Tennessee’s Governor Bill Haslam Announces The TENN Top Startups In Statewide Program

Tuesday saw the final pitch off for Launch Tennessee’s TENN program. Launch Tennessee is a public/private partnership that helps organize, administer and provide resources to nine accelerator regions across the state of Tennessee.

With so many accelerators in one single state, Launch Tennessee teamed up with the Blackstone Foundation to hold a “super accelerator” of sorts simply called The TENN. Startups that went through one of the accelerator programs in Tennessee within the last 12 months were eligible to compete in a statewide competition to name the best of the best.

Earlier this month Launch Tennessee announced 20 finalists from across east, middle and western Tennessee. The 20 startups chosen as finalists represented a variety of technological and entrepreneurial fields including general tech, social, medical, medical device, life sciences and even publishing.

On Tuesday the startups in the top 20 pitched off in front of a panel of outside investors that included: Sabeer Bhatia, chairman and CEO of Sabse/Jaxtr and founder and former CEO of Hotmail; John McIlwraith, managing partner at Cincinnati, Ohio-based Allos Ventures; John Greathouse, general partner at Santa Barbara, Calif.-based Rincon Venture Partners; Sig Mosley, managing partner at Atlanta, Ga.-based Mosley Ventures; Bob Crutchfield, partner at Birmingham, Ala.-based Harbert Ventures; and Mike Tatum, serial entrepreneur and CEO of Workbus.

At the end of the day Governor Bill Haslam called up the top 10 startups who were named to the TENN;

eClinic (Nashville)
Got You In (Nashville)
Gun.io (Nashville)
Hatponics (Knoxville)
Health & Bliss (Memphis)
Mobilizer (Memphis)
Screwpulp (Memphis)
Survature (Knoxville)
Vendor Registry (East Tennessee”
View Medical (Memphis)

These 10 startups will participate in the TENN program which includes a statewide bus trip to meet some of the biggest companies, entrepreneurs and business leaders across the state, trips to New York and Silicon Valley and office space at their local accelerator or incubator. They will also have access to mentors and other resources to continue taking their post accelerator companies to the next level.

Congratulations to all the startups that made the list.

Chicago Startup DoggyLoot Gets Just That

Doggyloot, an internal project at Chicago’s Sandbox, a startup incubator of sorts, has just closed a $2.5 million dollar round. The company was founded in 2011 and already has 700,000 subscribers according to Crain’s Chicago Business.

Doggyloot subscribers get access to flash sales on products they need for their animals. It’s a modern day pets.com complete with all of the things that are making e-commerce startups successful in 2013. To add to that success the company is led by former Orbitz guy Jeff Eckerling.

Eckerling said they will use the money to “crank up the company’s technology, especially mobile apps and more personalized targeting of its offers, and to step up advertising to attract more subscribers. ”

Although pets.com was one of the biggest victims of the dot com bubble, the pet industry is stronger than it’s ever been. It’s a $50 billion dollar a year industry with that doubling over the last decade. Pets.com closed in November of 2000. “There are over 50 million households in the U.S. with dogs. That’s more than have kids under 18,” Eckerling said.

He’s no stranger to the flash sales market either. He developed the flash travel site BonVoyou which was acquired by HauteLook.

Peter Krasilovski, an analyst with BIA/Kelsey told Crain’s “Newspaper sites get thousands of visitors from pets. We have a luxury culture for pet owners. There are dog biscuit stores popping up all over. But we all saw the big flameout of Pets.com. Is it time to revisit, maybe? It might be a good niche opportunity.”

Check out DoggyLoot here.

Author Austin Kleon To Kick Off SXSW Interactive 2014

Now that the inaugural SXSW V2V has ended, startups, entrepreneurs, founders, developers, coders and otherwise “startup” hipsters, are turning their attention to SXSW Interactive. Although we’re still about six months away from the big event in March, the Panel Picker is up and running, and SXSW is starting to announce their official speakers.

On Monday SXSW announced that Austin businessman, entrepreneur and author, Austin Kleon, will be kicking off SXSW Interactive with the first official keynote on Friday March 7, 2014.

Kleon is an established author whose books include: Steal Like an Artist and Newspaper Blackout. He’s currently working on his newest book, Show Your Work.

His work has been featured on NPR’s Morning Edition, PBS Newshour, and in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. New York Magazine called his work “brilliant,” The Atlantic called him “positively one of the most interesting people on the Internet,” and The New Yorker said his poems “resurrect the newspaper when everybody else is declaring it dead.”

He will be speaking on creativity in the digital age. The keynote will be Friday March 7th at 2:00pm

Find out more here.

Florida Reverse Accelerator Program Draws Hundreds Of Applications

A new Broward County program has drawn hundreds of applications in southern Florida. Startup Quest is a new program being offered under a statewide grant through WorkForce One, reports the Sun Sentinel.

The program reads like a reverse accelerator of sorts. Not a “decelerator,” of course, but Startup Quest is targeting a different segment than a typical accelerator that vets young startups.

First off, Startup Quest is looking for college graduates or veterans who are out of work at any age.

Like most programs Startup Quest is fueled by a mentor network of established entrepreneurs and business people throughout the region. However, unlike other programs Startup Quest has also vetted patented ideas from Florida International University, Nova Southern University, University of Florida, and NASA.

The mentors are going to pick from the pool of chosen participants and assign them ideas to work on and hash out plans to bring these already-patented technology ideas to market. The program has already received 400 applications and 130 will be chosen to work on these projects.

The participants will formally gather once a week to hear from a variety of speakers. The rest of the time will be spent focusing on the projects and their commercialization plans.

The program will end with a “Shark Tank” style demo day where the participants will pitch their ideas to venture capitalists and other entrepreneurial leaders in the region.

They hope to start notifying participants next week.

You’ve gotta check out this event for startups everywhere else.

2 Gener8tor Startups Raise Over $600,000 In Seed Funding

Wisconsin’s duel city accelerator, Gener8tor, is producing startups in both Madison and Milwaukee Wisconsin. Two of their Winter 2013 graduates (Madison program), WeMontage has just closed out a $310,000 seed round. Quietyme has raised a $300,000 seed round.

The Greater Milwaukee Business Journal reports that the startup that allows users to turn their mobile pics into actual wallpaper, received their funding from Angels On The Water LLC, Gener8tor and an “undisclosed” Wisconsin based angel investment fund as well as several private investors.

While turning your mobile pics into decals, stickers, wallpaper and other forms of art is nothing new, WeMontage has found a way to does it in a way that’s better for the wall and looks better overall. Unlike their competition, WeMontage uses “premium high-tac adhesive, fabric-based wall covering, which adheres to textured walls, while not damaging the wall or paint,” the company told the Business Journal.

We are excited to have closed our seed capital round and are working hard to build a premium brand for WeMontage and acquire new customers,” said James Oliver, Jr., founder and CEO. “Since closing the seed round, we’ve been able to hire an outstanding software developer, Chris Schmitz, from Green Bay, as technical co-founder.”

Quietyme has developed a technology that allows hospitals, hotels, nursing homes and property owners to monitor the quality of indoor environments like noise, temperature, humidity and water leaks, the Business Journal reported on Wednesday.

In addition to Gener*tor and Angels On The Water LLC, American Family Insurance, KSFI Partners LLC and a private investor participated in this round. The startup previously received $20,000 in seed capital from Gener8tor at the on-set of the program.

“Hospitals and hotels now have an unprecedented tool that can put a spotlight on when and where customer sleep experiences are in jeopardy,” said CEO John Bialk in a press release. “Just imagine how special you feel when a front desk manager or nurse recognizes that your sleep may have been disrupted. By being proactive about disruptions, businesses can demonstrate their sincere commitment to a high-quality customer experience.”

Find out more about Gener8tor here.

Startup Factory Drops “Triangle”, Announces Fall 2013 Cohort

The Triangle Startup Factory, the premiere acceleration program in North Carolina has made a slight change in their name and announced their fall class. The accelerator program will now be know as just “The Startup Factory” dropping the word “triangle” from it’s name.

The news about the name is no surprise. Earlier this month we reported that MapQuest co-founder and Startup Factory co-founder, Chris Heivly was speaking at an event in St. Louis, which reportedly could be paving the way for a new Startup Factory branch there. Heivly was very impressed with all of the efforts the St. Louis community has already focused on startups.

In addition to possibly expanding out west to St. Louis, the Triangle Business Journal reports that Heivly is excited about the announced expansion of the American Underground, HQ and the new ThinkHouse project.

Here are the five startups selected for the fall cohort at the Startup Factory.

+ Szl: A technology company that aims to help people get news from the internet. “Only a small percentage of people who get their news from the internet spend the time to set up RSS feeds and filters,” TSF says of Szl via release. “Szl addresses these problems directly and solves them.”

HomeWellness: A technology company creating “building science-based software,” programs that help employees improve the comfort, energy efficiency and air quality of their homes.
Coursefork: A technology company creating a platform for educators to share and collaborate on course materials. “In essence, Coursefork seeks to ignite viral teaching.”
Brevado: A technology company hoping to create interactive timelines for project-based businesses. “Clients stay in the loop with automatic progress notifications as items are completed.”
Flagtap: A technology company trying to solve marketing engagement issues “by bridging the gap between getting traffic and getting traffic to engage in revenue-generating ways.”
4Soils: A technology company trying to engage children with their faith in a new way. The mission? “To bring the Bible to life for kids.”

Former Lightbank Associate James Dickerson & Untether.tv Founder Rob Woodbridge Added To Everywhere Else Cincinnati Line Up

You see we weren’t kidding when we told you that Everywhere Else Cincinnati was going to be the place for startups everywhere else. We’ve made a top tier conference affordable for bootstrapping startups all over. Our nearly 30 speakers are the caliber of speakers you would find at tech events in San Francisco, New York, and London.

Today we have the privilege of announcing that Lightbank associate James Dickerson and mobile guru and untether.tv founder Rob Woodbridge have joined the lineup of amazing speakers for the conference.

James Dickerson, Former Lightbank Associate, and founder of Leap

James Dickerson is the founder of Brandery alumni startup Leap. Starting a company is nothing to him, though.

Immediately after college he spent 30 days in the desert with just a blanket, a knife, and a poncho. He then cut his teeth in the sales world as a beer salesman, and anyone who’s ever done that knows how hard it can be. He created a startup called Wellthy that was accepted into The Brandery and then came out as Leap.

Dickerson wasn’t content with being a startup founder. He wanted to make a difference and an impact so he used a pitch deck to get his current position as an associate at LightBank. Lightbank is no stranger to startups everywhere else. Built on the success of Groupon, their portfolio reads like a who’s who of startups from everywhere else: Belly, BenchPrep, Zaarly, SpotHero and Contently don’t even scratch the surface when it comes to their top tier portfolio companies.

Rob Woodbridge, founder untether.tv

To tell you the truth we were scared to book Rob Woodbridge. By his own admission he “never stops talking.” It’s good talk, though, and he’s preaching the entrepreneurial gospel and the gospel of mobile rockstars.

His technology story starts in 1993 the year before Netscape released the first mass market web browser. He started one of the first internet service providers in Ottawa, the kind that you dial into their servers (Never mind you may not know what I’m talking about, but this was a big thing before you ordered internet from your cable company). That company started building custom software applications by 1998 (if you’re keeping score that’s when Mark Zuckerberg was 14).

In 2000 Woodbridge founded a company called getHOW. Soon after the internet bubble burst, and Woodbridge then linked up with SystemScope. After that, he joined OCRI’s Entrepreneurship Center to run the Ottawa Capital Network.

Now he’s the founder of untether.tv which is dubbed “Casual Conversations With Mobile Rockstars.” He’s also the three time emcee of uxcamp Ottawa.

That makes 23 awesome speakers we’ve announced so far, with a couple more big announcements next week. Now would be the time to get your early bird discount ticket or your startup’s early bird Startup Village booth. Here’s the list of speakers we’ve announced so far.

Blair Garrou, Managing Director Mercury Fund
Joe Medved, Partner SoftBank Capital
Naithan Jones, Founder AgLocal
Derek Flanzraich, Founder Greatist
Andrew Warner, Founder Mixergy
Andy Sparks, Co-Founder MatterMark
Wil Schroter, Founder Fundable
Jake Stutzman, Founder Elevate.co
Jonathon Perrelli, Managing Director, Fortify Ventures
Justin Gutwein, Filmmaker and Entrepreneur Startupland.tv
Mark Hasebroock, Founder Dundee Venture Capital
Jason Healy, Founder Blu
John Bracken, Founder Evite and Speek
Dave Knox, CMO Rockfish, co-founder Brandery
Patrick Woods, Managing Director a>m ventures
Sarah Ware, Founder Markerly
John T. Meyer, Founder Lemon.ly
Raghu Betina, Managing Partner The Starter League
Ryan O’Connell, VP Influence & Co
Blake Miller, Managing Director Think Big Accelerator
Michael Bergman, Founder Repp

Online event registration for Everywhere Else Cincinnati – “Start Where U Are” powered by Eventbrite

Ohio Accelerator FlashStarts Sets Demo Day September 23rd, The Big Day For Crowdfunding

Cleveland startup accelerator Flashstarts will show off their first cohort in an investor demo day set for September 23. This date was chosen for its significance to startups across the country. It’s the same day that the SEC’s new regulations allowing general solicitation go into effect. It will be the first time in 80 years that startups can publicly fundraise beyond geographic boundaries, paving the way for crowdfunding for equity.

“In most communities, raising startup money has been a process stuck in the 19th century, limited to fundraising from friends and a few local angels,” said FlashStarts CEO and Co-founder Charles Stack. “With these new SEC changes, entrepreneurs can now use all modern marketing techniques to connect with the nearly nine million accredited investors across the U.S.”

The regulations will have a significant impact on startups by removing the geographic barriers to capital that have traditionally made it more difficult for startups outside areas like Silicon Valley, Boston, or New York to grow and succeed.

On signing the JOBS Act last year that enabled these new SEC regulations, President Obama said, “[S]tartups and small businesses will now have access to a big, new pool of potential investors — namely, the American people.”

“As capital is allowed to flow to ideas and entrepreneurs—regardless of distance and location—the country will enjoy a true national rebirth of capitalism, along with job and wealth creation,” said Stack.

One of the Flashstarts accelerator companies, Crowdentials, is deeply impacted by this change in the regulations. Crowdentials will provide a compliance platform to make sure those that use crowdfunding are doing it legally and within the regulations set forth by the SEC.

Here are the other nine startups graduating from Flashstarts on September 23rd.

AProofed allows writers and editors to collaborate with each other in a marketplace environment. The online cloud-based platform allows editors to become self-employed while improving writers’ academic performances.

BOLD Guidance navigates students through college applications and allows counselors and parents to view their progress. The online platform and app makes the college application process easier with step-by-step guides and automated deadlines, tasks and reminders specific to each application. www.boldguidance.com

The BranDR is committed to helping physicians create and maintain their personal brand identities online. Its mission is to revolutionize the way patients find, select and interact with their doctors, by allowing them to access personalized doctor profiles. www.thebrandr.com

Curiosidy is a new online platform for sharing and promoting life’s meaningful experiences. Users can write about experiences that have shaped them and draw inspiration and insights from a passionate, global community. curiosidy.com

LegalFunnel helps lawyers meet and engage with targeted clients through efficient lead generation and personalized online branding. www.legalfunnel.com

Ohio Independent Cinema strives to inspire an appreciation for independent films by making them more accessible for the general public. The company provides a new distribution option for independent filmmakers.

Smooth is a sophisticated, yet simple personal finance app currently in development. The program generates personalized recommendations that help users improve their standard of living and offers incentives for users to follow the recommendations. www.smoothplanner.com

Synthetic Intelligence sells Big Data cloud and consulting services. The company “makes Big Data go faster”.

RegulatoryBinder.com, a product of Trailhead CFR, is a web application for managing regulatory documents of physician-sponsored clinical trials. The app is the only platform that instantly enables physicians to coordinate a clinical trial without additional procedures or risk.

FlashStarts’ 2013 Demo Day will take place from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. EST on September 23, 2013. Guests can attend in-person at the NPR IdeaStream Westfield Theater in Cleveland, Ohio, or online via live Internet broadcast. In-person attendance is limited to 250 seats and virtual online attendance is limited to 2,500 viewers. To request a ticket or learn more, visit www.flashstarts.com/demoday.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

TechStars Austin Unveils First Class

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here are the ThinkBig Accelerator startups pitching at demo day.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Raleigh To Get New Living/Learning Accelerator, ThinkHouse

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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