkage:

Check out Walkme here

Here’s our interview with Walkme

Source: GigaOM

You’ve got your ticket right?

Philadelphia The Founder City, To Invest $3.5 Million In Startups

Philadelphia Mayor Michael A Nutter announced today that the city of Philadelphia and the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation has created a joint two-tiered investment and grant making initiative called “Startup PHL”. Philadelphia is looking to spur more innovation and encourage startups to move to the city of brotherly love.

In a video Nutter talks about Philadelphia being home to the most important startup of all , the United States of America. Now 200 years later Nutter is looking to attract more founders to the city.

To do this Philadelphia is issuing an RFP for a private investment firm to match and manage a $3 million dollar investment from the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation to establish the Startup PHL Seed Fund. The RFP deadline is December 7th. Those startups receiving investment from the Startup PHL seed fund will either need to be in Philadelphia or relocate to Philadelphia to meet a yet to be established residency requirement.

The other $500,000 will come in the form of grants. For that, the City’s commerce department has put out a call for ideas. They’re looking for “innovative, exciting proposals for ideas and programs that support startups and entrepreneurs of all stripes in Philadelphia” In a release they said: “the goal of this fund is to make grants to proposals that enhance collaboration in the startup community; attract new entrepreneurs from both within and outside the city; foster networks for entrepreneurs to collaborate with each other, mentors, talent and investors and ultimately lead to more business and job creation in Philadelphia.”

In the government/private partnership for the Startup PHL seed fund the private firm will handle all of the investment decisions. Longtime Nutter aide Luke Butler says he hopes that the seed fund will start making it’s first investments as early as summer 2013.

It’s obvious that this is a “startup community” initiative as much as it is a technology investment initiative. It’s evident that Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh’s “Return of Community” is starting to pop up in other cities.

“We have broader goals than a return on investment, but we’re hoping to leverage a relatively small public investment that generates more private capital that highlights this important sector and conveys momentum here,” Butler said. “The tech sector is an important part of our economy in that it’s going to be a driver of job creation and is [a way of] keeping college grads here,”

New York, Boston, Austin, Seattle and Baltimore all have government/private partnerships in one form or another to drive early stage investments in startups and keep them in their cities. Las Vegas has a $350 million dollar private initiative from Hsieh to revitalize the downtown area through startups, tech, education and real estate to make downtown Las Vegas a more serendipitous place for entrepreneurs and recently relocated Zappos employees.

Local startup investor and supporter Brad Dennenberg of Seed Philly told nibletz in regards to today’s announcement:

“Today’s announcement marks a significant step towards putting Philadelphia’s startup ecosystem on the national map. Philly is now one of just a few cities in the country with city-backed funding, proving the area’s dedication to growing and retaining high growth (and high paying) companies. With the cost of launching a minimum viable product now lower than ever before, this fund should make a significant impact in a short period of time. I couldn’t be more excited! “

While technology is typically the focus in startup initiatives like this Butler says they want to hear everything.

“If you have an idea, an organization or individual, that supports growing business, jobs in the city, we want to hear it, whatever it is,” he added Technically Philly Reported.

Linkage:

Startup PHL is here

Startup PHL’s call for ideas is here

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New York TechStars Startup Condition One Raises $2.35M From Mark Cuban And More

New York Techstars alum Condition One has just closed a seed round at $2.35 million. The round was led by Dallas Maverick’s owner and billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban as well as Manilla CEO George Kilavkoff and more. Cuban initially invested $500,000 in the immersive video startup earlier this summer.

Academy award nominated photographer and videographer Danfung Dennis has seen his work in Newsweek and the New York Times. He’s been hailed for shooting some of the best war footage ever seen. That’s in part because Dennis has found a new way to capture more of what we see in video.

Humans actually see a wide range of things in their peripheral vision and then adjust based on what’s interesting in their range of vision. Video isn’t that way. Video can actually see what’s shot straight on, but then, because of the way us humans see, it doesn’t feel as natural.

Dennis has created Condition One to capture and share things that typical video misses and includes a 180 field of vision. Condition One is software that takes that warped 180 degree footage shot with a fisheye lens and then translates it back into a clear flat image that we see. It’s somewhat like the Lytro that lets you shoot out of focus photos now and focuses them in later.

Even with Shark Tank, people know that Mark Cuban isn’t typically an investor at seed stages of the game. However, in addition to the Maverick’s Cuban’s other large business is HDTV which was just rebranded as AXS TV. This is where Condition One makes a lot of sense. Cuban’s AXS TV is known for it’s live concerts and events. Condition One’s technology is perfect for capturing events and putting them into a better viewing perspective.

“Our technology is going to enable some amazing new concert experiences where the user can pan back and forth between the stage and the crowd, between the drummer and guitarist, or between the action onstage and what’s going on backstage,” Condition One COO Andrew Chang told The Verge.

Condition One allows viewers to take videos of concerts, and sporting events and then pan back to the action that they really want to see, bringing into focus the parts that are most important to them.

“My work has been an evolution from still images to video and now into immersive experiences,” said Dennis. “Yet, I’m still motivated by the same idea: that the future of storytelling will be driven by technology.”

Linkage:

Check out Condition One here

Source: TC Verge

Huh a Startup Conference where we can exhibit for less than $400?

Fair & Square How To Divide Equity In A Startup (Guest Post)

How to Use a Dynamic Equity Split Program in Your Start-up

You and a partner start a company and split the equity 50/50. You do all the work and your partner flakes out. He owns half your company and wants to keep it. Now what?

This is called a fixed equity split program and it is the most common method of splitting up equity among founders. However this painful situation is very common. It is virtually impossible to design a fixed split equity program that doesn’t cause problems. A dynamic equity split program, on the other hand, provides most fair way to divide up shares in a start-up company among founders, early employees, partners and anyone else that deserves a slice of the pie. It will allow you to determine exactly the right number of shares each person deserves based on (and here is the key) the relative value of their individual inputs.

In a dynamic equity model the founder or founders who provide 90% of the great ideas, early seed money, sweat equity and other resources will wind up with 90% of the reward and the junior developer who provides only 2% of the great ideas, early seed money, sweat equity and other resources relative to the founders will receive 2% of the reward. This is how it should be; anyone who thinks differently is probably someone who wants more than their fair share.

The book, Slicing Pie: Funding Your Company Without Funds, is essentially a user guide to dynamic equity splits for entrepreneurs. It provides detailed instructions on making one work. However, here is the nutshell version of how a dynamic equity spilt model works:

Step One: Have (or be) a trustworthy leader

Only join a start-up company where you can trust the other people, especially the leader. The leader will control 100% of the equity while a dynamic model is being used. This means that an unscrupulous leader can take advantage of everyone. The leader is responsible for tracking the shares and keeping things fair. He or she will provide the appropriate cap table to the lawyers who create the formal equity agreement when the time is right. The right time to issue the equity is when the company shows real, actual, concrete evidence of value.

The leader will also make sure that when a person leaves they are treated fairly. I’ve posted a summary of how to treat people fairly when they leave a company on my blog at SlicingPie.com.

Step Two: Assign values to the various inputs provided by each participant relative to other inputs

A relative value is not the same thing as an actual value. Actual values in a pre-money start-up company are pretty much impossible to determine. Relative values are much easier to calculate and much more meaningful. The key is to set a relative value that is fair given someone’s background, experience and job responsibilities. For instance, the sweat of an experienced CEO with a couple of homeruns under her belt is relatively more valuable than that of an entry-level graphic designer. However, two founders with similar skill-levels may have a similar value to the firm.

When it comes to the value of someone’s time the relative value should not only take into account their skills and experience, but also the requirements of the job. You should be sure to subtract any current compensation the person receives in cash. Equity compensation is provided in exchange for what people put at risk in a new company. If you pay them a fair salary you shouldn’t have to give them any equity because they aren’t risking anything.

Time isn’t the only input an individual can provide. Other inputs include cash, loans, ideas, intellectual property, important resources (like equipment and supplies), strategic relationships and even things like office space. Nearly everything in a start-up company that can’t be bought with cash (if you don’t have it) can be acquired with equity. A dynamic model will tell you exactly how much each is worth relative to other inputs. Everything has a relative value that is fair to the provider and the other participants. Over time these relative values really add up. I’ve posted a summary of how to calculate relative values on my blog at SlicingPie.com.

Step Three: Calculate shares by dividing an individual’s contribution to the company by the total contribution (individual value ÷ total = shares %)

This will give you exactly the percentage of equity a person deserves. No more and no less. I call the total contributions to the firm a “Theoretical Base Value” or TBV. It’s theoretical because it’s not real. It simply adds up the values of the inputs based on the value you assigned in step two. So, you may determine that a founder is “worth” $200 per hour. But, if he works 1,000 hours the company may not actually be worth $200,000 more. I hope it’s worth a lot more than that, but the point is that the value of inputs are only important as a relative measure. I’ve posted a calculator spreadsheet on my blog at SlicingPie.com to help keep track.

This means that over time the potential equity split will change depending on what someone contributes. This is why it’s called a dynamic split. When you get a major investor or start generating enough cash flow to pay people you can calculate the equity, issue official shares, sign a shareholders agreement and be on your way. So, the sooner you raise money or the sooner you make money the sooner you can “lock in” the equity.

Dynamic equity splits make no assumptions about the future value of a company. It doesn’t matter what the future value will be. All that matters is that when you actually create future value everyone who risked something to help you get there should get their fair share of what’s created. Only a dynamic equity split can achieve this. Only a dynamic equity split provides a framework of fairness and respect for all participants. All other methods are prone to failure in their ability to treat people fairly. When I say “all others” I mean all others and “others” is what is commonly used today. That means the model you used or are planning to use in your start up is putting you and your team at risk of unfair equity allocation.

Sorry!

Dynamic equity splits are very uncommon, however, because the process isn’t well understood. Additionally, the dynamic nature of the split scares people who want to grab the biggest possible piece for themselves. Even the founder who errs on the side of generosity will ultimately fail because they, themselves, will be treated unfairly.

I’m on a personal mission to make sure that every entrepreneur on the planet understands dynamic equity models before they make the horrible mistake of using a traditional fixed model. Too many start- up companies are destroyed due to conflicts that arise when people on the team are treated unfairly. The dynamic model can accommodate all possible outcomes in a way that motivates and inspires a person who is treated with fairness.

To learn more about dynamic equity models visit my blog at SlicingPie.com and buy my book, Slicing Pie. If you can’t afford it let me know and I’ll give you a copy!

Mike Moyer is the author of “Slicing Pie: Funding Your Company Without Funds”

Linkage:

Moyer’s Blog

Get the Book “Slicing Pie: Funding Your Company Without Funds” here at Amazon

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Vegas Tech Fund Startup Romotive Lands $5 Million Dollar Round, Prepares 3rd Generation Robot

Many of you are familiar with the story of Romotive. This was the company that was building iPhone controlled robots in a mini assembly line in the founders’ apartment at the Ogden in Las Vegas. Of course if you’re familiar with Tony Hsieh’s Downtown Project or the Vegas Tech Fund you know that the Ogden building is entrepreneur and founder central.

Romotive has been making all the right moves. In the summer of 2011 the then three person company participated in the TechStars Seattle cohort. After that they launched a Kickstarter campaign to get their robots into the hands of backers.

It was that Kickstarter campaign that caught Hsieh’s eye. The story goes that Hsieh received the weekly email from Kickstarter highlighting some of the projects raising money at the time and Romotive was one of them. Hsieh reportedly liked their three minute video and actually knew a friend of theirs who was staying on his couch.

Hsieh is big on referrals in fact you can’t get a meeting with Hsieh or the Vegas Tech Fund without having a referral from inside the network. But like other tight knit organizations, once you’re in you’re in.

After Hsieh participated in a $1.5 million dollar round in December of last year the team relocated to their current home at the Ogden building. Business Insider reports that the team has grown to 18 and they are all living, playing and building robots together.

That’s all going to change now though as Romotive has just closed a $5 million dollar Series-A round. With that round the company plans on adding a few more employees and shifting production to a factory in China. According to Geekwire, the round was led by Sequoia Capita with CrunchFund and SV Angels participating among others.

On top of the $5 million dollar round Romotive has gone back to Kickstarter to raise another $100,000 from the community. As they report in their Kickstarter pitch they are looking to broaden the robot by creating more apps and the $100,000 will be used to start that development program.

Romotive isn’t the first smartphone controlled robot startup to catch the eyes of David Cohen and the TechStars team. Orbotix, the Boulder based creator of the “Sphero” ball, accelerated at TechStars Boulder and had Brad Feld as one of their main mentors. Feld went on to participate in Orbotix seed round via his Foundry Group. Orbotix has grown up big time as well. They recently announced a partnership for distribution in 1200 Target stores just in time for the holidays.

Linkage:

Philadelphia: First Round Capital Debuts “Dorm Room Fund” For Student Startups

Josh Kopelman is the managing partner at Philadelphia based First Round Capital. While based in Philadelphia, First Round Capital, invests in companies across the country.

Kopelman got his start as an entrepreneur with his company Infonautics which he founded in his dorm room as a junior at Penn. By the time he graduated the company had 20 employees. Kopelman believes that colleges and universities house some of the best ecosystems for innovation.

That’s why he’s started the “Dorm Room Fund”. This new fund is set up to become a fund that is for students, and eventually run by students. While First Round Capital is injecting $500,000 in seed money to the fund, Kopelman is hopeful that the initial first investments will then select the next round, and the next and so on and so forth. Kopelman is looking forward to being an advisor to those companies selected to the fund.

This new student fund will:

1. Be run by a students – not suits. A student investment team would know the entire student and campus ecosystem – allowing them to find, screen and invest in the best ideas

2. Be located on campus, so that it constantly has a feel for the vibe on campus

3. Students are engineers, marketers, financers, writers, doctors, lawyers and researchers… Allow them to focus on investing in companies that disrupt big markets that they (students) have expertise in.

4. Finance students based on their needs. Students are scrappy and often just need that first $10,000 – $20,000 in order to build their product and ship a minimum viable product – let’s call their current stage the dorm room stage…

First Round Capital and Kopelman hope to introduce the Dorm Room Fund in college cities across the country. This first round of investments is concentrated to Philadelphia and students that are either enrolled in, or just recently graduated from Philadelphia area schools like the University of Pennsylvania and Drexel.

Kopelman is currently on the prowl looking for the first 8 students who will serve on the investment committee, which will oversee which student run startups get investments from the fund. If you’re interested in being considered for the investment committee you need to be a student in the Philadelphia area and hit the link below.

Linkage:

Join the committee or submit your startup here

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Interview: Outgrow.me is the Marketplace for Products Successful in Crowdfunding

Outgrow.me is one of those startups that we came across and I immediately thought to myself. They are on to something. What is outgrow.me? Are you familiar with kickstarter or indiegogo – have you heard of projects that have Have you ever wondered what happened to that kickstarter or indiegogo project that you heard about weeks or months ago? Where did project end up? Is it possible to find the High Roller Adult Big Wheel or the Pebble after the hype has died down? What option follows a successful crowdfunding campaign?

Those questions are finally being answered with Outgrow.me. It’s the solution that was just waiting to be created. We talked to Sam Fellig the founder of outgrow me read below.

What is outgrow.me?

“Outgrow.me is an online marketplace for successfully crowdfunded projects.”

In layman’s terms, how does it work?

“Outgrow.me picks up where the crowdfunding platforms leave off. It’s a marketplace for successfully crowdfunded projects from all over the web. Outgrow.me offers product designers the ability to further grow their brand by marketing their products to a growing community of shoppers that support innovation, creativity, and small businesses. On the flip side, Outgrow.me offers shoppers a unique shopping experience filled with highly innovative and creative products supported by the online community.”

Charlotte Startup: Rawporter Raises $300,000 Seed Round With Two Inaugural Investments

We are very excited to report that are good friends, and longtime supporters of Nibletz and our previous ventures, have raised a $300,000 seed round.

Rawporter is a socially driven market place where citizen journalists can post their photos and videos of interesting news events. Rawporter has an e-commerce platform built in where users can sell their pics and videos to news sites, bloggers and even tv stations.

The idea was born when co-founders Kevin Davis and Rob Gaige were eating dinner in Uptown Charlotte. They saw a pretty intense auto accident outside of the restaurant. What they noticed was that all of the people passing by ( including themselves) had snapped some pictures and videos. However by the time the news crews arrived the accident had all but cleared.

Both Davis and Gaige thought that there had to be a way, outside of emailing the photos and videos unsolicited to a news director, to get eyewitness news to the media.

That’s the core to Rawporter now they’ve added social features and more.

Rawporter was able to attract funding from two new funds in their home state of North Carolina. This the first investment by the newly formed IMAF (Inception Micro Angel Fund) Cape Fear and the N.C. Fund of Funds.

Gofman Holdings also participated in the round.

“We formed IMAF Cape Fear to invest in emerging technology businesses. Rawporter is an exciting way for us to take advantage of the photo and video-sharing momentum. Additionally, our expertise in Mobile and eCommerce will better prepare Rawporter for success,” said Dallas Romanowski, Fund Director at IMAF Cape Fear.

As mentioned above, Rawporter is also the first investment by the N.C. Fund of Funds program, a component of the N.C. Small Business Credit Initiative, which was created through federal funding under the Small Business Jobs Act.

“We will be investing in early stage North Carolina companies, like Rawporter, with the potential for exceptional job growth. Our financial support will lead to exciting employment opportunities in the ever-growing North Carolina technology sector,” said Timothy Janke, Director of Private Equity Initiatives for North Carolina’s Small Business & Technology Development Center.

“Although we’re pleased with the progress to date, this funding provides the opportunity to expand faster and introduce functionality our community’s been clamoring for,” said Rawporter Co-founder Kevin Davis.

Linkage:

More coverage of our friends at Rawporter

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Pittsburgh Startup: DuoLingo Raises $15 Million In Latest Round

Pittsburgh startup DuoLingo has just completed their latest round of funding to the best of $15 million dollars, rounding out a great week of funding for startups outside the valley.

DuoLingo isworking on a large scale crowd sourcing platform for language and translation. It was founded by Carnegie Mellon University Assistant Professor of Computer Science, Louis Von Ahn.

If Von Ahn’s name sounds familiar its because he is the same man behind Captcha the extra layer of privacy control used when logging into many websites. Captcha was eventually purchased by Google. Google uses the technology to help prevent computerized logins, but perhaps more importantly to verify addresses for Google Maps.

It’s that large scale verification that has been reworked and made into a platform to grow the largest translation database in the world.

Union Square Ventures and New Enterprise Associates led the $15 million dollar series B round. Back in June we reported that celebrity angel investor Ashton Kutcher had invested $3 million dollars into the company.

Linkage:

Find out more about DuoLingo here

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Birmingham Startup: VIPAAR First To Receive Funds From Central Alabama Angel Network

The Central Alabama Angel Network, formed last February, has found it’s first startup to invest in. The company called VIPAAR works out of Birmingham’s Innovation Depot.

The Birmingham startup is led by CEO Drew Deaton and is based on a technology licensed from the University of Alabama At Birmingham (UAB) School of Medicine. VIPAAR is a telemedicine startup which allows surgeons and others in the OR to communicate with other ORs, galleries or consult.

VIPAAR works with cameras that are extremely light weight but provide great pictures, and also two way audio communication that allows the surgeon to explain whats going on in the camera shot, and if appropriate, answer questions. VIPAAR, and telemedicine for that matter, allow surgeons who often lecture by showing and explaining surgery through video, to actually show surgeries in real time, using VIPAAR and transmitted via the internet, keeping those speaking doctors in the OR for more surgeries.

VIPAAR’s VIP system can be applied in other teaching scenarios as well. The system combines two major parts an image processing server and a video conference unit. In the surgery setting a video image of the surgery site is shown and an image of the surgeons hands is super imposed within the image.

VIPAAR has a variety of uses in the operating room. The system could be used to offer close up teaching videos to students in an observation deck. It could also be used to transmit surgeries from an operating room in Baltimore to a class of students in Los Angeles using high speed internet. The VIP system could even be used in a one on one setting such as a consult or if a surgeon wants a second surgeon at a remote location to sit in on the surgery.

Medcitynews reports that VIPAAR has raised more than half of the $1.2 million dollars they are looking for in this round. It has not been disclosed how much the Central Alabama Angel Network contributed.

Linkage:

Check out VIPAAR here

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New York Robotics Investment Firm Makes First Startup Investment: Double Robotics

A Y-Combinator graduate and California startup, Double Robotics, is the first startup to receive an investment from New York based Grishin Robotics. Grishin was started by Dimitry Grishin who’s been dubbed the “Russian Mark Zuckerberg” by the fine folks at BetaBeat and others.

The investment into Double Robotics marks the first investment made by Grishin Robotics with more on the way. Grishin invested $250,000 into the startup.

Double Robotics has already sold 600 units ($1.2 million) of their first robotic product. The product, called Double, is a robot that puts an iPad on wheels and then gives you a mobile telecommunications device. Think that robot that Sheldon used on Big Bang Theory in the episode where he wanted Steve Wozniak’s autograph, but much more refined.

Grishin’s investment will be spent primarily on scaling, manufacturing and hiring for further development. Double Robotics plans on shipping the 600 pre-orders in the first part of 2013.

“We are thrilled to have Grishin Robotics and Dmitry Grishin, in particular, as our largest investor to date,” said David Cann, Co-founder of Double Robotics. “We read about the new investment firm and Dmitry’s experience in the field of robotics in June 2012 when the fund was announced. The timing was perfect, as we were just beginning the Y Combinator program with our prototype robot. After our public launch in August, we met with Grishin Robotics and were immediately impressed with their mission and deep knowledge of the robotics industry’s past mistakes and potential future. We look forward to working with Grishin Robotics in the years to come as we build our business.”

Grishin is the Chairman of the Board and CEO of Russian firm mail.ru who holds major investments in players like Facebook and Zynga. He became Chairman of mail.ru after global venture capitalist Yuri Milner stepped down. Grishin Robotics is Grishin’s own venture capital firm, which as you can tell from the name, invests in robotics startups.

“Investment in Double Robotics perfectly fits our strategy,” said Dmitry Grishin, founder of Grishin Robotics. “It is a consumer-oriented product with potential to fit a broad range of applications and has already generated strong consumer demand. It’s also important that the price of the product makes it accessible to the wide audience. In addition, the team has creative approach to design and is keen to build user-friendly products — both are very important focus areas for next-generation personal robotics companies. Double Robotics is well positioned to leverage the unique potential of the prominent telepresence robotics market. We have a great belief in Double Robotics team and its product.”

Linkage:

Check out Double Robotics Here

Check out Grishin Robotics Here

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Boston Startup: UberSense Raises $1.1M Seed Round From Google Ventures & More

This week seems to be a good week for fundraising outside of the valley. Tuesday we brought you the story about Philadelphia startup Perceptual Networks and the A-List seed round they recently closed. Today the news comes to us by way of Boston and TechStars Boston 2012 graduate, UbserSense.

UbserSense is a sports app thats designed for athletes and coaches at any level to help the athlete with coaching and training. This can be achieved at anytime and anywhere using UberSense’s signature feature, a mobile video collaboration platform that makes it easy to tape, train, and coach.

Aside from participating in the TechStars Boston 2012 program, UberSense saw a huge uptick when it was discovered that the USA Gymnastics and USA Volleyball teams used UberSense to train for the 2012 Olympic Games.

Using an iPhone or iPad with the Ubersense app, coaches or athletes can video-tape and analyze their technique, compare themselves with pros, track their progress; coaches and peers can provide feedback not only in-person, but remotely.The Ubersense app’s main feature and most powerful asset is its innovative video-based feedback experience, called Uberview. An Uberview can contain a coach’s audio feedback, instructive drawings, alterations to video playback, and even comparisons; all are easily captured into an Uberview video that they can easily be shared with an athlete, parent, or peer in-person or remotely.

While UberSense is a sports coaching app, you can read between the lines and see how the UberView technology could be used for anything from coaching and training soccer techniques, basketball, swimming, track and field, even ballet dancing, and public speaking. The ability to not only train and coach from afar but to do it mobile makes the startup even more attractive.

.“Video feedback is an important tool in skill development”, says Jamie Morrison, Assistant Coach of the USA women’s national volleyball team. “It has allowed us to connect how an athlete feels they are performing a skill with what it actually looks like as well as what it should look like. Through ease of use and a low cost, Ubersense puts that valuable tool into the hands of all coaches, parents and athletes.”

“Ubersense helps you raise your game”, says Krishna Ramchandran, co-founder and CEO of Ubersense. “Our investors have contributed to building some of the most successful consumer companies and we are thrilled to have them on our team as we build out the product and company.”

UberSense has raised $1.1 million dollars from Google Ventures, Atlas Ventures, Boston Seed Capital and an undisclosed group of angel investors.

Linkage:

Check out Ubersense here

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Nashville Startup: Edo Interactive Closes Another $15 Million In Venture Funding

Edo Interactive, a startup headquartered in Nashville TN has just announced another $15 million in venture funding. Silicon Valley based VantagePoint Capital Partners led the latest $15 million dollar round. Baird Ventures also participated. Bair led Edo Interactive’s $20 million dollar round last year and cumulatively Edo Interactive has raised $54 million in venture funding.

So what does this Nashville startup do that’s garnered such huge venture capital investments? They provide a deals service, similar to Groupon, but through banks and retailers vs mom and pop restaurants, coffee shops and other businesses. Retailers pay banks a fee to market deals to their databases of credit and debit cards. This gives Edo Interactives client base a much more lucrative market.

Using Edo Interactive’s proprietary technology bank cards are directly tied to participating retailers cash register systems, delivering an instant rebate right back to the customer utilizing the deal. The retailer can then notify the customer by email, text or voicemail. Chicagobusiness.com reports that Edo has relationships with 140 banks with 150 million card holders. They also work with 5 of the 10 largest credit card providers.

Ed Braswell is the CEO of Edo Interactive which is headquartered in Nashville Tennessee and has an additional 20 employees working in the Chicago area. They employ 75 total right now.

“Payments and advertising are colliding; to stay competitive, banks must deliver value to cardholders that goes beyond the traditional realm of services, while advertisers are searching for solutions to drive customer acquisition, loyalty and return on marketing investment,” CEO Ed Braswell said in the statement. “This latest investment will help Edo expand our market leadership position and scale our advertising content, merchant partnerships and growth within the highly competitive local business market.”

Braswell has said that he hopes to offer 140 million new offers per week by 2013. Crate & Barrel, Nordstrom, Target and Subway are just some of the companies that work with Edo Interactive’s platform.

Linkage:

Check out EdoInteractive here

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