Comments Off on Two Boise Startups Win B Launched 2.0 Competition0LikeLike 2,392
A pair of Boise startups took home $30,000 in initial funding in Boise Young Professionals competition called B Launched. The contest pitted four startup businesses against each other with the first place team getting $20,000 in initial funding and the second place team taking home $10,000.
Be Free Village is a Boise startup that connects travelers with resources and products who have special dietary needs and food allergies. They have a pretty large launch team including: Lisa Bloomquist, Jared Buff, Chase Burrell, Ali Farber, Brooke Green, Brad Hennessy, Alex Krone, Jennie Myers, Jessie Speck and Cody Wiggins.
“BeFree Village is more than just a community,” Bloomquist said to the Idaho Statesmen. “It is a brand on a mission to become the trusted name for travelers with allergy needs.”
Bloomquist told the Boise Weekly that they were ready to move on.
“That was by far the best presentation I’ve seen done,” Dr. David Pate, president and CEO of St. Luke’s Health system and B-Launched judge, told the Be Free Village team. “The reason you didn’t get a lot of questions is because you answered them.”
The second place team is called Cray Say and they plan on making an app that aids shoppers. They received a $10,000 prize.
In addition to Pate the other judges included: Boise Mayor David Bieter, Boise Metro Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Bill Connors, J.A. and Kathryn Albertson Foundation Executive Director Jamie MacMillan, Idaho Department of Commerce Director Jeff Sayer, Micron Technology Idaho Government Affairs Manager Mike Reynoldson, and Children’s Therapy Place Inc. President & CEO Sondra McMindes.
Comments Off on Toronto YCombinator Startup: Canopy Labs Raises $1.5 Million0LikeLike 2,856
Y-Combinator Toronto based startup Canopy Labs has just raised $1.5 million dollars to help further their company that helps mid-sized businesses build predictive customer models. These models help identify high value customers that can lead to repeat business.
While big businesses typically outsource he development of lead optimization tools, medium sized businesses that may still have over 10,000 customers often don’t have the money to hire a company to build a specific tool. Canopy Labs offers those companies a self serve tool for a fraction of the cost.
Gryc is a Rhodes Scholar who is applying his Master of Science Degrees in Mathematical Modeling and Social Science to create the Canopy labs platform.
“We offer our clients insights into their customer data that marketing or sales analysts can understand and use right away to make customers happier and increase their sales. We’ve launched analytics capabilities for our clients in under 24 hours.” Gryc said in a statement.
Canopy Labs helps consumer and retail enterprises with a large customer base prioritize efforts and deliver different marketing messages to different customers. This results in a more personalized sales experience and higher revenue. Customer modeling case studies have shown that the Canopy Labs platform is capable of processing three million records within minutes, increase sales leads by 25%, and increase sales conversions by 200%.
Canopy Labs’ self-serve platform creates customer models by importing all of the interactions that a business has with its customers. Everything from email, social media, voicemail and call center recordings are analyzed with the products that customers buy and how much they paid for these products. Canopy Labs clients are then provided recommended actions for each customer without a sales rep having to reflect upon each customer, thus saving time for the company while decreasing customer churn and increasing customer spend.
“Many analytics companies say they can solve tough problems but most IT projects in enterprises fail or end up stagnating,” said Ron Warburton, managing partner at the BDC Venture Capital IT Fund. “Canopy Labs has found a way to address a very clear problem for enterprises that don’t want to hire consultants or create customized customer modeling programs – streamlining their analytics process and delivering smart, usable data in a very short timeframe.
Canopy Labs $1.5 million dollar round was led by BDC Venture Capital IT Fund. Peter Thiel’s Valar Ventures and a number of other angel investors participated in the deal.
Comments Off on Swiss Startup Nearbors, Let Your Neighbors Pick Up Your Shopping List0LikeLike 2,961
In reading the pitch from Swiss startup Nearbors I immediately started thinking about Zaarly. The pitch talks about being too busy to go out shopping for groceries or food and having someone else do it for you. Zaarly has done well in some big city markets and is deploying across other medium markets in the United States, so why not have a similar startup in Switzerland?
Well after watching the video below, I quickly realized that Nearbors has taken part of the Zaarly concept a lot further and they’ve combined mobile payments.
Here’s how it works:
Say you’re on deadline either working from home or the office. It’s lunch time and you need some groceries or a decent salad and sandwich. With Zaarly you put the request out there and hope that someone responds.
With Nearbors, there is a community of folks out there waiting for your Nearbor requests. Nearbors, neighbor couriers sign up for the service, have GPS enabled on their phone and receive “jobs” while they are enroute.
So now say Sally is passing by Panera and they are networked into the Nearbors program. I can order a half sandwich and macaroni and cheese and have Sally bring it to me on her way back to her office.
The best part is that through Nearbors they already have my payment information. When Sally gets to checkout she shares a QR code unique to my payment information order and voila it’s paid for. I can see where Sally is enroute to my home or office in the app and then when she arrives I can click the app one more time to pay her a “commission”.
This idea is very well thought out and according to co-founder Ryan Vannin they hope for global expansion. We got a chance to talk with Vannin who’s native tongue is Italian, so please look past his English and onto this great idea.
Comments Off on Boston Techstars Grad: Testive Raises $500,000 Seed0LikeLike 2,046
A recent Boston Techstars startup graduate, Testive, has just announced a $500,000 seed round led by influential local investors.
Testive operates on the premise that SAT prep books suck and SAT prep classes are too expensive. Miro Kazzakoff, the startup’s founder says not only can Testive predict a high school students SAT score but also their method is more efficient.
“Somewhere between cheap, boring prep books and expensive classes is an opportunity to deliver online test prep that doesn’t suck,” Kazakoff told the Boston Business Journal “Testive is building the tools that help students learn more efficiently and more enjoyably.”
Immediately following the Techstars Boston session the company moved into Dog Patch Labs an incubator/co-working space founded by Polaris Venture Partners and also in the same Microsoft building that houses the Boston Techstars program. Several other high growth potential startups occupy the space and work in a collaborative environment.
Local angels; Jean Hammond (A Zipcar investor), Eileen Rudden (co-founder of LeanLaunch), Dharmesh Shah (co-founder of Hubspot) and Bill Warner (founder of Avid/ProTools), all participated in the round.
Kazakoff reports that over 10,000 students already use their SAT Habit software. Their software is based on Turbo Test, originally developed at MIT. The investment will go to continued development of the software. They plan on adding features to add in the preparation of the “writing” part of the SAT.
Comments Off on DC Startup Speek Raises $1.2 Million Dollar Seed Round0LikeLike 2,271
We’ve been tracking DC startup Speek since last May when they pitched the initial concept and platform at the TechBuzz competition in Washington DC as part of Capital Connection.
What originally attracted us to Speek was the super easy interface for their conference calling application. The conference calling space is definitely a hot one. Back in May, another conference calling startup UberConference won the highly coveted TechCrunch Disrupt Battlefield at TechCrunch Disrupt NY.
Speek is actually easier to use. With Speek you simply go to the website, pick a username and enter some information, like your primary phone number. From there, when you want to make a conference call you go to that user’s page on Speek and hit the big button in the middle of the page and voila, conference call initiated. For example, my Speek address is http://speek.com/kyle yes I was using it early enough.
The other main attraction to Speek is the startup pedigree. The company was founded by John Bracken who sold his first big startup e-vite to TicketMaster. Speek’s CTO Danny Boice was the founder at Jaxara a startup he sold to Pantheon in 2006.
Today they announced that they’ve raised a seed round of $1.2 million by “several early stage venture funds”.
“Conference calls today are a painful experience in a $3 billion market that hasn’t innovated in over twenty years,” said Speek.com co-founder and CEO John Bracken. “Speek is revolutionizing conference calling by turning a limited telephone-based service into one that is simple, free and in-tune with the next generation of web and mobile services.”
“Speek makes conducting a conference call fast and easy,” said co-founder and CTO Danny Boice. “No longer do you have to frantically search for a PIN number or wonder who’s on the call or who’s talking. Nearly ninety-percent of people who have used Speek would be disappointed if our service disappeared.”
Comments Off on UK Startup Swogo Launches The “Best Way To Find Products” Starting With Laptops0LikeLike 2,864
According to various consumer electronic trade publications the average consumer takes three weeks to make a decision on a laptop. A new UK startup called Swogo is looking to take that decision making time down to seconds.
Swogo says the main hurdle in making a purchasing decision is the way people search for items. Either they have an idea in their mind at what they want to purchase and then go to a consumer electronics retailer for comparison shopping.
Other consumers take to gigantic search engines like Google and Bing. The problem with traditional search engines is that they lead to information and not answers. Sifting through that information and then vetting it against paid ad campaigns can often lead consumers down the wrong path. In this case they either make the wrong purchasing decision or they prolong the decision making process further.
Swogo plans on becoming a recommendation connection engine for many types of products but they are starting with laptops. The site launched on Monday afternoon in the UK with laptops only and plans on expanding their product line and their global reach this year. By the end of 2013 they plan on adding tablets, smartphones, cameras and TVs.
Sure there are plenty of other electronic and gadget sites out there but Swogo says they have an algorithm that aides customers in making their important purchasing decisions,reducing the time down to seconds.
Comments Off on Founder Of Memphis Startup Mentor.Me Crowdfund’s In Person For Everywhereelse Booth0LikeLike 4,510
This weekend was a big weekend for Memphis entrepreneurs, specifically women founders and entrepreneurs. Upstart Memphis, the latest initiative by Launch Memphis, officially kicked off with the 48 Hour Launch, women’s edition. During the 48 hour period four women CEO’s from Memphis built 4 exciting new startups; Care2Manage, AfocusED Path, Pink Robin Avenue and Mentor.me.
Throughout the weekend the women were rushing to gain as much business knowledge as they could, test their idea out and validate it with customers, and work on their pitch deck. They were also competing for a free booth space at the upcoming “everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference” event being held in Memphis in February.
The three day event is bringing entrepreneurs, founders, and investors from across the country and around the world to Memphis for three days of startup knowledge. A smorgasboard of panels, discussions, fireside chats, networking opportunities and parties. There’s a huge list of nationally known speakers as well. (here’s more info on the event).
Mentor.me is solving a big problem for non profit groups that are linking mentors with mentees. Until now the systems used by most mentoring non profits has been flawed.
For instance Brittany Fitzpatrick said in her pitch that a few people she knows that connect mentors and mentees have to go through thousands of applications and then they link mentors with their mentees by looking at a simple sheet of paper. This paves the way for bad connections and relationships. We also learned that most mentor relationships dissolve in six months or less and that’s actually worse for the mentee than not having been mentored at all.
Check out Mentor.me’s Friday pitch:
And here’s Fitzpatrick’s Sunday pitch:
Fitzpatrick’s web based platform will allow both mentors and mentees the opportunity to build a much more robust profile with likes, interests, needs and goals. This way both the mentor and the mentee have a better chance at vetting each other out to see if they’re likely to be compatible.
When the judges convened after hearing all four pitches on Sunday evening it was a very close call between Mentor.me and the startup that won, Pink Robin Avenue.
Undeterred, once Fitzpatrick realized she wasn’t the winner she started approaching the folks in the audience with a simple proposal, help me get my startup into the conference.
Very quickly Fitzpatrick got sponsored to the beat of $265 and at that point I kicked in the last $30 to get her startup into the conference.
Hopefully both Fitzpatrick and the winner Danielle Inez, will wow the investors the way they wowed the judges this weekend and raise some venture capital.
Comments Off on Black Girls Code Coming Home To Memphis In January0LikeLike 3,312
Meka Egwuekwe (rear) and his daughters Elechi (L) and Sobenna (R) talk about Black Girls Code coming to Memphis photo: nibletz LLC
Kimberly Bryant is an award winning social entrepreneur, technology junkie, an engineer by trade and a native Memphian. She relocated to Silicon Valley and now she’s launched a program that’s rolling out across the country. That program, Black Girls Code, promotes teaching coding and development to young African American Girls.
Bryant describes the mission for Black Girls Code on her website as:
“to introduce programming and technology to a new generation of coders, coders who will become builders of technological innovation and of their own futures.”
Like many others, Bryant believes there’s a “dearth” of African American women in science, technology, engineering and math professions. While some may say it’s because there’s a lack of interest, Bryant knows that it’s more like a lack of access and exposure to STEM topics. The Black Girls Code program is about making STEM topics accessible to African American girls and exposing them at a young age. It’s also done in such a way that it’s fun and positive.
Bryant has held programs through Black Girls Code in cities all over the country and some around the world. Black Girls Code has had events in San Francisco, Chicago, Oakland, Las Vegas, Atlanta, Detroit, Los Angeles, New York and even in Johannesburg. Her most recent event was this past Saturday in Atlanta where they taught kids how to develop their own apps using Google’s App Inventor.
Two of the girls that participated; Elechi (11) and Sobenna (8) Egwuekwe, came to speak on Sunday night at Memphis’ 48 Hour Launch for women event. Their father, Meka Eqwuekwe, who works for local web developer Lokian, has taken an active interest in the Black Girls Code program, and is helping to bring it to Memphis.
The Memphis Black Girls Code chapter will hold an Open House January 15th at Emerge Memphis, the local technology and startup incubator. Then, on February 16th the Memphis chapter will hold it’s first event.
Albeit a little shy, or possibly tired from the 6 hour drive back from Atlanta, both Elechi and Sobenna were glowing with excitement as their father explained the concept and program behind Black Girls Code and the events coming up.
When asked if they had fun, Elechi quickly responded by saying yes and then described the experience. Elechi told the audience of about 50 that she and her sister got to create their own app using the App Inventor platform. She was quick to point out that App Inventor is a Google product and that meant their first app was for the Android platform.
The app that the girls created was a photo app that allowed a user to add sound effects to a picture taken on an Android phone. Launch Your City’s Chief Brand Officer and the woman in charge of Upstart Memphis, and the 48 Hour Launch For Women, Elizabeth Lemmonds, was quick to point out to both young ladies that there was no age limit for Upstart and that next year she expected to see the two sisters pitching a startup at the 48 Hour Launch for women.
Comments Off on Voice Of Memphis Grizzlies Confirms, Grizzlies & Memphis Are All In With Entrepreneurship And Startups0LikeLike 3,075
photo: nibletz.com
Yesterday we reported that Los Angeles startup myStorey had teamed up with super star Memphis Grizzlies forward, Rudy Gay, for their new platform that “shopifies” the clothing and accessories he and other celebrities wear and use everyday. It seems with the changing of the guard and the sale of the team earlier this fall, that the Grizzlies are all about entrepreneurship, startups and cultivating downtown Memphis.
Back in November, the Memphis Grizzlies were sold by Michael Heisley to a new group led by 34 year old telecommunications entrepreneur Robert J Pera. Pera had made the list of Forbes 10 youngest billionaires in the world after the company he founded in 2005, Ubiquiti networks, went public in October 2011.
In Pera’s biography that appears in the Memphis Grizzlies programs this season, it says that it was a life long goal for Pera to be involved in professional sports which ultimately led to him leading the group that finally closed on the purchase of the Memphis Grizzlies, with NBA approval just two months ago.
Justin Timberlake, Peyton Manning’s wife Ashley and basketball star Penny Hardaway are all minority stake holders in Pera’s group.
The local Memphis part of the ownership group is more than just a group of local businessmen. Each one of the local team is an entrepreneur in their own right but they’ve also either embraced or are starting to embrace the local young entrepeneur and startup space as well.
J.R. “Pitt” Hyde, is the founder of Autozone. He has one of the most robust careers of any single person. Hyde grew up in a family of entrepreneurs and immediately got involved with the family business Malone and Hyde. After taking over Malone and Hyde he ended up being the youngest CEO of any publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange. He was also the sitting CEO when Malone and Hyde was one of the first leveraged buyouts by notorious LBO firm KKR, prior to their infamous deal for RJR Nabisco chronicled in the movie and book Barbarians at the Gate.
Hyde continued to build companies, including national auto parts chain AutoZone which is headquartered in Memphis. He also sits on the board of Memphis Bioworks, the medical device incubator that is the collaboration partner with Seed Hatchery in the Zeroto510 program. Hyde is also part of the Society of Entrepreneurs, an organization that supports local entrepreneurship, and he recently spoke at a New Memphis luncheon, where he moderated a panel with local startups PayTopia, Nanopthalmics and Bionanovations, all three of whom accelerated through Launch Memphis affiliated programs.
Staley Cates is the President of Southeastern Asset Management. He was also instrumental in bringing the Memphis Grizzlies to Memphis from Vancouver. He sits on several boards that deal directly with youth including the board of the New Hope Christian Academy, Memphis Athletic Ministries, Soulsville and the Urban Youth Initiative. Also a member of the Society of Entrepreneurs Cates participates in mentoring young companies through the organizations “Core Conversations” program.
Ed Dobbs helps lead the family business Dobbs Management Service which oversees interests in the automotive industry; restaurants and airline catering, beverage distribution and holding company Three Rivers Holdings. Dobbs is leading the family’s efforts to start and acquire new businesses. Dobbs also sits on the board of Memphis Fast Forward, an organization that fosters development, attraction and retention of talent in Memphis Shelby County.
Duncan Williams, is the President of Duncan Williams a local investment bank. Duncan Williams is very active in the Memphis community. The company was also a signature sponsor for the Southeastern Medical Device Association Conference that was held in March in Atlanta. The organization highlights medical device entrepreneurship which is a growing funnel of new startup activity in the Memphis region and the southeast.
Billy Orgel, is a Memphis communications Mogul. As the head of Tower Ventures a company that owns over 700 communications towers across the country and has sold another 280 more. Through the Society of Entrepreneurs, he too is active in fostering and mentoring young companies in Memphis. Orgel was also the angel investor that backed City Torch a Memphis location discovery startup that operated out of Emerge Memphis.
But the Memphis Grizzlies ties to entrepreneurship don’t start or stop with their list of investors and even their player involvement in social startups. Many of the men listed here along with several others tied to the organization have noticed an emergence of more and more people coming to Memphis to go to school and staying post graduation to work for or start their own companies. They’ve also taken notice of companies and startups that have relocated to the Memphis area to grow their businesses.
The entrepreneurial activity is bubbling to the degree that Memphis Grizzlies PA Announcer Rick Trotter made it a point to take notice of students staying in Memphis and the entrepreneurial activity spurring in the downtown area in a recent interview with local Memphis publication choose901.com.
“One of my favorite things about being part of Memphis, right now is being a part of, a new culture, a new sense of optimism in this city…” He continues “I see a lot of hopeful folks, a lot of people with fresh ideas, and creativity coming to this city, people going to colleges and high schools in this city and staying here to invest…” Trotter goes on “I’ve got a lot of friends in this area who are entrepreneurs and business owners…” Check out the entire 3 minute interview below.
With the everywhereelse.co conference just over two months away, over 1500 people have already purchased tickets from across the country and around the world, to come to Memphis and see this wind of change with their own eyes. Hundreds of those attendees have identified themselves as accredited angel investors and VC’s and out of the companies we recognize there is over $10 billion dollars in venture capital that will be represented at the conference.
With that it’s only fitting that we’ll kick off the festivities of Sunday evening with a Grizzlies game as they take on the Minnesota Timberwolves on Sunday February 10th when they arrive for the conference. After the game all the attendees will pour onto Beale Street to take in some of the entertainment that Memphis is famous for during the Grasshopper, the Entrepreneurs’ Phone System Bar Hop.
With that, we’re so excited to welcome everyone coming to the everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference, to our house, the Fedex Forum to kick off the largest startup conference in the country, everywhereelse.co
Comments Off on St. Louis Startup LockerDome Surpasses 3 Million MUVs0LikeLike 2,685
Lately St. Louis startup LockerDome has been on fire. We recently reported that the sports social networking startup announced the first game/app built on their platform. Soon after we reported that 19 year venture capital veteran Mark Lewis, had joined the company as CFO. Thursday, they announced that they’ve surpassed 3 million monthly unique visitors (muv).
In addition to offering a sports social network for any stage athlete, from childrens intramural sports, up through college and pro, LockerDome also features over 1350 professional athletes, brands, media personalities, parody sites and other recognized sports properties that host their brands on LockerDome. By leveraging LockerDome, publishers are able to reach a more engaged, targeted sports audience and increase their overall social media footprint. Since launching in January, the interactive sports social media platform has delivered 47% average growth across Facebook and Twitter for its properties (average 4.3 month span, 109,018 to 144,746 followers).
Sports enthusiasts join LockerDome to become a part of interest-specific sports communities where they can consume content and interact with like-minded fans around their favorite professional athletes, teams and sports. The company has been growing at an average rate of14% per week since its launch 11 months back, surpassing one million uniques in June, two million in October and now three million in November. At its current growth rate, LockerDome is on pace to be a top-10 most visited sports site in the next 12 – 18 months.
Contributing to LockerDome’s tremendous growth are the contests that professional athletes, brands, and media personalities host on its platform, with its high-profile contests attracting more than 100,000 entries. Unique to LockerDome is the ability for its properties to easily cross-promote one another, as well as run their contests seamlessly across Facebook and Twitter, maximizing the audience that each property reaches. Contests on LockerDome boast an average landing page conversion of 19%, more than six times above the industry average of 2% – 3%. Current featured contests include MLB Hall of Famer, Wade Boggs, MLB’s all-time hits leader, Pete Rose, NFL Superstars, Larry Fitzgerald and Troy Polamalu, and the iconic baseball brand, Rawlings.
“This is just the tip of the iceberg for LockerDome. As explosive as LockerDome’s growth has been in 2012, we will undoubtedly be even more dominant in 2013,” commented Gabe Lozano, co-founder and CEO of LockerDome. “The overwhelming demand for LockerDome by professional athletes, media partners, brands and the targeted audiences these publishers reach, and the subsequent meteoric growth from that demand, is a clear indication that the LockerDome platform will only continue to strengthen.”
“Every professional athlete needs to be on LockerDome. By leveraging LockerDome as the social media hub for my personal brand, I’ve been able to better engage my fans and grow my entire social presence across Facebook, Twitter, and LockerDome,” said Larry Fitzgerald, All-Pro NFL wide receiver with the Arizona Cardinals. “From a content standpoint, I use LockerDome not only to host unique fan giveaways, but also as a daily source to post behind the scenes, interactive content.”
“As one of the world’s premier sports agencies, we’re always looking for unique technologies that give our clients an edge. LockerDome has become part of our secret sauce,” said Adam Rosenthal, Director of Athlete Marketing at Octagon Sports. “LockerDome not only enhances our clients’ brands, but also provides them with new monetization opportunities. LockerDome will become a standard across all professional athletes and notable sports figures.”
Comments Off on Startup Communities: Celebrating Victories0LikeLike 1,928
Brad Feld, startup investor, co-founder of Techstars, co-founder of Foundry Group, Marathon Runner, and huge startup community evangelist offers lots of great advice in his recent book on startup communities. One of the things that he speaks about when talking about startup communities is celebrating a startup community victory.
Earlier this morning we reported that Memphis startup accelerator grad Restore Medical Solutions has raised a $2.5 million dollar series A round.
That’s a huge victory for not only Restore Medical Solutions but for the Memphis Startup Community.
Comments Off on Memphis Startup Restore Medical Raises $2.5 Million Seed Round0LikeLike 4,310
Shawn Flynn (L) Ryan Ramkhelawan (R) founders of Restore Medical Solutions
Memphis’ startup community has kicked it into high gear as of late. In 2012 Launch Your City, the organization behind the Seed Hatchery starutp accelerator, the Launch Pad free coworking space and Launch Memphis, the curriculum arm behind Memphis’ startup ecosystem, had a big year. They saw two cohorts go through their Seed Hatchery program this year. One group of web/tech entrepreneurs took their startups through Seed Hatchery. The other group went through a collaborative effort between Seed Hatchery and Memphis BioWorks called Zeroto510.
The Zeroto510 program is a medical device startup accelerator that relies on Bioworks for the medical part and Seed Hatchery for the startup, and business development portion of their training. After a rigorous accelerator program, and an intense demo day in May, the six startups in the program saw 85% follow on funding. Four of the graduating startup companies received $100,000 investments from MB Ventures and Innova. The fifth startup, Restore Medical Solutions, raised a $2.5 million dollar Series A round.
It’s no wonder that Restore Medical Solutions was able to close such a large round. Co-Founder Shawn Flynn announced that the company had a $3.75 million dollar purchase order, during his investor day pitch.
Restore Medical Solutions has come up with a concept and system to more efficiently sterilize surgical instruments. When we first met with Flynn and Co-Founder Ryan Ramkhelawan explained that not only was the current system for sterilizing surgical instruments filled with flaws, to a degree it’s also dangerous.
Currently surgical instruments are grouped in sets according to the surgery that the operating room is performing. The instruments are kept in a sterile container/tray until they are brought up to the surgical suite and used. However, if one piece of equipment is either missing, or shows signs of not being completely sterilized, the entire set is deemed unusable and another set is ordered up.
The problem with that is most hospitals don’t have a bunch of reserve sets for the operating rooms. The sterilization team has put together the sets based on that days surgeries. Waiting on instruments to be re-sterilized and recompiled can take hours. At that time the patient is either kept under anesthesia or they are woken up, either option can have risks.
Not only that but some hospitals still use sterilization procedures that are likened to the way silverware is washed in a restaurant, everything dumped on one big tray and run through a dishwasher type sterilization machine. The problem with that is the instruments at the bottom may not be as sterile as the instruments on the top. This is often the cause of hospital born infections.
Restore Medical Solutions system makes the process quicker, more efficient and completely sterile.
Flynn and Ramkhelawan get anxious and excited when talking about their process and the upside potential for hospitals. With the reduction in time, the more efficient sterilization and the cut down on infections, Restore Medical Solutions is in the business of sterilizing instruments, but more importantly to the bottom line, driving costs down. Quicker turn arounds in the sterilization process also mean quicker turn arounds in the operating rooms, and more surgeries.
How much money? We’re not talking a thousands here or a thousand there, we’re talking tens of millions of dollars per hospital.
The duo behind Restore Medical Solutions has already pitched a number of hospitals in Tennessee and along the east coast. To date they are proud to announce that they’ve at least secured a follow up meeting and in other cases, purchase orders.
While a $2.5 million dollar Series A round is great for the company and will allow them to start producing to fulfill their purchase orders, it wasn’t always easy. Both Ramkhelawan and Flynn quit their good paying day jobs in Atlanta to relocate to Memphis for the ZeroTo510 program. The program gave them a $50,000 seed round but waiting for that initial funding they were sneaker-strapping it like the rest of their cohort.
Both men left families back in Atlanta and Ramkhelawan and his wife had just had a new baby daughter. With kids, families, and houses in Atlanta these two middle aged entrepreneurs set out to live the ramen noodle eating, hipster lifestyle. They immediately went on the grind to make things happen.
And happen it did.
After finding out about the ZeroTo510 program from a friend of Flynn’s who has a marketing business in Memphis the two made the trip to Memphis to scope out the city and the program. They immediately fell in love with the town. They are sharing an apartment literally within feet from the new corporate headquarters for Restore Medical which officially opens Friday.
For what they’re doing, both entrepreneurs admit that the Memphis startup ecosystem is further along than things are in Atlanta. New initiatives have begun in Atlanta which will be great for the region but Memphis is already doing it. Also, Jackson Tennessee is doing it as well. Both entrepreneurs spend time in Jackson, helping to further that cities entrepreneurs along as well.
Flynn and Ramkelawan give a lot of credit to Launch Your City’s Eric Mathews and Bio Works’ Allan Daisley who were instrumental in the Zeroto510 programs inaugural class.
Comments Off on Accelerate Your Startup In Hawaii, BlueStartups Now Taking Applications For Spring0LikeLike 2,426
Who wouldn’t want to accelerate their early stage startup surrounded by blue water, sandy beaches and the tropical paradise that is Hawaii? Well we just heard, by way of our friends at Alohastartups.com, that Blue Startups is now taking applications for it’s Spring 2013 accelerator class.
Blue Startups is a member of the Global Accelerator Network (formerly TechStars accelerator network) and with that you get the standard $20,000 seed investment and $100,000 in services including things like web hosting, $60,000 in Microsoft Azure credits, $12,000 in SoftLayer hosting, $10,000 in PayPal transaction credits, as well as some other great business services that will help your startup.
The spring cohort will run from February 8 through May 9 2013 with Demo Day happening May 10th 2013. Brad Feld will be the keynote speaker at Blue Startups demo day.
Blue Startups features a mentor network of over 50 leading mentors reaching from China, Japan and Silicon Valley.
They will host up to 10 startups in their spring session and have work space available for up to three people per startup team. They will also have one on one meetings with an assigned mentor every week who will help develop the startup and the startup team and follow their progress throughout the session. Other mentor sessions will be available throughout the course of the program.
The early application deadline is December 15th with the final deadline January 15, 2013.
Comments Off on Ft. Lauderdale Startup: clearCi Makes Finals In Upstart Competition0LikeLike 4,294
Last month we covered Ft. Lauderdale startup clearCi by way of our content partners at StarTropica. ClearCi simplifies competitive intelligence, which for any company, can be a big factor in their success.
Back in the 70’s and 80’s “competitive intelligence” may have been viewed as spying, however it’s common practice in today’s business world, in fact if you’re not doing it you could end up losing customers, and an overall grip on your business. The problem though, is in the fact that there is so much competitive intelligence available. clearCi makes it easy for companies both big and small to streamline their competitive intelligence and find the most important information available, to make decisions.
The young Ft. Lauderdale company is making in impact in South Florida, and now across the country. They’ve been selected as a finalist in not one but four categories in the upcoming 2012 Up-Start Cloud Awards. The finals for the awards will be held in San Francisco on December 12th where Emmanuel Trenche and clearCi’s founder and CEO, Joe Levy, will be on hand to help garner votes and pitch their startup.
“The first round was entirely based on gaining votes from our customer base and general public,” said Emmanuel Trenche, VP of Marketing Communications at clearCi. “Going up against Microsoft, Dell and SIlicon Valley startups made us think creatively to stand out.”
clearCi was selected as a finalist in the following categories:
Best Cloud Business Intelligence/Analytice
Best Big Data Solution
Best Cloud Service Provider
Best Industry Application
Kyle
A pair of Boise startups took home $30,000 in initial funding in Boise Young Professionals competition called B Launched. The contest pitted four startup businesses against each other with the first place team getting $20,000 in initial funding and the second place team taking home $10,000.
Mike Hoffmeyer
