Is The Gender Gap In Women Funded Startups Closing?

We talk about women entrepreneurs and startup founders a lot here at nibletz.com The Voice Of Startups Everywhere Else. Last month at TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2013, Sequoia’s Aaref Hilaly said that the number one reason for such a big gender gap is that their aren’t enough women engineers.

Dave Tisch on the other hand said that women aren’t treated seriously in VC meetings, saying that this was the biggest bullshit.

Pemo Theodore the founder of Ezebis prepared the infographic below highlighting where women stand in the startup space.. Some of it is still very disturbing.

For instance, their infographic below says that 41.1% of women founders relied on outsider debt to start a business. The data also says that 21% of women entrepreneurs sought angel capital in 2009 and of those only 9.4% were successful. Also in 2009 only 11% of companies that received venture backing, had a female CEO or founder. Perhaps one of the most disturbing thing AlleyWatch found was that only 3% of all people accepted (total) in all of the Y Combinator classes, have been women.

The good news is that since he 1997 census women owned businesses have gone up 50%. In 2011 8.1 million businesses led by women have generated nearly $13 trillion dollars in revenue.

Check out the infographic below:

This accelerator in Memphis Tennessee, specifically for women founders, extends application deadline through June.

New Zealand Startup Accelerator, Lightning Lab, Attracts $3 Million In Follow On Funding

Lightning Lab, the only New Zealand based startup accelerator that is part of the Global Accelerator Network, held their demo day early this month in Wellington. Now in it’s third year, Lightning Lab is a partnership between a group of private professional investors, the science and innovation arm of New Zealand’s Ministry of Business and Creative HQ a coworking and incubation hub in New Zealand.

The nine startups that participated in the 12 week program were:

Publons: a platform for crowd-sourced peer-review of academic articles, where academics build reputation for their contributions. It provides an alternative to the extremely slow, expensive, and closed status quo that hasn’t changed in 300 years.

WIP: a beautifully simple video workflow platform that lets you watch, share and comment on your work-in-progress videos, so you get better feedback faster.

KidsGoMobile: a startup developing a software service to help parents teach their children to become responsible users of their first smartphone. This tool will notify parents if their child engages in potentially risky activity on their phone and gives them tips on how to resolve it.

Teamisto: a startup changing the way sports clubs raise money by generating new streams of sponsorship revenue.

Expander: A cloud-based tracking and analytics platform that gives manufacturers a weapon to fight back against counterfeits, while connecting them to consumers and procuring valuable data in emerging markets.

Adeez: a startup that provides a specialist mobile marketing solution which enables brands and marketing agencies to improve their ROI with mobile campaigns.

LearnKO delivers online learning programs to English language organisations in Asia. We do this by harnessing the talent of Australasian tutors and delivering this via an online classroom to English language organisations.

Promoki a social media gaming platform for photo and video contests

Questo: a startup using game mechanics in real world activities to increase family engagement for organizations.

Their demo day drew 140 investors from across the country and while they haven’t said which of the nine startups received follow on funding stuff.co.nz reports that $3 million dollars in follow on funding has been committed and details will be released shortly.

“Watching Lightning Lab in action was incredible. These results are what makes it worthwhile for the companies which grow out of weeks of hard work, for the investors and mentors who support them, and for the other entrepreneurs who see it and are inspired into action, turning their own ideas into great startup companies going global from downunder.” Tui Te Hau the CEO of Creative HQ said.

You can find out more about Lightning Lab at lightninglab.co.nz

Now check out Startup America joins forces with Startup Weekend for UpGlobal

Start Co Is Bringing NewMe Accelerator Tour To Memphis June 28-30

The NewMe accelerator program is a critically acclaimed accelerator in San Francisco that specifically targets women and minority startups and founders. They launched their Silicon Valley program in June of 2011, and recently announced an abbreviated “pop up” accelerator tour, coming to cities across the country.

The NewMe pop accelerator will make it’s way to Memphis June 28-30 and be housed at the FedEx Institue of Technology, on the campus of the University of Memphis.

The three-night event June 28-30 features one-on-one coaching from NewME experts, a two-part workshop titled “The Art of the Pitch” that will provide the secrets to a perfect pitch and standing out among other founders. The weekend culminates with “Demo Day,” a night where startups will network with key players in Memphis’ tech scene, special guests from Silicon Valley, and ultimately pitch their idea to a panel of judges that consists of local and Silicon Valley investors.

They’ve already held the pop up program in Miami and Washington DC. In fact, Zoobean, the Washington DC pop up winner, has closed a $500,000 seed round led by Mitch Kapor.

In addition to Memphis Tennessee, the NewMe Popup accelerator will also be held in Detroit, Chicago, Atlanta, Durham, Austin, New York, Kansas City, Los Angeles and Oakland.

Participants in the NewMe popup accelerator in Memphis, or on any other city stop will get one-on-one coaching from Silicon Valley business leaders, hands on workshops, and the opportunity to pitch their idea to local and Valley-based investors with the chance to win $45,000 worth of prizes from our sponsors and the opportunity to participate in the NewME Accelerator in San Francisco.

“We’re excited about NewME’s mission and the important work they are doing to accelerate entrepreneurs across the country. Our mission with Google for Entrepreneurs is to grow entrepreneurial communities and equip them with the resources and technology they need to tackle big ideas and build amazing companies,” said Mary Grove, Director of Global Entrepreneurship Outreach at Google one of the key sponsors for the NewMe Accelerator. “We’re truly excited to be teaming up with NewME to bring this series to Memphis and can’t wait to see the big ideas that come from the teams here.”

Start Co. is eager to welcome NewME to Memphis. “We’re excited that Memphis was selected for this exclusive opportunity,” said co-president and CEO Eric Mathews. “It’s a privilege to participate as their local community partner.”

You can apply and find out more about NewMe here and Start Co here.

Are you working on your pitch deck? Check out this Pop!

Here Are The First 20 Startups In Southland’s Startup Village Highlighting The South East

We’re less than a month away from the inaugural Southland conference combining the best of southern culture and technology. The two day conference takes place June 12-13th at the Cannery Ballroom and the Mercy Lounge in downtown Nashville. It’s been strategically placed between the CMA Music Festival and Bonaroo.

Launch Tennessee, a public/private partnership with the state of Tennessee, and responsible for the state’s nine accelerator regions, is spearheading and organizing the Southland Conference along with the Music City Music Council.

The conference is highlighting startups and entrepreneurship across the 12 states in the southeast. To that end, the first twenty startups (out of 50) have been selected for the startup village. These startups will get a chance to show off in front of all of the event attendees including 41 venture capital and angel firms that have committed to attending the event. They’ll also be competing for $10,000.

The 20 startups released so far are a great representation of the entire south east region, many of which we’ve covered here at nibletz.com the voice of startups everywhere else.

Distil Networks, Washington DC area (Northern Virginia) is a technology startup that protects proprietary online content from bots and scrapers. We covered Distil back in August, here.

The Royalty Exchange: is a Raleigh based startup that provides an online marketplace platform for those who want to buy, sell, license, all types of alternative assets and royalty streams.

Variable Inc, is a Chattanooga startup that makes the NODE device for iPhones and Android phones. This bluetooth connected device has sensors built in a small body that measure a variety of things,

World Housing Solution: an Orlando based startup, wants to make a difference in the lives of others through the design, manufacture and construction of sustainable buildings. They do this through structural, insulated, composite panels.

Banyan, based in Chattanooga they were the big winner at last year’s GigTank investor day securing an additional $100,000 at the end of the investor day pitches. The startup began in Florida and relocated to Chattanooga. They provide a cloud based collaboration tool for researchers and did a great job during this pitch to show how the gigabit ethernet in Chattanooga benefit their startup.

QuickCue: is another Chattanooga startup that we actually saw pitch at an event in Nashville. They provide a table reservation and communication platform for restaurants.

Verdeeco: is a smart grid analytics startup based in Atlanta.

Do 5 Things, based in Knoxville Tennessee this startup is a marketing optimization platform for utilities looking to increase rebate redemptions and encourage behavior change.

Patient Focus, is a Nashville startup that is exclusively for patient pay collections “after insurance and before bad debt”

Kufikia, is a new off-shoot of Memphis based WorkForPie. We’ve covered WorkForPie extensively at nibletz.com. Kufikia is a hybrid between online accelerator, internship, and hiring tool connecting highly skilled developers and software engineers to companies through cohort based learning.

Splitsecnd is a Nashville based hardware technology startup focused on connecting motorists in accidents to help. Similar to Onstar but focused on splitsecnd quick response, the devices sensors can determine accidents and connects the motorist to a 24 hour emergency response center.

viaCycle is an Atlanta bike sharing startup focused on the “next generation of bike sharing” we reported on them back in April of 2012.

VIPAAR This startup based in Birmingham Alabama at the Innovation Depot is “telepresence software”. They were the first startup to receive funding from the Central Alabama Angel Network. We covered that story last September.

American Songspace: is a Nashville startup that according to our friend Milt Capps at Venture Nashville and is “relaunching this summer” and they describe the platform as “a song catalog management system,”

Beam Technologies, is a Kentucky based startup that has literally appified the toothbrush. We interviewed their CEO Alex Frommeyer back in August.

Evermind, is a Nashville startup and Jumpstart Foundry alumni. The founding team came out of Griffin Technologies. We saw them pitch their hardware startup that monitors a loved one by their electric current habits. Check out this innovative startups pitch here.

Ridepost was a graduate of the Iron Yard accelerator in Greenville South Carolina and is now incubating at the Fort based in the 1776 DC space. We interviewed this ride sharing startup back in August.

Gatske, it’s not a sexy startup but definitely useful. This startup based in Greenville SC helps plan and manage audits.

NextGxDx is a Nashville startup and 2010 graduate of Jumpstart Foundry. They’re an online marketplace for genetic testing.

Populr.me is a Nashville startup. We’ve covered them extensively and their co-founder Nick Holland has been an extremely useful resource, and almost mentor to the Nibletz team. We’ve covered Holland and Populr extensively here at nibletz.com

Here’s more on Southland at nibletz.com The Voice of startups everywhere else.

Big Data Conference, StampedeCon, Heads Back To St. Louis Featuring Walmart, Ford & More

If you’re in a big data startup, the StampedeCon big data conference in St.Louis is a can’t miss event. Last year we partnered with StampedeCon as their official media sponsor. Speaker after speaker explained this fast growing technology sector, that’s spawning new, great startups every day.

Last year’s inaugural event featured speakers from Facebook, Read Write Web, Kraft foods and more.

This year’s event will be held July 30-31st at the Washington University School of Medicine and will feature speakers from; Walmart, Ford Motor Company, Deloitte, Riot Games and more.

“Big Data is growing exponentially. Understanding how to control the amount of data available and create a strategy to leverage it is vital to today’s workplace,” said Gary Stiehr, StampedeCon organizer. “Companies without an understanding of Big Data are at a severe disadvantage in today’s marketplace. StampedeCon’s goal is to provide that knowledge to everyone.”

StampedeCon runs July 30-31. The first day will provide insight into developing data and analytics strategies. The second day presents a view into the technologies available to implement data and analytics strategies.

StampedeCon 2013 training partners include Cloudera and Inferology. On July 29^th, Inferology is offering a pre-conference course on NoSQL databases. On August 1^st, Cloudera is offering post-conference training workshops on Hadoop, Hive and Pig.

StampedeCon features presentations benefiting both seasoned IT professionals and those getting started with Big Data. The agenda includes twelve speakers and a panel discussion, with the following agenda highlights:Big Data Analytics: Inside and Out
Michael Cavaretta, Ford Motor Company
Cavaretta will present three areas of opportunity for Big Data Analytics: improving internal processing, understanding customers though external data (including social) and vehicle sensor networks. The presentation will include tips for starting your own Big Data projects.

Big Data at Riot Games

Jerome Boulon, Riot Games

Riot Games sought to understand and improve the player experience for its 32 million users. Boulon will review the challenges they faced creating a Big Data infrastructure that delivers the ability to provide continued insight.

Five Trends in Analytics… How to Take Advantage Today

John Lucker, Deloitte Consulting

Lucker will discuss the latest advancements in the world of analytics and offer strategies for tapping into their potential. The topic areas include visualization and design, mobile analytics and strategy analytics.

Big Data, Big Law

Anthony Martin, Walmart

This presentation will tell the story of one global, multi-channel company’s walk through the increasingly complicated legal, compliance security maze while trying to recognize the implicit value of Big Data programs.

For more information visit Stampedecon.com

St. Louis is one of the fastest growing tech cities in the U.S., here’s why.

Chicago’s Startup Community Announces New Founder’s Circle

Chicago is a special place for startups. Despite a crazy warped opinion from Pando Daily a while back, people have started to see Chicago’s thriving entrepreneurial and startup ecosystem for what it really is.

While the verdict is out on the actual success of Groupon, we can’t discount the story of it’s rise to fame and popularity from it’s downtown Chicago headquarters. Despite the fact that ousted CEO Andrew Mason is retreating to Silicon Valley, Groupon, like Belly and GrubHub are products of the Chicago startup ecosystem.

While Groupon, Belly, GrubHub, Lightbank, SimpleRelevance and others are names a lot of tech entrepreneurs from across the country know, what’s really amazing is the success that the 1871 incubator has had since it opened it’s doors. 1871 has housed 225 startup companies, creating 800 jobs. 1871 companies have generated $12.7 million dollars in revenue and drew $27.6 million in venture capital. Of course we can’t forget to mention that Chicago is home to one of the newest Techstars programs.

With this wild growth at just one address (albeit a gigantic one) in downtown Chicago, the entrepreneurial leaders in the city announced Wednesday the formation of Chicago Founder’s Circle (CFC). CFC is a new Peer-to-Peer Networking Group offered exclusively to Founders and CEOs of emerging growth companies in Chicago, with a focus on supporting and nurturing the expanding and vibrant emerging growth company community in the region.

CFC was founded by thought leaders actively involved in the emerging growth sector from a variety of different Chicago-focused organizations, including: DLA Piper, Lightbank, Northwestern University, Deloitte, Dignitas, NEA, and Silicon Valley Bank. CFC is structured as an annual group of 25-30 entrepreneurs who will be invited to participate in a series of four events that will offer them the opportunity to connect with one another and listen to prominent speakers. A fifth networking event will serve as a “graduation” type event that will bring together the current class and, in future renditions, alumni from previous CFC classes.

“We created the Chicago Founders Circle because of the amazing entrepreneurial talent that exists in Chicago,” said Greg Grossman, Partner at DLA Piper. “By connecting world-class mentors, advisors and investors with Chicago’s most successful entrepreneurs, we’ll have the opportunity to contribute to the local economy in a very profound way. The CFC leadership team is excited to use its collective knowledge and skills to foster the growth of these companies and help these entrepreneurs succeed.”

“There is a growing and burgeoning startup ecosystem that has been building in Chicago for a while now,” added Bill Pescatello, Principal at Lightbank. “Last year alone saw a record-breaking $391 million in funding awarded to 197 local startups, which confirms the need and opportunity for a peer-to-peer networking group in Chicago. Our hope is that CFC will become one of the anchors of Chicago’s start-up community for today’s industry leaders and the future generation of motivated, young power players.”

Here’s more Chicago startup coverage at nibletz.com The Voice of Startups Everywhere Else.

Startup Weekend & Startup America Join Forces, Launch UpGlobal & Up.co

With an official announcement forthcoming on Thursday morning at 7am, Startup America and Startup Weekend are joining forces for a new initiative called UpGlobal.

The Startup America partnership, started two years ago by AOL co-founder Steve Case and the Case Foundation, isn’t winding down, but rather “Winding Up” according to Scott Case (no relation), the current CEO of Startup America. The new global partnership will connect entrepreneurs with their communities and the resources they need most.

While Startup America is based in Washington DC and received the blessing of President Barrack Obama at their launch, the new organization will be based at Startup Weekend’s headquarters in Seattle. The collective new organization promises that “startup communities everywhere can expect stronger support and resources to better empower local leadership. The root of Startup America, Startup Weekend and now Up Global is to enable and support entrepreneurs and startups to grow in their hometowns as companies and entrepreneurial communities.

UpGlobal is funded by the Case Foundation, Google Inc, Microsoft, Coca Cola, The Kauffman Foundation and more, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Startup America Regional Champions, myself included, were informed that this partnership was on the horizon at both the last Startup America Summit in Phoenix Arizona last month and in a regions conference call last week. Others not familiar with the plans have been wondering why with Startup America, still a startup itself, are they already merging. Startup America founder and Chairman Steve Case told the Wall Street Journal:

“We designed Startup America from the get-go as a three-year sprint,” says Mr. Case. “The idea was to see what could be accomplished in three years and go from there.”

“After evaluating the situation, Plan A was to stick to our knitting and wrap things up (as initially communicated and planned) and option B was to find a ‘go forward’ strategy.” Scott Case said.

That go forward strategy is Up Global. Over the past several months Startup America and Startup Weekend began growing closer and closer in their relationship to serve entrepreneurial communities. Late last year Startup Weekend Next, with Steve Blank was launched in partnership with Startup America. This curriculum is provided to entrepreneurs looking to grow and dive deeper into starting up and entrepreneurship. Startup Weekend and Startup America held an abbreviated form of the curriculum during SXSW this year in Austin.

Startup America laid the foundation for their work in their first year. In their second year they focused on growing regions, over 30 of them to date, through launch events, networking opportunities, educational opportunities and other resources.

At nibletz we attended, participated in and reported on several Startup America events including the launch of Startup Georgia, Startup Arkansas, CES’ Eureka Park, SXSW and several others. Most events helped forge new relationships between like minded entrepreneurs that could be across the street or across the country.

Each Startup America region participated in the nationwide organization in the way that fit them best. Some regions were extremely successful as Tech Cocktail founder Frank Gruber pointed out in this article, Startup Tennessee launched a major network of accelerators and brought together entrepreneurs from Tennessees larger cities like Memphis, Chattanooga and Nashville. Washington DC’s Startup America Champion Evan Burfield, and former Startup America Director Donna Harris formed 1776 the new hub of entrepreneurship in the nation’s capital. Other regions like Startup Maryland, Startup Arizona, Startup Florida and Startup Indiana have been very active throughout their time in the organization.

This looks like a natural, and great move for the Startup America Partnership.

As someone who’s been deeply involved with Startup America and a big participant in Startup Weekend I hope that going forward the organization grows as the directors of the new organization have laid out. My biggest concern comes from the “event nature of Startup Weekend.

In several cities that have had multiple Startup Weekend events the entrepreneurs who participate have continued to meet up, network and support each other. This is usually dependent on the frequency of events and the resources already on the ground, or forming in those cities. In other cities, like Memphis by experience, after the Startup Weekend event in July resources were somewhat limited.

With the intellectual, and social capital from the collective new organization it looks like UpGlobal will be able to provide ongoing support to the regions that Startup America has built to date.

You can find out more at their new site up.co

Check out more of our Startup America coverage here.

DC Startup Speek, The Easiest Way To Conference, Comes Out Of Beta

We’ve been reporting on Speek, the easiest way to conference call, since we saw co-founder John Bracken pitch at TechBuzz in Washington DC last May. If Bracken’s name sounds familiar it’s because he was also a co-founder of e-vite, the easiest way to invite people to an event, which was the precursor to things like Eventbrite and Facebook events.

We quickly hopped on board the Speek train as soon as the beta was ready. In fact I was such an early user that my Speek page is http://speek.com/kyle. This URL allows anyone to conference call me anytime, on the fly and without the use of long, hard to remember toll free numbers, pin numbers and crappy elevator music.

How it works:

1. Head to speek.com
2. register your preferred username (it’s free)
3. direct people who want to conference call you to go to your speek.com page and click the button

It’s that easy. You can also use Speek as a way to give people access to you by phone without having to reveal your number. Speek’s mobile apps deliver the same easy to conference functionality in the palm of your hand.

While UberConference was the winner of the TechCrunch Disrupt battlefield last year at TechCrunch Disrupt NY, we stil found Speek to be easier to use, and much more intuitive. We got to interview the 500 startups backed, Speek team last year as well.

Now Speek is ready to come out of beta. Their official launch is coming with a new app, new ux, new design, new features, pay wall, webrtc client for VOIP and much more. They’ve seen growth double in every key metric every two months since launching in beta. Not only that but along the way Speek’s other cofounder Danny Boice, pitched their startup at SXSW this year on the Tech Cocktail stage, resulting in Bracken getting the Speek monkey tatooed on his ass.

Both Bracken and Boice are diehard startup guys. Boice even spoke at the inaugural everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference, delivering a talk he called “You Only Launch Once” (YOLO).

We’re excited to be joining Speek in two weeks at their official launch party in Washington DC. In the meantime we highly suggest that you get over to speek.com and start using the easiest way to conference.

We’ve been tracking Speek since the beginning.

Nashville Teen, Mark Daniel, Gets Into Thiel Fellowship Must Quit College

Nashville teenager Mark Daniel, 19, is the latest recipient of the Thiel Fellowship.

The Thiel Fellowship is a program, established by PayPal founder Peter Thiel that encourages young people to quit college and work on their startup. When admitted into the program participants move to San Francisco and receive $100,000 over two years, in addition to top shelf mentoring, and working alongside like minded students. During the two year program, participants must not attend college.

It’s a pretty prestigious honor to be selected into the Thiel Fellowship program. Since the program was introduced in 2011 they’ve launched over 30 companies and raised over $34 million dollars.

“As we welcome a new class of determined young people into the Thiel Fellowship community, we also celebrate the pioneering spirit of our 2011 and 2012 fellows,” said Jonathan Cain, president of the Thiel Foundation. “Over the past two years, they have launched more than thirty companies, and raised more than $34 million in outside funding, including venture investments, company sales, revenue, grants, sponsorships, and awards. They have been hiring employees, launching products, engaging with vendors and manufacturers, and advising some of the world’s most well-known technology companies. And now they’re helping the next generation of tech researchers and entrepreneurs by mentoring future cohorts of Thiel fellows.”

Over two years, each fellow receives $100,000 from the Thiel Foundation as well as mentorship from the Foundation’s network of tech entrepreneurs, investors, scientists, thought leaders, futurists, and innovators. Projects pursued by the 2013 class of fellows span numerous cutting-edge science and technology fields, including robotics, computer science, telecommunications, education, photonics, game development, cyberdefense, biotechnology, health I.T., law, neuroscience, fashion, and personal manufacturing.

Jim O’Neill, partner at Mithril Capital Management and fellowship co-founder, said, “Pessimists are correct that we still live in a world of scarcity and suffering. And optimists are correct that better science and technology can relieve these problems immensely. But contrary to both sides, nothing is inevitable. The young men and women Peter has appointed are committed to improving the quality of life for countless people through skillful execution of new ideas, and I am confident they will succeed.”

Daniel joins 19 other students his age who he will work alongside during the program. Daniel’s starutp, StatusHawk is a web based application that compiles and formats workplace status reports into one easy to read format.

This isn’t Daniel’s first startup. StatusHawk is an offspring of his first startup, GoalHawk, which was a social crowdsourcing platform that he cofounded with Sumukh Sridhara a California developer in 2011.

Daniel is looking forward to focusing on StatusHawk, which he says is more valuable than the actual money. The company has a dozen companies lined up to begin beta testing the product, report the Tennessean.

“As we see more and more people using mobile in their daily work, it’ll be a natural progression,” Daniel said. “I think we’ll be in a very strong position in two years. I believe we can be a $100 million company.”

Now read this: It takes a village or a startup community to build an entrepreneur center.

Fred Wilson, PrivCo’s Report On Tumblr Deal Is Total Garbage

Fred Wilson, who some consider the godfather of New York venture capital, made some money in the Tumblr deal. However he is quick to point out that a PrivCo report that suggested his firm, Union Square Ventures, netted a 5,000% return is “total garbage” Business Insider reported late Tuesday.

PrivCo is a private firm that reports on startups and they claim that they had access to details of exactly how much everyone made in the landmark $1.1 billion dollar deal between Yahoo and Tumblr.

Wilson took to Hacker News where he said “Total garbage. There is not one fact in this privco thing that is close to right. The numbers are good but nowhere close to that good. This is the same firm that predicted Foursquare would be out of business this year which will also prove to be nonsense.”

Time Magazine is reporting the Privco data, that Tumblr founder David Karp is taking home $253 million dollars in the deal. They’re also reporting that on a combined investment of $5.25 million dollars over 2007 and 2008, and in conjunction with Boston based Spark Capital Union Square Ventures saw a return of 50x which was worth $253 million to USV and $231 million to Spark.

Privco also suggests that Sequoia yielded $176 million and a combined, Greylock Partners, Insight Venture Partners, CrunchFund and Draper Fisher Jurveston made $88 million.

Wilson has not revealed what the actual numbers are, and probably won’t which could make this information just a shot in the dark.

Another early Tumblr backer, Bijan Sabet said on Twitter that the PrivCo report was “complete garbage and incorrect”.

Now check out Fred Wilson’s Venture Capital Do’s & Dont’s

MassChallenge Startup Recovers.Org To Aid In Oklahoma Tornado Relief

Two sisters, Morgan O’Neill and Caitria O’Neill took a tornado ripping through their hometown of Monson Massachusetts in June of 2011 as a signal for a call to action. The sisters began working on a startup called recovers.org that makes disaster response smarter by providing easy to use software that empowers communities to prepare together, mitigate risk and locally match resources.

They aren’t the only members of the recovers.org team that have come face to face with natural disasters. The startup’s CTO Alvin Liang grew up in Norman Oklahoma which is close to Moore where the tornado touched down on Monday.

The company, which can put together a city.recovers.org site, when disaster strikes in less than two hours, went through the MassChallenge program last fall and graduated with a $50,000 “gold” win just a week before recovers.org got a huge chance for real life case study in Hurricane Sandy.

Now the Boston Herald reports that Morgan O’Neill along with Liang and Chief Operating Officer Chris Kuryak are headed out to Oklahoma where they will spend several days teaching residents how to operate their relief website.

“Our mission is to facilitate local recovery,” O’Neill, told the Herald. “We can give them tools and institutional knowledge we have and they use their expertise in their own community to put themselves back together.”

Recovers.org has already seen 1500 volunteers sign up through their Moore Oklahoma recovers.org website. During the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy the startup saw 30,000 volunteers sign up using their platform. Hurricane Sandy spawned several recovers.org sites including; lowereastside.recovers.org, redhook.recovers.org, and astoria.recovers.org.

Everyone is accustomed to the Red Cross springing into life when disaster strikes. Typically, within hours, others try to launch informational sites, volunteer sites and fundraising campaigns. With recovers.org already in place it allows people in disaster affected areas to concentrate their efforts on recovery knowing that the infrastructure is already in place through recovers.org.

While no one wants to find themselves the victim of a natural disaster, the fact that the team has been through disasters of their own gives them “street knowledge” or the benefit of actually going through a disaster, and experiencing not only the recovery but the emotion as well.

You can find out more at recovers.org

In the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings, Paul Graham turned to Watsi, and then joined their board.

photo: Boston Business Journal

Cancer: Bad Ass Startup Chick Denver Hutt Reminds Us We’re Entrepreneurs, Not Super Heroes

Denver Hutt, Speak Easy Indy, Indianapolis startup,startup,startup news, Cancer

Denver Hutt (center) surrounded by entrepreneurs. (photo: Facebook)

Back in March, Executive Director of the Speak Easy co-working and startup event space in Indianapolis, Denver Hutt, was our Bad Ass Startup Chick here at Nibletz. We chose Hutt because she’s an Indy lover by choice, deciding to stick around Indianapolis after college. She’s a native of Santa Monica, and who gives up the gorgeous weather, sandy beaches and west coast lifestyle for the middle of the country?

A woman who is uber passionate about startups, entrepreneurs and community, that’s who.

Well like many of us Hutt lives the entrepreneur lifestyle. We originally met her last year on the sneaker strapped road trip when we stopped at a Verge Indy event held at the SpeakEasy. She then came and visited us in Memphis in February for everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference, and a month later we spent most of the week with her at SXSW.

Hutt’s been shoulder deep in running Indy’s awesome coworking space, finding mentors to help the Indy startup scene and working on the next big thing for Indianapolis startups. With a plate that full she lives the round the clock pace that we’re all accustomed to. She’s the kind of person you can ping at 3am on a random Tuesday to fact check a story or 8am on a Saturday morning to confirm details of events. She, like many entrepreneurs, goes round the clock.

That’s why when she came down with a cough over a month and a half ago, she just kept going. The cough became pneumonia. The pneumonia became double pneumonia and she ended up with two fractured ribs from coughing so much.

“I have had a cough for quite some time. More than simply being annoying, after weeks of coughing I developed pneumonia, and because I don’t like to give things just 50%, my pneumonia turned into double pneumonia. And two fractured ribs. (How’s that for commitment?!) As my cough continued despite multiple antibiotics, my doctor and I decided to begin more serious testing to determine the underlying cause.” Hutt said in an email to her community members at the Speak Easy which she shared with Nibletz today.

It was determined that the 26 year old bad ass startup chick was staring down the barrel of cancer.

On May 17th Denver began treatment at the IU Simon Cancer Center. She says she’s in good hands at her alma mater. She seemed in very good spirits when we talked with her today, and she is determined to continue to grow the Speak Easy while undergoing treatment.

There’s no exact prognosis just yet. Treatment has just started and her doctors are still determining exactly what kind of cancer it is. Denver is obviously a fighter and she will attack this cancer with the same vigor she’s been leading the Indianapolis startup community with.

When we spoke with her this morning we didn’t want to tell the, “oh my god Denver Hutt has cancer story,” instead her and I decided the story that should be told is that no matter how fast you’re moving, what you’re working on or how close you are to closing that round, you need to take care of your health and your body. That $1 million dollar series A round isn’t going to do you a bit of good if you’re not around to enjoy the fruits of your labor.

Denver had previously committed to being on the “Bad Ass Startup Chicks” panel at the next everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference. She assured me today that she will still make that appearance next February.

STOP When’s the last time you took care of you?

Find the SpeakEasy here
Denver’s message to friends and family here
Information on health insurance for entrepreneurs available through Startup America here

Chicago’s GrubHub And New York’s Seamless Merging To Dominate Food Ordering Market

Chicago based food ordering startup GrubHub and New York based food ordering startup Seamless have announced that the two companies will merge, pending regulatory approval.

GrubHub’s co-founder Matt Maloney will become the combined company’s CEO while Seamless’ CEO Jonathan Zabusky will serve as the new company’s President. A new name for the combined entity has not been announced. Both companies have said they don’t plan on reducing staff. GrubHub employs around 350 people while Seamless employs 300 people.

GrubHub hosted Startup America Regional Champion’s during last October’s Startup America Summit. During that event we enjoyed breakfast, a tour of the company’s new offices and keynote sessions by Maloney, Scott Case and later in the day Brad Keywell of Groupon and LightBank fame.

While rivals GrubHub and Seamless were responsible fora reported $875 million dollars in food sales to local restaurants bringing in over $100 million dollars in revenue.

“We have the luxury of having two amazing brands right now. Honestly, we don’t have plans to consolidate brands at this time,” Matt Maloney, CEO and co-founder of GrubHub, told ABC News. “We are looking to position ourselves as a combined unit within this massive industry.”

Maloney acknowledged that Seamless has a great iPad app. 30% of each company’s business is currently coming from mobile an area where Maloney sees the need for improvement with GrubHub. GrubHub offers in-restaurant tablet technology which could (and probably will) combine with the tablet offerings for Seamless.

The combined company will have a stable of over 500 cities and 20,000 local takeout locations.

The GrubHub Seamless merger lost some of it’s thunder once Yahoo announced the acquisition of Tumblr.

Memphis Seed Hatchery Investor Day Draws Global Audience

On Thursday in a swank movie theater in Memphis’ revitalized midtown district, six startups presented their companies to a theater that was literally, standing room only by the beginning of the pitches.

BetterFed (farm to consumer), MentorMe (e-harmony for mentors), Soundstache (a fan engagement platform for bands), Boosterville (a huge disruption in fundraising), Musistic (Github for musicians) and ScrewPulp (a better way to self publish), took the stage for 12 minute investor pitches after concluding the three month Seed Hatchery accelerator program.

Investors and spectators from Mississippi, Arkansas, Georgia, Tennessee and as far away as Singapore and Silicon Valley were in attendance to take in the pitches.

Mara Lewis, a San Francisco based entrepreneur and founder of stopped.at, was in attendance for the Seed Hatchery festivities which included an after party at the world famous Memphis BBQ competition. Lewis, who’s pitched in front of plenty of crowds said that this group at Seed Hatchery was one of the best groups she’s seen. Lewis is currently working with Start Co’s co-President’s Andre Fowlkes and Eric Mathews on their upcoming Upstart women’s startup accelerator.

After playing host to a group of Memphis entrepreneurs (including myself) in Silicon Valley in March, Kuji Chahal of Fisher Investments made the cross country trek to hear the pitches from the Seed Hatchery cohort. Chahal stuck around throughout the festivities to talk with all of the new entrepreneurs.

Andre Mouton, an investor from Singapore has been ecstatic about Memphis’ entrepreneurship. He made a trip to Memphis in February which included visits to Launch Memphis, Bioworks and everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference. Mouton took meetings with entrepreneurs all weekend long at the BBQ Festival and over at the Peabody Hotel. Mouton told us that he was impressed at how hard everyone was working in Memphis, that my friend is the Grit N Grind.

Vic Gatto, a Managing Partner at Solidus, the investment firm that seeds the Seed Hatchery class along with Jump Start Foundry in Nashville, made it a point to call out investors in the room with a call to action to talk with the entrepreneurs, and see that all six businesses have a good chance of survival. Gatto’s partner Townes Duncan, along with his son Walker Duncan, co-founder and Editor in Chief at southernalpha also made it down from Nashville. The younger Duncan was returning from an event in Atlanta. Obviously the Grit N Grind of Memphis is expanding state wide.

Both Fowlkes and Mathews were quick to point out that Investor Day isn’t the conclusion of the Seed Hatchery program but rather the beginning. They recently added Rhodes graduate, Hillary Quirk, to the Start Co team as Community Manager. In her new role Quirk is forming an alumni association for Memphis’ accelerators which include the two cohorts at ZeroTo510.

You can find out more at neverstop.co and at their old site launchyourcity.com

See all the pitch videos from Seed Hatchery’s investor day here at nibletz.com The Voice Of Startups Everywhere Else.