NY Startup: GiftSimple Wins Best Social Startup At NY Tech Day INTERVIEW

New York startup GiftSimple won the Best Social Startup award at the recent New York Tech Day. The woman owned startup is a crowdfunding gift registry startup.

Now, instead of collecting a bunch of regiftable gifts that you either don’t like, won’t wear or are way too small, you can use GiftSimple to tell people what you really want. The best part is, when the item is too much for one person, multiple people can team up to crowd fund that gift.

GiftSimple is fully integrated with Facebook so that you can easily share your gift list and friends can contribute whenever they want. GiftSimple also reminds you of your friends birthdays and easily allows you to see their gift lists as well.

We got a chance to speak with Jess Lachs the founder of  GiftSimple about GiftSimple and winning the “Best Social Startup” at New York Tech Day.

Interview after the break
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Texas Startup Incubator Receives $6 Million And Takes A Name Change

A startup accelerator in Texas has just received a huge cash infusion and changed it’s name to honor it’s donor. Texas Venture Labs at the University of Texas, Austin, has just received $6 million dollars from Texas millionaire entrepreneur Jon Brumley.

Brumley made his fortune in energy, having founded six publicly traded oil and gas companies in the oil rich state of Texas. He also led the merger of Fort Worth Children’s Hospital and Cooks and was the chairman of the Texas state board of education in 1985. In 2005 Forbes named Brumley and his son, Johnny, “Enrepreneurs of the Year”.

“Texas Venture Labs is a gem in the Texas entrepreneurial ecosystem,” Brumley told The Statesman. “It provides critical, hands-on experience for aspiring entrepreneurs who learn as students the effort required to get a new venture through the financing process. For me, this gift is an opportunity to build our capacity to grow the economy of Texas, while giving a leg up to young entrepreneurs.”

Brumley is a University of Texas Alumni. Texas Venture Labs, which is part of the McCombs school of business, hopes to expand the program to other UT campuses with Brumley’s gift.   UT has renamed the accelerator the Jon Brumley Texas Venture Lab.

The announcement comes on the heels of the annual “Global Venture Labs Investment Competition” which was held on the campus this week.

Linkage:


More on The Jon Brumley Texas Venture Lab here at their site

Source: The Statesman

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HealthTech Startup In California Attracts NFL Champion Investors

Former Denver Broncos Terrell Davis and Byron Chamberlain with Credential Protection co-founder Jeffrey Fricher (photo Andrew Foulk for the Californian)

Former Denver Broncos players Terrell Davis and Byron Chamberlain have invested in a health tech startup in Temecula California. The startup called Credential Protection LLC is taking a different stab at the doctor review space.

Credential Protection LLC is using a mix of on the ground, in the office data along with online data to build a more dependable review database for doctors. The Credential Protection system actually begins in the doctors office with surveys given to patients. Doctors can join credential protection in a variety of plans that range from $195 a month for surveys and assessments to $1495 per month for a package that includes overall social media management for the physician.

The need for services like this is what drove Chamberlain and Davis to invest in the company that was founded by Jeffrey Frichner.

As an ex-football player, people want to know where you get the best doctor because they assume we had the best in the NFL,” Davis said to North County Times.

Davis had a stress fracture in his shin, late in his football career that took to long to diagnose. Davis also said that he was looking for a doctor to help him diagnose memory loss, mood swings and headaches, conditions Davis feels may have come from his football playing days. Although he did suggest they just may be from getting older.

“I love the fact that Credential Protection not only protects the doctor, but the public,” Chamberlain said.  Chamberlain had a ruptured tendon in his hand that never quite healed right

More after the break
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India Startup: MyPurpleMartini Is India’s First Nightlife Focused Social Network

While Saarthank Gupta was studying in the UK he found it very easy to go out and have a good time. Every good club, restaurant and bar had a website and there were a few good portals in the UK to tell you what was hot any given night of the week. When he returned to India, that wasn’t the case.

India does have it’s fair share of good night life including clubs, bars, restaurants and social clubs, the problem is Indian business owners were stuck in their ways. Most of the advertising for Indian nightlife was by word of mouth. Word of mouth is good and free but to really drive patrons to your business you need more than that, especially nightlife.

When Gupta first started MyPurpleMartini it was more of an information site with limited interaction. Since September 2011 they’ve pivoted and become much more social.

“I have always been an avid party goer. While I was in the U.K it was very convenient for us to go out partying to a place we liked going to, as everything there was online. It just took a couple of minutes and we knew where we were heading on a particular night. When I came to India, I saw a big gap when it came to information regarding nightlife/ events/ parties. In India, at that point, it was all about word of mouth publicity. To see the response in the Indian Market, we initially started an information based website but with the phenomenal success in its initial phase and seeing the potential for the social media, hospitality and lifestyle space in India, we re-launched MyPurpleMartini as India’s First Social Networking Nightlife & Lifestyle portal in September 2011. The response has been amazing so far and I hope it continues this way,” Gupta told Indian website Yourstory.com

More after the break
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New Orleans Startup: Bioceptive Raises $385,000 For Safer Birth Control

 A New Orleans biotech startup called Bioceptive has just raised $385,000 in seed money today.

The startup, which is based at the New Orleans BioInnovation Center downtown, is developing the idea of a young Tulane graduate which will hopefully lead to safer intrauterine birth control. This type of birth control, called IUD’s, currently requires to use multiple tools to insert the birth control device into a woman’s uterus.

While the procedure is relatively safe and performed thousands of times a day, the more tools involved the more likely there is a risk for puncturing the uterine wall. With Bioceptives insertion method it reduces the number of tools needed to insert the birth control.

The $385,000 in seed money came from private investors, venture capital funds, physicians and Tamara Kreinin. Kreinin is the former executive director of women and population with the United Nations Foundation in Washington DC.

The BioInnovation Center opened last fell. Bioceptive is the latest center tenant to receive funding. The center is an incubator for Biotech startups in the region.

Linkage:

Source: New Orleans City Business

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Startups Cincinnati: UpTech Accelerator Announces Inaugural Class Of 8 Startups

Cincinnati area,  UpTech is a rather new accelerator. It was formed in January of 2012 and they’ve been working diligently over the past 5 months to build their business, their space and solidify their inaugural round of startups. Each of the 8 startups selected will receive an investment of $100,000, along with mentorship, support services and research assistance from Northern Kentucky University.

“We are thrilled to finally announce to our region UpTech’s first round of winners,” said Bill Scheyer, President of Vision 2015 and an UpTech co-founder. “Our ultimate goal is to fund 50 of the best and brightest early-stage informatics companies from the United States and abroad. These eight companies will complement the foundation of a growing informatics cluster in our region, an important business sector in a 21st-century economy.”

The contest was judged by a panel of business analysts, executives and investment experts from companies like CBS, Dell, Proctor & Gamble and more.

Some of the ideas the selected startup companies are working with are untapped markets.

7 Moose games, founded by Brett Carter and Susie D. Roth, specializes in the gamification of complex and sometimes dangerous business training simulations. For example they may produce vide game style training modules for the public safety sector that could include fire safety, or even hostage negotiations. They also have had interest from oil and gas companies that can’t provide real world training on some of the more risky aspects of their industries.

Our goal is to use game engine technology to create extremely effective simulations which illustrate inherently complicated and/or dangerous subjects,” the company said in its UpTech application. “Oil and gas, public service and health, armed forces and game industry professionals are a few examples of the industries which have expressed interest in our products.”

Citilogics, founded by Jim Uber and Stu Hopper, is developing realtime data fusion software for water utilities. Their software will help reduce energy costs, reduce water leakage, improve service reliability and the quality of tap water.

Founder Jim Uber has had twenty years of experience in the water industry including developing water security software and a multi-species water quality simulation package.

“We develop models, analytics and software that help our clients better operate and manage their large-scale urban water infrastructure investments, and deliver a wide range of services from complex engineering and data analyses, to full functional software custom software solutions,” the company said in its UpTech application. “Our current focus is data fusion software that will revolutionize efficiency and effectiveness in the water industry by reducing energy costs, controlling leakage, improving service reliability and enhancing water quality.”

More after the break
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Kansas City Startup: Cognovant Raises $500k For mPHR Pocket Health

A Kansas City startup called Cognovant launches last summer and has been working on a new, easy to use mPHR (mobile personal health record) application. Their application, called PocketHealth, is actually a suite of applications and is cross platform. The company has been saying for months that they will be launching on iOS and Android this month.

With the news that they just raised a $500,000 seed round, they should be that much closer to reaching their deadline.

Cognovant’s PocketHealth, will be free for individual users to download and use. The app captures data and allows users to manage their wellness. It’s built under the stringent medical industry standards. Cognovant has said that the application is based on international data standards and has the same foundation as a full electronic medical record.

Cognovant CEO, Dr. Joe Ketcherside, confirmed to SiliconPrairie today that they are still on track for a  launch in about two weeks after final testing is complete.

Beyond the base, free app, users will be able to download a multi-user “family” version which will give users the ability to manage multiple health records. They will also have an upgrade called PocketHealth PHR which will allow users to manage more complex health issues.

More after the break
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Two Startup Founders Selected To Attend The Kentucky Derby With Scott Case

Scott Case, Startup America, Kentucky Derby, Nibletz, Contest

Two lucky startup founders will join Startup America CEO Scott Case this weekend for the Kentucky Derby

The Startup America partnership recently held a video pitch challenge contest where member company founders could pitch for their chance to win a trip to the world famous Kentucky Derby. The derby is this weekend in Louisville Kentucky and kicks off the coveted Triple Crown of horse racing.

Once in Kentucky the two winners will enjoy spending time with the startup world’s most traveled man, Startup America CEO Scott Case. Ralph Acosta the founder of LA based SkuRun and Andrew Sell, the founder of Ocean NJ based HipCycle were chosen as the winners.

SkuRun delivers sales and marketing content to road warriors in real time. HipCycle offers upcycled home furnishings.

The tickets to the derby were provided by Nucleus: Kentucky’s Life Science and Innovation Center.

In addition to spending time with Scott Case, who was the founding CTO of Priceline.com, they will also spend some time with the Mayor of Louisville, Greg Fischer. The two winners will also participate in mentoring time with leading entrepreneurs.

The Startup America Partnership is an initiative of the Obama administration. They just recently added their 20th region. Startup Kentucky is just two weeks old. The most recent launch was  Startup Indiana, last week.

Nibletz.com is a proud member of Startup America

Linkage:

For more information on Startup America visit here

Source: Bizjournals.com

Nibletz is the voice of startups “everywhere else” get your startup featured email us here

We’re on a nationwide sneaker-strapped startup road show, for more on that and to help click here


Florida Startup: LokalMuzik Proximity Based Local Music Aggregator INTERVIEW

A Jacksonville entrepreneur, Jason Belanger, has just launched a new mobile app for discovering new local music by proximity to your device. The app called LokalMusik is available for Android phones in the Google Play store.

Basically you open up the app and based on your GPS coordinates you can find new music and artists of multiple genres. New unsigned artists create profile pages which allow you to learn more about them, hear their music, even find out when and where they are playing next.

This is great for people who love to find new music and artists a lot or even if you want to keep up with your local music scene. Since the app is proximity based, if you’re in New Orleans you’re going to get an entire different set of artists then you would n New York, LA or even Florida.

Now if you’re attending a big music festival like SXSW, the New Orleans Jazz Festival, or even Bonaroo you can check out the national acts coming to the stages and the home brewed talent in whichever genre you like. Whether you want to support up and coming hip hop artists or a local string quartet LokalMuzik will offer it all.

More after the break
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L.A. Startup: BuzzMob Is First Company In MWW Ventures

MWW is one of the largest PR firms in the country with a global presence. Their client list includes some of the top tier companies in their industries. Nikon and Samsung Mobile are both represented by MWW among a long list of familiar brands.

MWW just announced a new venture capital project spearheaded by their global head of technology and digital content, Ephraim Cohen. MWW ventures is incubating startups that advance media, marketing and public relations industries by investing firm resources in exchange for equity.

Cohen told Nibletz.com that MWW Ventures was developed by he and MWW Group CEO Michael Kempner who is a serial entrepreneur. With the verticals that the MWW Group is involved with Cohen says they come across great startups all the time. With MWW Ventures, the MWW Group will invest and incubate companies that will help them stay on “…the cutting edge of technology”.

Buzzmob, a Los Angeles startup was announced as MWW Ventures first portfolio company last week. Buzzmob is a mobile app for live events that forms location based social networks in real time and on the fly.

More after the break

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California Company Creates New Search Startup Called Gooey Search INTERVIEW

Google is the goto search for most of the people out there on the internet. Sure there is Bing and Yahoo (powered by Bing) that we use occasionally but we tend to default to Google. However, we’ve all noticed as Google grows bigger and bigger, and now especially after the implementation of Google+ in the search results, searching isn’t as accurate as it used to be.

Couple the accuracy issue with privacy concerns, and you may be looking for a new search engine. Privacy is a growing concern for many. While there is a novelty in searching for something and seeing like ads on the side bar, sometimes the ads get in the way and feel downright stalkerish.

All of those reasons are why San Luis Obispo, CA based company Visual Purple is bringing their Gooey Search product to market. GooeySearch is an app that compliments your Google experience.  We got a chance to talk with GooeySearch for an interview here it is:

What is Gooey Search and Visual Purple

“Like most people, Google is our go-to search engine and we love the iPad.” Heinbockel says, “With the exception of PageRank, search has changed little compared to other technologies over the years and has yet to successfully venture beyond 10 blue links. That inspired us to optimize for the iPad our proven, professional-grade search technology for analysts and researchers, GisterPRO. Gooey makes search fun and brings a new dimension of accuracy, privacy, anonymity and content transparency to Google searches. We have set out to make an app for the iPad that will allow you to interact and explore Google results like never before.” The search app is slated to launch December 2012, pending full funding from Kickstarter supporters.

 

David Ostby and Ed Heinbockel were founding figures when Visual Purple. The Company has enjoyed being an industry leader in intelligent training simulations and technologies throughout the Virtual World, Embedded and Decision-Based training sectors. In 2011, Visual Purple publicly introduced GisterPRO, a Cloud-Powered Exploratory Search Tool that delivers precision, high-quality search results while often revealing unanticipated yet highly insightful concepts and relationships. The tool has been in continuous use since Fall 2010.

 More after the break
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Nashville Startup: Taigan Lets You Shop The World From The Comfort Of Your Own Home

The days of wandering the halls of a mall in search for rare shops with cool, exquisite, beautiful things are long gone. It’s rare that you find an independent shop keeper who is willing to put in the overhead it costs to be in the nicer malls typically anchored with a Nordstrom, Neimans, Bloomingdales or Crate and Barrel. Boutique shops can be found on the strips of the more popular touristy towns but more often than not you find yourself paying 2 to 3 times more than you should because of the address.

If you’re one of those people that enjoys shopping boutiques and loves a good treasure hunt at a store off the beaten path, then you need to pay attention to Taigan and how they let you shop the world from your computer chair, or smartphone.

Taigan is like an online mall comprised of boutiques and individually owned shops. Maybe you’ve shopped at a handmade jewelry store nestled into a backstreet in Georgetown. Perhaps you found nice cashmere sweaters and artisan designer clothes at a shop on Main street in middle America. Those kinds of stores and more are curated and then added to the wide array of merchants you can find at Taigan.com

As you will find out in our interview with Taigan’s CEO Elizabeth Nichols, this unique, well curated online community of shops is the brain child of Mary Catherine McLellan and Mark McDonald. Nichols was a hired CEO who had built her own shopping center development company from start to going public. In our interview Nichols highlights how Taigan is uniquely different and an amazing experience.

The other thing that sets Taigan apart from anything even remotely similar is that they vet all of their merchants, you can’t just sign up and have a store front at Taigan.  The Taigan team travels around the country, and the world to see the merchants using their service. If they can’t get to a merchant they require a chance to review the products in hand to make sure that they are good quality and that the merchant isn’t fly by night.

One other thing we will touch on in the interview is how when we began working on this story I noticed that while the items in the merchant stores may be on the high end of the quality scale, the Taigan team isn’t snobby or snooty and just about everyone feels like they belong at Taigan and can find something they like using Taigan.

Interview after the break
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Everywhere Else Beats The Valley In Forbes Top 10 Incubator List

Nibletz is growing a lot faster than we could ever imagine. We thank every one of you that’s come to the site to check out a story, or two, added us to your RSS feed and shared us on social media. Despite the rate we’ve been growing (500% month over month), we still find ourselves explaining “everywhere else” at least once a day.

Nibletz is the voice of startups everywhere else. We’re proud to bring news, interviews, and resources to those startups that are “everywhere else”. Monday Forbes posted their list of the top ten start up incubators across the country. Y-Combinator, in the valley, topped the list with $7.8 billion in value.

If you take a closer look at the Forbes list, you’ll quickly notice, like we did, that the number of incubators “everywhere else” trumped the number of valley based incubators 6-4. In fact TechStars, with offices in Boulder, Boston, New York, Seattle, and San Antonio, came in second place.

TechStars has had 114 companies through the program with 98 still active. TechStars has a franchise model of sorts, and is headquartered in Boulder Colorado. TechStars founder David Cohen has hired directors for each of the other locations. TechStars selects 1% of about 4,000 applications into their program.

More after the break
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Chicago: Daymond John To Speak At Black Enterprise Entrepreneurs Conference May 23-25

FUBU founder and ABC’s Shark Tank, shark and investor, Daymond John will be speaking at the Black Enterprise Entrepreneur’s conference in Chicago later this month. The conference is put on in conjunction with Nationwide insurance and over 1200 entrepreneurs, business owners, startup founders as well  local and national business leaders.

John joins the likes of Gina Neely from Downhome with the Neely’s, Kim Coles, and national radio personality Michael Baisden. There is a complete list available here.

The Black Enterprise Entrepreneurs Conference covers just about every aspect of business life. They are also holding the “Black Enterprise Elevator Pitch Competition”, Small Business Successs Bootcamp, and “Equity Date With An Angel” which John will help kick off.

In addition to running his clothing empire and appearing on Shark Tank, Daymond John is a nationally known and respected speaker on all topics having to do with business, entrepreneurship and startups. He was recently the featured guest in a town hall meeting for high school students studying business across the country. This event was held in a Google Hangout setting, one of the largest Google Hangouts to date. Google hosted John at their New York office so that he could participate in the event.

More after the break
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