Startup News Archives - Page 49 of 53

Baltimore Startups: Abell Foundation Looking For Next AccelerateBaltimore Class

The Abell Foundation is back again, teaming up with the Emerging Technology Center’s (ETC) in Baltimore Maryland. They’re looking for the best high growth potential startup businesses for the second class of AccelerateBaltimore. The Abell Foundation is backing AccelerateBaltimore with $150,000 in seed funding, to provide six new businesses with $25,000 each. The Baltimore Business Journal reports that this is a 50% increase in funding from last April’s class.

Emerging Technology Center’s CEO Deborah Tillett is hoping to attract national and even international startups to Baltimore’s growing technology hub.

“It’s about innovation in Baltimore,” Tillett said to the Business Journal. “We’ll open it up as far and as wide as we can to get a message out to make sure we get great quality companies.”

AccelerateBaltimore runs much like many other cohort based accelerator programs. In addition to the $25,000 in seed funding the six participating companies will also receive boot camp style intense training for thirteen weeks. They’ll also get free office space at one of the two ETC locations in either Johns Hopkins or Canton.

Both locations offer access to mentors, potential investors and other resources. However, the Canton location’s lease is up in September of next year. That won’t affect this next batch of startups going through the program. Tillett told the Business Journal last Thursday that no decision has been made as to whether or not they are renewing the lease at the Can Co building. The building also houses one of Baltimore’s most successful startups, the now publicly traded Millenial Media.

AccelerateBaltimore attracted some great startups in their first class, of them we’ve covered Kithly and NoBadGift.

Linkage

Apply to AccelerateBaltimore here

Source: Baltimore Business Journal

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New York Robotics Investment Firm Makes First Startup Investment: Double Robotics

A Y-Combinator graduate and California startup, Double Robotics, is the first startup to receive an investment from New York based Grishin Robotics. Grishin was started by Dimitry Grishin who’s been dubbed the “Russian Mark Zuckerberg” by the fine folks at BetaBeat and others.

The investment into Double Robotics marks the first investment made by Grishin Robotics with more on the way. Grishin invested $250,000 into the startup.

Double Robotics has already sold 600 units ($1.2 million) of their first robotic product. The product, called Double, is a robot that puts an iPad on wheels and then gives you a mobile telecommunications device. Think that robot that Sheldon used on Big Bang Theory in the episode where he wanted Steve Wozniak’s autograph, but much more refined.

Grishin’s investment will be spent primarily on scaling, manufacturing and hiring for further development. Double Robotics plans on shipping the 600 pre-orders in the first part of 2013.

“We are thrilled to have Grishin Robotics and Dmitry Grishin, in particular, as our largest investor to date,” said David Cann, Co-founder of Double Robotics. “We read about the new investment firm and Dmitry’s experience in the field of robotics in June 2012 when the fund was announced. The timing was perfect, as we were just beginning the Y Combinator program with our prototype robot. After our public launch in August, we met with Grishin Robotics and were immediately impressed with their mission and deep knowledge of the robotics industry’s past mistakes and potential future. We look forward to working with Grishin Robotics in the years to come as we build our business.”

Grishin is the Chairman of the Board and CEO of Russian firm mail.ru who holds major investments in players like Facebook and Zynga. He became Chairman of mail.ru after global venture capitalist Yuri Milner stepped down. Grishin Robotics is Grishin’s own venture capital firm, which as you can tell from the name, invests in robotics startups.

“Investment in Double Robotics perfectly fits our strategy,” said Dmitry Grishin, founder of Grishin Robotics. “It is a consumer-oriented product with potential to fit a broad range of applications and has already generated strong consumer demand. It’s also important that the price of the product makes it accessible to the wide audience. In addition, the team has creative approach to design and is keen to build user-friendly products — both are very important focus areas for next-generation personal robotics companies. Double Robotics is well positioned to leverage the unique potential of the prominent telepresence robotics market. We have a great belief in Double Robotics team and its product.”

Linkage:

Check out Double Robotics Here

Check out Grishin Robotics Here

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Los Angeles Startup: Contur Launches To Turn Your Email Into Tasks!

When this pitch came across our editors box on Friday it was like Eureka. Los Angeles startup Contur has done something amazing with email. They’ve created a platform that beefs up the functionality of email, and the most important part of that, they’ve turned it into tasks.

When we have an idea for a longtail story or a feature story that requires more indepth reporting we typically add it to starred email and then set a reminder in the calendar to go back and work on it. The problem is the important starred email box fills up and the calendar does as well. This is hardly an effective process. Unfortunately with the volume of email we get, we sometimes get a reminder email from the startup we’re working with on the story.

If we could turn email into tasks, projects and add notes to them it would make our work flow go much better. Now thanks to Los Angeles startup Contur we can do that. The Contur app lets users treat any of their emails as tasks, organize them by projects, and add notes and non-email related tasks. Contur makes email more manageable and easier to put into context, manipulate, prioritize and search, moving users closer to “Inbox Zero.”

Contur CEO Justyna Wojick validates the fact that our current method of starring messages and making calendar entries is outdated at best.

“Contur is aimed at the 90 million knowledge workers and professionals in the United States who are experiencing email overload,” said Contur co-founder and CEO Wójcik said in a statement. “Contur takes email beyond such outdated tools as tags and priority inboxes, which have long lost their power to help users not only tackle the ever-growing volume of their incoming email, but to act on that volume as well.”

Monday-Friday we typically receive 300-500 email messages a day, making us power users by Contur standards. Contur was designed for power users and hopes to help get people to “inbox zero” something i haven’t seen in years.

“The demand is high for a solution like Contur to manage email inboxes; 500 people have already signed up on the Contur waitlist. In the United States alone, over a billion dollars are lost each year due to workers having to do necessary, but unproductive, tasks related to email, such as organizing them, keeping track of follow-ups, and other tasks. Contur will help recover some of that lost time and revenue,” added Wójcik.

Contur launched out of Start Engine the LA based accelerator founded by Howard Marks one of the co-founders of Actvision.

We’re on the Contur waitlist and can’t wait to use it. Contur is compatible with pop email and also gmail, or Google apps mail so most business power users can use it.

Linkage:

Check out and sign up for Contur here

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Boston Startup: BlockAvenue Officially The New Kid On The Block

We got a sneak peak at a great freshly launched Boston starutp in August, BlockAvenue. This unique startup has been described as a yelp for neighborhoods, and to some extent it is, but it actually offers a whole lot more.

While BlockAvenue is a bit of a discovery, and recommendation startup, it’s also a big data startup wrapped up in a really sexy frame. To that end, BlockAvenue, in it’s current form, touches over 50 million data points of neighborhood information. BlockAvenue helps you discover, and research neighborhoods any way you want.

Picture this, you’re thinking about moving to a new neighborhood. You want to find out about crime, schools,restaurants, transits and sex offenders. These are the typical things people research online before moving somewhere. Before BlockAvenue that would be five different websites and of course if you didn’t go to the right site you may be out of luck with outdated data and searching even more. BlockAvenue lays it all out for you.

“Until now, location-based information, has not been aggregated in an easy and useful way for people to understand and consume,” said BlockAvenue Founder Anthony Longo. “By providing an intuitive platform powered by both geo-data and social conversation, we can help people understand what the makeup is or where the trend is heading at virtually any location throughout the U.S.”

BlockAvenue lays everything out for you across a map. It aggregates a ton of data to give you a “block score” this block score is an A-F grade based on some of the information about like crime, sex offenders, schools, transit and crowdsourced reviews. As you can see from checking out DuPont Circle, a trendy neighborhood in Washington DC, there are already a few user reviews in the neighborhood.

The hope is that more people will join in the conversation to add to the data sets provided by BlockAvenue. As more and more people add their block reviews the platform will grow exponentially. This is another case where most of these resources have already been online but never aggregated in such an easy to use way.

BlockAvenue was built in DogPatch Labs at the Microsoft building in Boston Massachusetts.

Linkage:

Check out our interview with BlockAvenue here

Check out BlockAvenue for yourself here

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NY Startup Moment.Me Launches All Your Moments In One Easy To Use Platform

A lot of startups have tried to attack the event space. Some are concentrating on ticketing, others are concentrating on sharing the experience. Moment.me wants to be the destination for capturing the overall experience through media, in one big hub. Moment.me is looking for everyone who attends an event to have one centralized place for photos, videos and tweets of an event.

As an example, say you were attending the iHeartRadio festival in Las Vegas this weekend. If you were part of the moment.me community you could share every photo, video and tweet from the iHeartRadio festival with everyone else who was at the festival and a member of moment.me. Then, the public has one big place to see all the content that everyone has created.

“People want to see more points-of-view from their experiences and love to share because in essence, we’re social creatures,” said Ronny Elkayam, CEO and Co-Founder of Moment.me. “When we share photos, what we really intend to share are experiences, but traditional photo sharing only captures one piece of a larger puzzle. Moment.me’s mission is to enhance shared experiences with context, social connection and real-time viewing to become a window to the world’s trending moments.”

Moment.me is taking this beta launch to Singapore for the SingTel 2012 Formula 1™ Singapore Grand Prix. In addition to moments being uploaded onto the moment.me platform, they have teamed up with SingTel to show all the moments on gigantic screens in the paddock area of the race. This will be a great way to show off the platform and app and also show brands the power of such a platform.

“The mobile app will transform the way people experience popular events all over the world like the Singtel Formula 1™ Singapore Grand Prix, as well as concerts, parties and political rallies by providing simultaneous multiple perspectives of the dozens, hundreds and even thousands of others in the crowd who are tweeting, taking pictures and shooting videos. It will also allow users to find personally relevant, interesting and trending moments materializing nearby, bringing an element of social discovery to the app and a new way for marketers to connect with fans and followers.” Elkayam added.

“At Singtel, we have a constant finger on the pulse of emerging consumer technologies and understand how mobile broadband, smart phones and tablets continue to transform the way people connect with each other and the world around them,” said Mr. Loo Cheng Chuan, Head of Local L!fe, Group Digital L!fe at SingTel. “We are interested in finding a platform that could automatically fetch, match and present multiple points-of-view of this exciting event in real time. Our partnership with Moment.me will provide Formula 1™ enthusiasts a new way to view the experience that was never possible before.”

Signing up for moment.me is a breeze anyone with a valid Facebook, Google+ or Twitter account can sign up and use the service right away.

Linkage:

Check out Moment.me here at moment.me

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University Of Minnesota Has Record Year For Incubated Startups

The University of Minnesota has reported that they’ve had a record year for startups incubated within the University System. U of M has spawned 38 startups since they’ve started keeping track six years ago. Of those 38, 30 of them are still operating today.

Last fiscal year alone the University spawned 12 startups which is 3 more than the previous year. Startups coming out of the University of Minnesota span a number of industries. Last year they ranged from a vaccine to treat brain tumors to a smartphone based software that is said to improve driving.

“This record number of startups shows that the overhaul of our technology commercialization function that was initiated five years ago is clearly paying off,” said president Eric Kaler. “The diverse range of disciplines represented in these 12 startup companies demonstrates what a valuable resource the University of Minnesota is to businesses in this state, and beyond.”

Here are the twelve startups:

Argilex Technologies: Membrane technology for separation processes such as those in the petroleum refining, chemicals and biofuels industries (Michael Tsapatsis/College of Science and Engineering)
Ariel Pharmaceuticals: Treatment for prevention of death due to blood loss from trauma (Matthew Andrews/Biology, UMN-Duluth; Lester Drewes and Gregory Beilman/Medical School)
CIPAC: Treatment using live bacterial preparation that could stop infection caused by the bacterium Clostridium difficile (Michael Sadowsky/College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences and Alexander Khoruts/Medical School)
cycleWood Solutions: Low-cost biodegradable and compostable bags (Simo Sarkanen/ CSE)
Drive Power: Web- and smartphone-based products that leverage emerging measurement technologies and predictive analytics to enable people to make more informed driving decisions (Max Donath, Craig Shankwitz and Alec Gorjestani/CSE)
Early Learning Labs: Assessments and services to help parents and early child-care providers develop “kindergarten-ready” children (Scott McConnell/College of Education and Human Development)
Epitopoietic Research Corporation: Vaccine that engages the immune system to treat brain tumors (John Ohlfest and Walter Low/Medical School)
Heat Mining Company: Process uses sequestered carbon dioxide to extract geothermal energy from the earth in order to generate electricity (Martin Saar/CSE)
Omicron Health Systems: Technology that helps clinicians monitor patient progress and improve the process of performing clinical research (Kevin Peterson/Medical School)
SMART Signal Technologies: Hardware and software solution that can be used to reduce traffic congestion on major signalized arterial highways (Henry Liu/CSE)
VitalSims: Simulated practice setting that enables the observation, analysis, and improvement of physician decision-making (Paul Johnson/Carlson School and George Biltz/CEHD)
Vytacera Pharma: Antidote for the prevention and treatment of cyanide poisoning (Bob Vince, Steve Patterson and Herb Nagasawa/Center for Drug Design)

The University’s Tim Mulcahy, Vice President of Research, says that the startups produced within the University system include startups from faculty, staff and students. The University is hoping to create as many new businesses as possible.

“This is extraordinarily good news that further illustrates the momentum we’ve established in our tech transfer operations,” said Tim Mulcahy, vice president for research. “Jay Schrankler and his team did an exceptional job in an economy where launching new companies was challenging, to say the least.”

Linkage:

Kauffman Foundation Backs Silicon Prairie News

A big congratulations goes out to Jeff Slobotski and the team at Silicon Prairie News. Since 2008 SPN has been serving the high growth tech and startup community in the midwest with a concentration in a triangle between Kansas City, Des Moines and Omaha Nebraska. In addition to providing great news coverage for startups and entrepreneurs in the region, SPN has either hosted, sponsored or covered all of the major events in the region.

It’s their unwavering commitment to the startup community in that region which has sparked a major sponsorship from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. The Kauffman Foundation sponsors start efforts, events and initiatives across the country. They are also a major research resource for startup, entrepeneurial and job data in the United States.

With its sponsorship, the Kauffman Foundation becomes the site-wide sponsor of siliconprairienews.com; lead sponsor of Silicon Prairie News’ flagship event series in Omaha, Des Moines and, new in 2013, Kansas City; lead sponsor of the 2013 Silicon Prairie News Awards; and lead sponsor for a new series of Silicon Prairie News’ events in California, New York and other entrepreneurial hubs that will target entrepreneurs who were raised or educated in the Midwest but have relocated to other parts of the country.

“This sponsorship aligns with the Kauffman Foundation’s mission to educate entrepreneurs by supporting efforts that provide the knowledge, skills and networks needed to start and grow businesses,” said Thom Ruhe, Kauffman Foundation vice president of entrepreneurship. “We are proud to support Silicon Prairie News as it recognizes successful entrepreneurs in Kansas City and throughout the region and celebrates the jobs and wealth they create for society.”

All in all the goal of most startups, and ecosystem supporters, like SPN (and nibletz) is to help spur economic growth and create jobs. To that end Slobotski plans on adding a full time staff in Kansas City, with an official launch in November.

“Today marks an important step in our organization’s future,” said Jeff Slobotski, co-founder and chief community builder of Silicon Prairie News. “Together, with the resources and support of the Kauffman Foundation, we are excited to continue building the region’s startup and entrepreneurial ecosystem.”

Linkage:

SPN

Kauffman Foundatoin

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Boston Startup: UberSense Raises $1.1M Seed Round From Google Ventures & More

This week seems to be a good week for fundraising outside of the valley. Tuesday we brought you the story about Philadelphia startup Perceptual Networks and the A-List seed round they recently closed. Today the news comes to us by way of Boston and TechStars Boston 2012 graduate, UbserSense.

UbserSense is a sports app thats designed for athletes and coaches at any level to help the athlete with coaching and training. This can be achieved at anytime and anywhere using UberSense’s signature feature, a mobile video collaboration platform that makes it easy to tape, train, and coach.

Aside from participating in the TechStars Boston 2012 program, UberSense saw a huge uptick when it was discovered that the USA Gymnastics and USA Volleyball teams used UberSense to train for the 2012 Olympic Games.

Using an iPhone or iPad with the Ubersense app, coaches or athletes can video-tape and analyze their technique, compare themselves with pros, track their progress; coaches and peers can provide feedback not only in-person, but remotely.The Ubersense app’s main feature and most powerful asset is its innovative video-based feedback experience, called Uberview. An Uberview can contain a coach’s audio feedback, instructive drawings, alterations to video playback, and even comparisons; all are easily captured into an Uberview video that they can easily be shared with an athlete, parent, or peer in-person or remotely.

While UberSense is a sports coaching app, you can read between the lines and see how the UberView technology could be used for anything from coaching and training soccer techniques, basketball, swimming, track and field, even ballet dancing, and public speaking. The ability to not only train and coach from afar but to do it mobile makes the startup even more attractive.

.“Video feedback is an important tool in skill development”, says Jamie Morrison, Assistant Coach of the USA women’s national volleyball team. “It has allowed us to connect how an athlete feels they are performing a skill with what it actually looks like as well as what it should look like. Through ease of use and a low cost, Ubersense puts that valuable tool into the hands of all coaches, parents and athletes.”

“Ubersense helps you raise your game”, says Krishna Ramchandran, co-founder and CEO of Ubersense. “Our investors have contributed to building some of the most successful consumer companies and we are thrilled to have them on our team as we build out the product and company.”

UberSense has raised $1.1 million dollars from Google Ventures, Atlas Ventures, Boston Seed Capital and an undisclosed group of angel investors.

Linkage:

Check out Ubersense here

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Nashville Startup: Edo Interactive Closes Another $15 Million In Venture Funding

Edo Interactive, a startup headquartered in Nashville TN has just announced another $15 million in venture funding. Silicon Valley based VantagePoint Capital Partners led the latest $15 million dollar round. Baird Ventures also participated. Bair led Edo Interactive’s $20 million dollar round last year and cumulatively Edo Interactive has raised $54 million in venture funding.

So what does this Nashville startup do that’s garnered such huge venture capital investments? They provide a deals service, similar to Groupon, but through banks and retailers vs mom and pop restaurants, coffee shops and other businesses. Retailers pay banks a fee to market deals to their databases of credit and debit cards. This gives Edo Interactives client base a much more lucrative market.

Using Edo Interactive’s proprietary technology bank cards are directly tied to participating retailers cash register systems, delivering an instant rebate right back to the customer utilizing the deal. The retailer can then notify the customer by email, text or voicemail. Chicagobusiness.com reports that Edo has relationships with 140 banks with 150 million card holders. They also work with 5 of the 10 largest credit card providers.

Ed Braswell is the CEO of Edo Interactive which is headquartered in Nashville Tennessee and has an additional 20 employees working in the Chicago area. They employ 75 total right now.

“Payments and advertising are colliding; to stay competitive, banks must deliver value to cardholders that goes beyond the traditional realm of services, while advertisers are searching for solutions to drive customer acquisition, loyalty and return on marketing investment,” CEO Ed Braswell said in the statement. “This latest investment will help Edo expand our market leadership position and scale our advertising content, merchant partnerships and growth within the highly competitive local business market.”

Braswell has said that he hopes to offer 140 million new offers per week by 2013. Crate & Barrel, Nordstrom, Target and Subway are just some of the companies that work with Edo Interactive’s platform.

Linkage:

Check out EdoInteractive here

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Google Acquires German Company Nik Software For It’s SnapSeed Startup

While the Instagram staffers were taking their new offices at Facebook on Monday and Tuesday, Google announced that they have acquired German company Nik Software and with that, their photo sharing startup SnapSeed. Instagram officially moved it’s modest staff of under 20 into Facebook’s headquarters Monday where they will be able to integrate and innovate closely with the existing Facebook team.

Nik Software, which has been around since 1995, catapulted in recent days with their picture sharing app SnapSeed. Forbes recently called SnapSeed “Instagram and a lot more”. SnapSeed has more features and more ways to edit and play with photos in the mobile environment.

Nik Software has a few photo apps out there already but none as popular as SnapSeed. SnapSeed boasts 9 million users, which may seem like very little compared to the 100 million that Instagram says they have. However, SnapSeed’s 9 million users have paid $4.99 for the app, opposed to Instagram which is free.

Parmy Olson at Forbes Magazine suggests that SnapSeed may fit in better with Google+. Google+ has a huge community of semi pro and pro-mateur photographers who have taken a liking to Google+ and the fact that they allow you to save high resolution photos directly to the Google+ network.

Vic Gundotra, the Google executive who oversees Google+ said this about Nik Software “We want to help our users create photos they absolutely love, and in our experience Nik does this better than anyone…”

Nik Software’s US office is in San Diego. The terms of the Google deal were not disclosed. It’s unclear whether or not Nik Software employees will immediately move to Mountain View or if they’re staying on at all. It’s also unclear as to whether SnapSeed will remain a stand along product or if it will be integrated into Google’s Picassa product.

In regards to the acquisition, Nik Software said “We’ve always aspired to share our passion for photography with everyone, and with Google’s support we hope to be able to help many millions more people create awesome pictures.”

Linkage:

Check out snapseed here

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Philly Startup: Perceptual Network Completes An A-List $1M First Round For People Connecting

Perceptual Networks, a startup proud to from Philadelphia Pennsylvania announced today the completion of their first round of funding. The startup was founded by Jim Young founder of Hot or Not and I/O Ventures and Cheyenne Ehrlich who’s credits include taking two startups from 0 to 30 million plus users.

This round of funding for Perceptual Networks has one of the most impressive lists of backers to come from any startup based outside of Silicon Valley or New York. Venture firms First Round Capital and Bullpen Capital participated in the round. The list of angels is like a roll call of some of the top A-List players in the startup world:

Max Levchin (founder of PayPal and Slide and Chairman of Yelp),
Steve Chen (founder of YouTube and AVOS),
Michael Birch (founder of Bebo and Monkey Inferno)
Richard Yoo (founder of Rackspace and ServerBeach)
Shawn Colo (founder of Demand Media)
Joshua Schachter (founder of Tasty Labs and Delicious)
Alexis Ohanian (founder of Reddit)
James Hong (founder of HotOrNot)
Philip Kaplan (founder of Fandalism, Blippy, AdBrite, TinyLetter and many, many more)
Naval Ravikant (founder of Epinions and AngelList)
Tikhon Bernstam (founder of Scribd and Parse)
Garry Tan (founder of Posterous and Partner at Y-Combinator)
Gabriel Weinberg (founder of DuckDuckGo and NamesDatabase)
Jameson Hsu (founder of Mochi Media)
Bob Ippilito (founder of Mochi Media)
Ken Keller (founder of IGN.com and Cadence)
Paul Bragiel (partner at I/O Ventures)
Tom McInerney (former COO at Klout)
Bill Lee (founder of Remarq and Social Concepts and investor in Tesla)
Nils Johnson (founder of Beautylish)

One of the best parts about this news as that not one of the investors required the startup to move away from Philadelphia. After speaking with Ehrlich we’re not sure that they would have taken money from an investor that asked them to relocate. In regards to Philadelphia Ehrlich told nibletz.com:

“Jim’s wife is from here, and he had moved here about three years ago. That’s why it was on the list initially. But there are a lot of great things to be said about Philly:

Great engineering schools
Lower cost of living (relative to SF or NYC) and better quality of life
A great food and arts scene
As an employers, we see great talent here and limited competition for that talent, which results in a more stable workforce

Plus, the people are nice, friendly and open here. It really is a lovely place.”

Perceptual Networks takes people discovery to a new level by adding in the connection piece. Perceptual Networks is developing a suite of products that make it easy for people to find the people they best connect with, whether they are looking for the right co-workers or employees, the right relationship, the right friends and activity partners or the right community to live in.

“Over the last 7-8 years, Jim and I have been having a long series of conversations about how random the process is by which people meet and get to know each other. Finally, it just became obvious that we should work on this problem that was a central part of our thinking and dialogue for so many years.” Ehrlich told nibletz.com

“This is something that Jim and I have been talking about since the day we met,” said Cheyenne Ehrlich, founder and CEO of Perceptual Networks. “Your community, friends, co-workers and life partner, if you have one, collectively have such a huge impact on the quality of your life. We want to make the process of finding and developing that community of people as easy as possible, for everyone.”

While most discovery apps are about discovering someone right now, wherever you are, the tools provided by Perceptual Networks are looking for a more long term effect.

Investors in Perceptual Networks are confident they have a win. Young’s HotOrNot was founded in 2000 and sold for $20 million in 2008. HotOrNot is even featured in the movie about Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook in a scene where Zuckerberg and his roomates are combing through HotOrNot and adapt it to Harvard.

Linkage:

For more on Perceptual Networks visit their website here

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Grow Utah Changes To Grow America Wants To Create 5M US Jobs Through Startups

Utah entrepreneur Alan E. Hall is a very successful business man. He is the founder and chairman of MarketStar and many other Utah based businesses. Hall is also rather philanthropic but rather than taking the easy route to philanthropy and contributing to the same few causes every year, he prides himself on teaching people to fish.

You know the old saying “Give a man a fish and you feed him for the day, teach a man to fish and you feed him for life”. For the past six years through one way or another Hall has been teaching people to fish by investing in startups and entrepreneurs with a goal to create jobs. How many jobs? He hopes that through his newest effort Grow Utah,now known as Grow America, to add 5 million us jobs.

Thestandard.net says that Hall’s idea to start helping people came years ago when an acquaintance of his lost his job. That guy ended up working 3 part time jobs, accounting, working at a convenience store and delivering newspapers. Hall had one of his company supervisors hire that man and Hall personally funded the man’s salary until he was properly trained.

“And it dawned on me how many other people are unemployed or underemployed,” Hall says. “As a private citizen, I can give of my own wealth to inspire entrepreneurs to get up and running with their ideas, and jobs will be created. They will hire people.”

Grow America started out last year as Grow Utah. Hall kicked in $250,000 worth of awards and services that was divided between 9 startups. Grow America is working on one more session strictly based in Utah and then Hall plans to take the Grow America concept nationwide in April.

“The goal is to do everything we can, not just in Utah but around the country. In January, the prizes will be worth half a million dollars in cash and services.

Hall plans to grow and create 5 million US jobs within the next five years. For the nationwide rollout Grow America has enlisted corporate sponsors, Zion’s Bank, Comcast, Kunzler Law Group and the Utah Jazz.

Linkage:

For more info go here

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Following In Chattanooga’s Footsteps, Kansas City Wants To Be A Destination For Startups

Last year, Chattanooga Tennessee became the first city in the country to have a 1gb fiber network that was available to all businesses and residents within a 600 square mile area. The gb fiber is the backbone to the city’s new grid so the connections automatically go to every residence and business within the footprint. It’s up to the business owner or resident whether they want to also tap that line for data, tv and phone.

Earlier this summer, Kansas City, was the first city to receive commercial 1gb fiber available to it’s residents through Google. Google offers a great introductory offer including low cost high speed internet access, 1 tb of cloud based services and even a tablet.

When Chattanooga lit up their “gig” they started calling the city “The Gig City” and immediately ramped up their efforts to promote entrepreneurism and startups across the city. They did this by increasing promotion of co.lab a coworking space, incubator and accelerator in downtown Chattanooga and by launching the first three month accelerator based on high bandwidth, rightfully called the GigTank.

Now, with their one gigabit internet in tow Kansas City is hoping to spur innovation as well.

Last week Kansas City Mayor Sly James announced the new Launch KC initiative aimed at growing small businesses and startups in Kansas City rather than just focusing on luring big business. James said “We can build Kansas City into the place, theplace, for startups to call home.”

Kansas City is calling on partnerships with existing private sector businesses to provide startups and entrepreneurs with resources like free office space and mentoring. According to Kansas City Public Media, the city plans to kick in funds to offset equipment costs and build out wifi downtown.

This seems like a good start for Kansas City but from a municipal level we’re hopeful that this is just a start.

Linkage:

More Kansas City stories from nibletz.com

Source: KCUR.org

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Los Angeles Startup: Stan Lee Partners With Moon Shark For Mobile Games Startup

(photo uproxx.com)

Legendary comic book artist and creator Stan Lee has partnered with Moonshark for a new mobile gaming startup. We covered the launch of MoonShark in June, the joint venture startup between the Creative Artists Agency (CAA) and Qualcomm. When MoonShark launched, they announced that they would draw from the long list of CAA clients to collaborate on mobile startups. This venture with Stan Lee is one of those collaborations.

The CAA roster includes hundreds of the most well known celebrities. At launch, MoonShark is working with movie star and recording artist Jennifer Lopez. MoonShark has released their first game, Dance Pad, in a partnership with Lopez. The game is a finger dancing game reminiscent of dance dance revolution, except instead of using your feet and other body parts, players use their fingers to tap to the music. The game packs over 100 levels featuring a soundtrack with over 30 top artists.

“Moonshark was formed to connect uniquely talented artists with the best independent mobile developers to bring amazing ideas to life as mobile games,” said Matt Kozlov, CEO of Moonshark. “Our mission is to keep the Moonshark pipeline full of creative, addictive titles and give talent the means to share their creativity with fans on cutting edge mobile platforms.”

Lee’s Pow! Entertainment is teaming up with MoonShark to create a new mobile action/adventure game called Verticus. Mobile continues to attract more and more celebrities and entertainers. According to VentureBeat, mobile could be the largest position in the entertainment market.

“Working closely with Moonshark to build characters and storylines for a mobile game has been a new and uniquely satisfying experience for me,” said Stan Lee, the founder, chairman and chief creative officer at Pow Entertainment. “Making Verticus is a new way for me to connect with my fans and reach a whole new group of people through their mobile devices.”

“For us, there is no one more legendary than Stan Lee,” said Matt Kozlov, the chief executive officer of Moonshark, in an interview with GamesBeat. “This is a man beloved by multiple generations, and he has created … I don’t know whether Walt Disney counts … probably the most successful characters of all time. It’s kind of insane.”

Verticus is just the beginning for Lee’s collaboration with MoonShark. They may do a sequel to Verticus or adapt other Stan Lee characters for future games.

Check out the trailer video below:

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