Startups Archives - Page 137 of 144

With $17 Million In New Funds Hailo May Make It To U.S. Before Uber Gets To London

Private car service app Uber has taken the U.S. by storm in the select markets they are doing business in. You simply download the app and have a car come and get you (in select markets). Across the pond in London there’s another company operating in both London and Dublin, doing the same thing with taxicabs.

We profiled Hailo a few weeks back. The startup came about from three taxi drivers as a way to provide more fares and make the taxi experience in the UK more social. Long gone are the days where a taxi driver needs to wait all day at a cab stand or a passenger needs to stand on the street corner to wave somebody down.

With Hailo (like Uber) a few taps of an app and your taxicab is on the way. They also allow you to pay through the app with a credit or debit card and of course you can pay the cab driver with cash. They’ll also hold the meter off for five minutes.

Hailo has already seen 200,000 downloads from consumers in London and over 3200 taxi drivers have downloaded it. Hailo has about 1700 cabs using the app for fares.

TechCrunch reported yesterday that Hailo had raised $17 million in a series A round led by Accel Partners. The company is looking to bring Chicago, Boston, Washington DC, and New York on rather quickly. Hailo’s CEO Jay Bregman does realize that it will be a hurdle to get over New Yorks stringent taxicab regulations.

As with their London market, Hailo isn’t looking to provide cabbies with full time work but rather supplement their normal amount of fares with extra fares. Hailo has also enlisted the help of drivers that are using the app to take on management roles within the cities they service.

American rival Uber just finished a $32 million dollar round of financing and said that they hope to be operational in London before this summer’s Olympics. The main difference between Uber and Hailo is that Uber uses private car companies while Hailo is striving by working with actual cabs ,a move that could potentially make customers feel safer and more comfortable with the transaction.

source: TC

Event: TechCocktail & Perkins Coie Present develop.idaho 2012

Entrepreneurs, software folks, and tech startups in Boise Idaho take note that this coming Tuesday TechCocktail and global legal giant Perkins Coie are presenting develop.iadho2012.

The event is a half day event highlighting software innovations and technology in the blossoming tech scene in Boise Idaho. The theme for the event is called “Software: Imagine The Possibilities”.

Speakers include Ken Schwaber, co-developer of the Agile Scrum process and founder of the Scrum Alliance, along with several other local entrepreneurs and visionaries who will provide their insights on the local software community, success stories about their companies and trends affecting the software industry.

The event will also feature an expo style showcase for startups and tech innovators. For more information or to register visit this site.

Google Opening Startup Tech Center In London

We love reporting about Great Britain’s thriving tech scene. We’ve recently reported on Hailo, a taxicab app that could put the squeeze on any potential plans for Uber in the home of the 2012 summer Olympics. We also reported on Culture Label an upscale mesh between Etsy, and Amazon offering access to the world’s finest museum shops and more. DeadSoci.al is also one of our favorite startups in the UK targeting, tackling the issue of mortality and making it more social.

London is heating up as one of Euope’s hot tech epicenters and Google will be there in full force. Bloomberg reported today. The tech center model Google is building rivals that of American centers popping up all over the place. Shared work spaces, access to high speed internet, conference rooms, mentorship and collaboration are all things that will be offered in the London venture, as portfolio.com says is in one of Europe’s “hottest zipcodes for technology”.

Google’s new startup tech center will be close to Amazon’s new tech center, both on London’s east end.

source: Portfolio.com

Chicago Startup TechMoola Helping Startups Make Money And Loving The Chicago Tech Scene.

The house music capital of the USA is about to become the capital of startups in the USA if these Chicago based entrepreneurs have anything to do with it. You may recall a couple weeks back Pando Daily sent a young reporter to Chicago who reported back that there was nothing to report here. Pando Daily’s Trevor Gilbert could not have been more off base.

We’ve already shared a few great startups out of Chicago with KlutchClub and Planfast, today we’re talking the important stuff, TechMoola. Everyone needs money and TechMoola has a startup that is a platform for other startups to make money. Co-Founders Solomon Nabatiyan and Tom Kelly are gearing the TechMoola platform exclusively to technology based startups.

We got a chance to talk with Nabatiyan who loves the city of Chicago as much (if not more than) Patrick Stump.

1. What is Techmoola

TechMoola.com is an online platform for tech entrepreneurs and startup companies to do project fundraising in the technology space. TechMoola enables inventors/entrepreneurs to raise project funding and build a support/partnership/customer base through an online forum.

Unlike Kickstarter and other sites which feature “technology” but actually host artistic venture or design projects/products that mainly are additio

2. Who are the founders, what did they do before this

Solomon Nabatiyan is a research professor in the biomedical sciences at Northwestern University, Evanston as well as the founder and CEO of a Chicago-based biotech company, Cervia Diagnostic Innovations, a social venture company that focuses on cervical cancer technologies for use in the developing world. His research work centers on the development of a new generation of HIV and cancer diagnostics to improve the quality of care and access to those who need it most.

Tom Kelly is a serial entrepreneur and digital guru in the Chicago area with an interest in web technologies that empower people and have a social impact. Among his many startups, CharityAuctionsToday.com has proven his most successful. He continues to bring innovation to how people can use the web to make the world around them a more sustainable and awesome place.

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Founders Card, Entrepreneur’s Card Now At 5,000 Members

Two year old Founder’s Card is now 5,000 members strong. The exclusive discount card, geared towards founders and entrepreneurs was started by Eric Kuhn two years ago. Members of the card pay a $495 registration fee and a $60 start up fee to become part of an exclusive club.

While there’s no secret club house in the woods or a secret decoder ring, FoundersCard members enjoy substantial discounts at businesses they typically need like Apple, Virgin Atlantic and several 4 and 5 start hotels.

FoundersCard also gives members access to exclusive members only networking events and cardholders are a who’s who of the rich and powerful in the tech, startup and VC crowd. Having the card is definitely “in”.

Although the baseline cost to join is $495, referrals into the FoundersCard’s exclusive club are given access for just $295. While that may seem like a great deal, Inc Magazine reports that serial entrepreneur Adam Rodnitzky recently responded to a Quora thread about FoundersCard and when asked if it was worth it he replied: “Are you bootstrapping or pre-exit? Then FoundersCard is probably not worth it … yet.”

source: Inc

Furniture Deals Site Deal Decor Raising $1.2 Million Funding Round

Craig Sakuma and Gregory Lok’s Dealdecor.com is a new web based start up bringing daily deals to those looking for furniture. In fact TNW’s Robin Wauter’s called Dealdecor.com “Groupon For Furniture”.

The San Francisco based startup is looking to secure $1.2 million in funding and according to a filing at the SEC they’ve already scored a cool million of that.

Dealdecor is hoping to become the go-to site for daily deals on furniture, garden products, home furnishings and other related merchandise. They are doing this by offering up to 70% off retail prices.

Both of the founders have a solid background in the home furnishings and home improvement industry. Both Sakuma and Lok had high ranking positions at the nation’s largest home improvement chain Home Depot. The service is only available in the bay area but with this new funding we are confident it will open up to more of the country.

Dealdecor has several direct fulfillment deals with Asian and other overseas manufacturers. If you’re looking to save money through Dealdecor though it’s going to cost you one thing, time. Their website suggests a 4 week turnaround on most purchases including the overseas freight.

Check it out at: dealdecor.com

source: TNW

Texas Startup Photomadic Is Reviving The Actual Photobooth

nibletz, photomadic, photobooth, social media, tyler williams, pandodaily

Photomadic Founder Tyler Williams Is Reviving the Photobooth and making it social

Sure we have photobooth on our Mac computers and a thousand “photobooth” apps on our smartphones but Tyler Williams form Dallas Texas is reviving the actual photobooth. Photobooths have been around for decades. Friends, lovers, kids all love cramming into the photobooth and letting the machine rip out four or five photos. Newer photobooths will draw you while you wait or give you a funky background. Williams though, is making photobooths social.

Photomadic is a new kind of photobooth where immediately after the photos are taken you can share the photos on an event website, Facebook, and soon other photo websites and apps. Sounds like a brilliant idea right? Let’s find out more about Photomadic from founder Tyler Williams.

1. What is a photomadic and how did you come up with the idea?

Photomadic is an open air photo booth that lets users share their photos instantly using Facebook, Twitter or Email. It is also completely customizable making it a powerful marketing tool that maximizes ROI and brand/event exposure. Photo booths are one of those things that have been around forever and have only increased in popularity. However we noticed that they all seemed to be about a decade behind in terms of technology and design. After realizing this bizarre truth, we committed to the goal of modernizing the photo booth by connecting it to the online world. During the process, we were constantly amazed at the marketing potential Photomadic has.

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20 Year Old Bubbly Aussie Woman Debuts 99 Dresses At Y-Combinator

20 year old Nikki Durkin wants you to shop and sell in her infinite closet, 99dresses.com

20 year old Nikki Durkin is looking to solve a problem potentially affecting hundreds of millions of women across the globe. The problem, their are too many clothes in her closet. As Durkin explains in her pitch video, she has all these clothes and nothing to wear. That’s where the idea for 99dresses came from, and it came to her when she was just 16 years old at an Australian boarding school for girls.

As Business Insider reports, naturally at an all girls school Durkin was swapping clothes all the time. High school and college girls are accustomed to borrowing each others clothes. So when Durkin graduated from high school she wanted to expand on the idea of girlfriends swapping clothes on a much larger scale.

99dresses uses virtual currency called buttons. A woman who wants to sell a dress, pair of pants, blouse or other piece of clothing, puts it up on the site and instead of getting paid cash, she sets a price in buttons. When she sells her piece of clothing the buttons change hands and the seller pays for shipping. Now the seller has buttons to buy or virtually rent clothes.

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New York Startup: Get Shitter Puts Your Tweets On Toilet Paper

Before we dive into the bowl on this one let me first say that this is a 100% true story, now on with the runny details…

A recently announced startup that was founded by a four man team of developers in New York and Australia, has revolutionized the Twitter API in a way no one has ever thought of. These four men have found the ability to turn your tweets into four, useable rolls of toilet paper. This is actually brilliant.

All you do is log into their website at getshitter.com pay the $35 via paypal and voila your toilet paper will arrive shortly. It’s perfect for openhouses and press events, lets see how many rolls of getshitter paper we find at SXSW next year.

“Obviously this is fairly tongue in cheek, but we’re reasonably pleased we monetized Twitter in a way that avoided advertising,” said founder David Gillespie Told Venturebeat’s Ben Poper ”… The direction is still settling, but I think there’s some kind of course to chart around just trying to entertain people. I don’t know where the revenue is, it may very well wind up needing to be funded by brands when the right project comes along. I can’t imagine Kleenex having put their name to Shitter though!”

They may not be too far off fro funding as StockTwits founder Howard Lindzon tweeted that he wanted to invest in the shitter.

source: VB

Texas Start Up Kewl, Keeps Insulin Cool And Just Landed A Cool Million

A Richardson Texas start up called Kewl has just completed a series A round from angel investors to the cool beat of $1 million dollars.

Kewl has one simple task, to keep insulin cool for insulin dependent diabetics. Until now diabetics who are insulin dependent had to keep their insulin in coolers, icepacks, lunchboxes or whatever else they could rig up at home to keep their medicine cool. It also meant things like making sure a hotel room they stayed in overnight had a refrigerator. That may seem easy enough but it’s one headache after another for those diabetics to try and maintain a normal lifestyle.

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Startup Quick Byte: SquadMail

For today’s Startup Quick Byte we take a look at another cloud based service, SquadMail. This like yesterdays is based out of Berlin, but aims to make email between multiple people easier. If you are working with someone else, or a team of people, SquadMail makes it so attaching documents, or files into a single folder for easy secure use.

NY: This Worldly Entrepreneur Puts Social Into Finding A Hostel Online With Inbed.me

Inbed.me is a new website that connects young travelers who stay in hostels together socially. It’s the brain child of Diego Saez-Gil who spent a good portion of his life backpacking across the world and staying in hostels along the way. His backpacking experience brought about his first business, the backpacking community, Off Track Planet, the ultimate backpacker’s online guide to travel. He quickly grew that site to 120,000 users from around the world.

Inbed.me is the first socially injected website for booking hostels, beds and couches and is targeted at the student traveler market. The company is headquartered in New York, and Bogota, Colombia. They currently have 1200 hostels on inbed.me however TechCrunch reports that they are about to start a partnership with Hostelworld, which is the market leader for booking hostels online. Hostelworld books beds in over 25,000 hostels worldwide. According to the site that’s only half of the hostels available.

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19 Year Olds Make YCombinator Winter Class With Private Family Facebook Style Social Network FamilyLeaf

Two 19 year old entrepreneurs from Bellevue Washington are on their second start up already. Geekwire’s John Cook reports that when he first met them they were working on a gift card startup that was called AvantCard. The teenagers have been friends since grade school.

The friends Wesley Zhao and Ajay Mehta have started something new. Their project, FamilyLeaf, is a closed social network that is similar to Facebook but allows family members to privately share contact information, photos and updates with each other. It’s biggest competitor is the Facebook app Family Builder which was recently purchased by Intelius.

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Illinois State Government Backs Startup Tech Center In Chicago: Who Says Chicago Isn’t A Tech Hub?

Last week Pando Daily’s Trevor Gilbert struck a nerve in the heart of the midwest when he penned this piece: The Midwest Mentality. He spoke about a Chicago that didn’t live the startup culture life and how entrepreneurs there didn’t get it and went home at five pm. Nothing could be further from the truth, just check out the news that comes out daily from sites like builtinchicago.com

We’ve even featured a bunch of startups based in Chicago including Planfast and KlutchClub and have plenty more on the way. Well it’s apparent that Illinois Governor Pat Quinn didn’t get that memo from PandoDaily as the Illinois state government announced yesterday they are backing a new 50,000 square foot tech center slated to open on May 2nd.

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