Florida Startup: EarlyShares Acquires HelpersUnite, Well, Early!

Crowdfunding has exploded onto the scene and it’s not entirely ready from a regulatory standpoint. Earlier this year the JOBSAct was passed and with that the SEC has been diligently (we hope) working on regulations that will allow the general public to invest in startups via crowdfunding, up to one million dollars. As soon as the JOBSAct looked like it was going to pass, shingles for crowdfunding startups went up everywhere.

One of our favorite startups in the crowdfunding space is EarlyShares. First off EarlyShares is based in Miami Florida so of course it’s an “everywhere else” startup. Secondly, CEO and founder Maurice Lopes has decided not to sit on his ass and wait out the SEC, which could go into the early part of this year. While most of the crowdfunding startups loaded up a back end, and a launch rock page they’ve, for the most part been waiting.

Lopes has actually been proactive about promoting EarlyShares, but moreso promoting the entire concept of crowdfunding. He’s in the midst of a nationwide road tour, offering free workshops about exactly what crowdfunding is, how to do it and the ramifications of it. We’ve seen Lopes in Chicago at TechWeek and in Memphis for one of his road trip work shops(we like road trippers). Getting in the trenches with other entrepreneurs and startups is definitely going to work to Lopes’ advantage when it comes time to officially startup crowdfunding.

Apparently while Lopes and EarlyShares have been on the road they’ve also been very busy. They announced earlier this month that they had acquired HelpersUnite. HelpersUnite is a crowdfunding portal dedicated to artistic and cause related projects. This is a milestone in the crowdfunding industry as it’s the first reported acquisition and it comes before crowdfunding for equity has officially been released.

The year old HelpersUnite is the world’s first platform to combine artistic creativity, entrepreneurial crowdfunding and event ticket sales, with charitable giving. It raises money, increases awareness, and generates an audience for special events all at once in one place. To date, HelpersUnite has assisted more than a 100 artists and entrepreneurs in funding their dream projects while also providing access to more than 1,000,000 U.S.-based charities.

“We investigated several potential partners and HelpersUnite was by far the best,” said EarlyShares co-Founder and CEO, Maurice Lopes. “HelpersUnite was attractive, because we wanted to be able to operate in the crowdfunding space, while the SEC writes the rules governing Equity Based Crowdfunding.” Lopes continued “Through this acquisition, EarlyShares will expand its capabilities and continue the great work done by HelpersUnite,”

Linkage:

Check out EarlyShares here

The best event for startups and entrepreneurs “everywhere else” is upon us

Indiana Startup: CoatChex Turns Down $200,000 From Fellow IU Alum Mark Cuban To Kick Off Season 4 Of Shark Tank

Derek Pacque co-founder and CEO of CoatChex (photo: Ibj.com)

Indiana University Kelley School Of Business graduate Derek Pacque’ took his startup CoatChex in front of fellow Indiana University alum and ABC Shark Tank Shark (and Dallas Maverick’s Owner) Mark Cuban on the season premiere of Shark Tank Friday evening.

Pacque’ has a great concept. CoatChex is a system that uses pictures to match customers up with coat checked items. His current technology is boxed up in a device that’s about the size of a Verbatim credit card reader. Now, instead of using an old fashioned ticket redemption system for coat check, it’s done with technology where pictures of someone’s face are tied to their items. It’s safer, greener and easier to use.

Pacque’ explained that CoatChex isn’t just about coat checks though, it’s about any “bailment” system. Bailment is when you charge someone else with taking care of your stuff, like coat checks, valet parking,dry cleaning, baggage holding services and other similar services. Pacque holds a patent on using technology for these bailment businesses.

The 2012 graduate hasn’t sold anything yet, which was of course a complete turn off to Kevin “Mr. Wonderful” O’Leary. In the beginning of the segment, Cuban didn’t seem very interested in the fact Pacque’ hadn’t sold anything yet. Cuban called Pacque’s idea “horrible” over five times.

It looked like things were going to turn around though after Pacque explained that CoatChex wasn’t just about coats. Pacque went into the Shark Tank looking for $200,000 for 10% equity in his company, valuing it at $2 million dollars. O’Leary and FUBU founder Daymond John were the quickest out. Barbara Corcoran didn’t get the concept at all and bailed.

Robert Herjavic and Cuban stayed in the longest but both were concerned about the value. Herjavic asked Pacque for a new offer and wasn’t pleased when the entrepreneur changed his valuation to $1.5 million dollars. Herjavic bailed.

Cuban was still in and made Pacque an offer for $200,000 for 33% of the business. That’s where some may think Pacque’ went wrong. Pacque made a call to his professor and business partner who told him to tell Cuban no. Pacque’ told Cuban no. PacQue’ countered with 20% for $200,000. Cuban quickly said no.

Before he walked away though he kept telling Cuban that he wanted more experience before he pitched again.

While there’s a lot of drama in Shark Tank after all it’s a Mark Burnett reality tv show, however based on Cuban’s history with companies that he likes and the entrepreneur’s he likes I wouldn’t be surprised if Cuban turns around and invested CoatChex down the road.

Linkage:

More Shark Tank Coverage from Nibletz

Nibletz is the voice of startups “everywhere else” here are more startup stories from “everywhere else”

Are you a startup “everywhere else” click here

Boulder: Foundry Group Closes Third Annual $225M Fund

The Foundry Group, the venture capital group founded by Startup Colorado Co-Chair and Techstars Co-Founder, Brad Feld has announced that they’ve just completed raising their third annual $225M Fund.

As our friends at PE Hub are quick to point out the fanfare around the announcement was exactly the same as the previous two years. That’s perfectly fine with us though as Feld and his team are extremely busy and just about everything that he does is focused around funding, promoting and pushing entrepreneurs and Startups, and a lot of them are “everywhere else”.

For instance, Feld still serves as a mentor at TechStars and several other accelerators that are part of the Global Accelerator Network.

As far as the fund itself goes it will continue to invest in US based Startups and technology focuse companies. They prefer to invest in themes that have long term growth strategies in place rather than looking for the next Instagram. They often provide follow on funding for Techstars graduates. For example, The Foundry Group invested $5 Million in Orbotix Series B Round. Orbotix was mentored by Feld at TechStars. They created the Sphero robotic ball that even President Obama is a fan of.

Other notable investments include Cheezburger, Urban Airship, FullContact and Zynga.

Linkage:

Check out Feld’s blog here

Nibletz is the voice of Startups “everywhere else” here are more startup stories from “everywhere else”

Wait what’s This?

Baltimore Discovery Startup: Woofound Discovers Another Cool Mill

High profile Baltimore Startup WooFound has reportedly closed another 1 million dollar round of funding, bringing their total capital investment to $2.2 million. Not too shabby for a Baltimore startup in the discovery space,

WooFound is far from your run of the mill discovery application. That’s most likely the fuel behind the millions of dollars they’ve raised to date. Woofound matches your personality to things you want to do. Woofound was actually built in conjunction with psychoanalyst and psychotherapist Dr. Noreen Honeycutt from Baltimore Maryland. This personality engine coupled with a simple “me or not me” button at the end of the recommendation make the app more appealing and at the same time allow the app to teach itself in ways similar apps can not.

The Maryland Technology Development Corporation (TEDCO) invested $75,000 in this latest $1 million dollar round. WooFound was one of 16 Startups to receive funding from TEDCO as part of the Maryland Technology Transfer And Commcialization Fund.

“We’re honored to receive this investment from TEDCO to help us further develop our Career Application,” says Co-CEO Dan Sines. “All of our backers have provided tremendous support, not just financially, and we are grateful for their commitment to Woofound.”

Linkage:

For more on WooFound visit them here

Nibletz is the voice of Startups “everywhere else” here are more startup stories from “everywhere else”

Are you a startup “everywhere else” you need to be HERE

New York Startup: Sonar Officially Goes Android

One of our favorite startups in New York is Sonar. It may have to do with the fact that Founder and CEO Brett Martin and I grew up in the same area, or it may just happen to be that Sonar is an amazing startup. We’ve covered Sonar since their finalist appearance at TechCrunch Disrtupt 2011 and then caught up with Martin for a pretty lengthy interview a year later at TechCrunch Disrupt NYC 2012.

During our interview back in June Martin told us off the record that they were really close to an Android app that he was happy with and feature packed. He promised us we’d see it before the end of the summer, and low and behold he made it.

If you’re not aware of Sonar, it’s a people discovery app that helps you find and organize your people locally. They added some great functionality to the app this year which helps folks automagically do some amazing things. For instance Martin explained that with the newest iteration of their iPhone (and now Android) app Martin checks in on Sonar after he gets off of the subway. When he passes the Sonar office for the coffee shop his co-workers are alerted and they can put together their coffee order for Martin without texting or calling. Pretty magnificent huh.

Of course it’s not all about coffee. Sonar comes in really handy when you’re at a conference or convention with colleagues. We use it all the time and through Sonar we can tell when our press colleagues are near by at events.

Android has been part of the plan since Sonar’s inception however Martin and the Sonar team wanted to make sure that the app was just right. They began beta testing it in the spring and our old site was part of that beta test.

On the news of the Android release into the Google Play store Martin told nibletz:

“Launching in Google Play is a huge milestone and an amazing opportunity, with the 500M total Android activations and 1.3M more that are added daily. Sonar is the best way to connect and share with friends and interesting people nearby. We combine proprietary and third-party data to give you the best, most relevant results. By launching in Google Play and localizing in so many new countries, we’re enabling a huge new audience to spend more time connecting with their friends face-to-face.”

Now if you’re an iPhone or an Android user you can experience Sonar.

Linkage:

Sonar in the Google Play store

More about Sonar here at their website

Nibletz is the voice of startups “everywhere else” here’s more startup news from “everywhere else”

Startup America To Help Curb Sliding Startup Job Creation

Startup America is working with high growth potential startups to fuel the nations job market (CEO Scott Case photo: nibletz LLC)

An alarming study was released yesterday by the Hudson Institute entitled “The Collapse Of Startups In Job Creation”. Many startup enthusiasts, founders, and entrepreneurs were shocked to hear that with all of the national talk about “startups”, job creation has slipped 22% since 1977 (according to the study).

It’s important to understand that with this study “startup” is used to describe not only traditional entrepreneurial driven tech startups but small businesses as well. Regardless, the data has some scratching their heads.

Since 1977 new firms have combined to create an average of 3 million jobs per year. The most recent data available from 2010 showed that the 1977 figure was off by 22%, all the while most thought jobs created via small business and startups were improving, not declining. Going back to the George HW Bush and Clinton years close to 11.3 million Americans per thousand worked in startup jobs.

Conversely, the Kauffman Institute has said numerous times that since 1980 companies less than five years old have accounted for nearly all the job growth. The Kauffman Institute, The Hudson Institute and many government socio economic advisors have said that startups are needed to fuel job growth.

Startup America, the organization spearheaded by AOL founder Steve Case in conjunction with the Obama Administration, is working day in and day out to continue to support and fuel high growth potential startups, in hopes to quickly re-invigorate the U.S. jobs market and curb the slide.

Recent data from Startup America’s optimism survey reveals that the partnership and it’s nearly 10,000 member startups, founders and entrepreneurs are on the right track. The survey, published last week, says that 85% of the Startup America members plan on adding jobs in the next year. 44.6% of members plan on adding more than 3 jobs.

Startup America CEO, Scott Case, told nibletz.com today “America’s economic heroes are young high-growth startups and the founders that lead them. Over the last 18 months amazing startup communities have rallied around these companies all around the country. I’m in LA today and the energy is palpable – we see the same in places like Iowa, Tennessee, Colorado, and Illinois. No doubt every region needs to go all-in to support America’s startups.”

Linkage:

Read the CNBC Story here

Here’s more Startup America coverage from nibletz.com

Have you heard?

New York Startup: JustDecide.com Needs Your Help Real Quick

Justdecide.com is a truly unique new startup born in Brooklyn New York. The startup headed by long time executive and change agent Jay Amato, is all about helping make decisions and crowd source answers. In fact we team up with JustDecide.com for a regular feature called the Startup Dilemma Of The Week.

Amato and the team at JustDecide are conducting an important, but quick survey, on internet users habits and the way they seek advice and make decisions about their career and their business.

Are your decisions influenced by friends, family members, social networks, colleagues? The series of easy to understand questions will help the JustDecide team to decide which of the many features for their platform they’re going to implement next.

Currently the justdecide.com platform has helped people with a variety of decisions, some easy, some not so much. In our feature, the Startup Dilemma Of The Week, we take a look at issues written in by various startups, that pertain to the way they are setting up their startup, or things that have happened along the way.

Justdecide.com can be about business, relationships, child raising, cooking, heck even one guy is asking advice on cable tv vs a set top box. Another dilemma this week deals with the dilemma on whether the user should pony up full price for the next iPhone or wait for an upgrade.

Any dilemma you’re facing with multiple, clearly defined possible answers will fit in the justdecide.com platform perfectly.

While JustDecide.com is great right now, Amato is looking to make it better and for that he’s turned to the startup community so please take a gander at this quick survey.

JustDecide Quick Survey

Linkage:

Check out justdecide.com here

Here are some of our Startup Dilemmas Of The Week

Are you going “everywhere else” click here

St. Louis Startup Connection October 25th

St. Louis is preparing for the next Startup Connection event on October 25, 2012 at the St. Louis Science Center. Arch Grants, Executive Director, Sarah Spear reported in a guest post at the St. Louis Business Journal that the one day event continues to grow.

This year over 50 area entrepreneurs will show off their startups and compete for a variety of cash and prizes totaling more that $20,000.

The sponsor list, supporter list and prize list are like a who’s who of the thriving St. Louis startup ecosystem. It’s this synergy in the ecosystem that’s had Cultivation Capital’s Rick Holten all fires up for months.

The startups features at Startup Connection will be competing for the following prizes:
• People’s Choice Award — $2,500
• BioSTL Awards — $2,000 and $1,000
• Cultivation Capital Award — $2,000
• Mueller Prost PC Award — $1,500
• AEGIS Professional Services Award — $4,000 Legal Credit
• Hostirian — $4,000 Hosting Credit
• Systematic Revenue — $4,000 Subscription Credit

Startup Connection is held twice a year. This fall event will be at the St. Louis Science Center, October 25 from 4:30 to 8:30pm.

Linkage:

Here’s the web page for Startup Connection

Source: St. Louis Business Journal

Nibletz is the voice of startups “everywhere else” we cover St. Louis better than the home team, click here!

Sacramento Startup: Ask Ziggy Raises $5 Million To Take On Siri

Even the loyalist of Apple users have said that Siri, iOS’s virtual assistant, isn’t all that she’s cracked up to be. In fact the newest Siri commercial featuring director Martin Scorsese, features commands that can’t be easily replicated.

Almost as soon as Apple CEO Tim Cook unveiled Siri as part of the iPhone 4s and the most current version of iOS, startups have been looking to challenge the quirky voice activated assistant.

One of those startups, Ask Ziggy, based just outside of Sacramento, has just announced last month that they’ve raised $5 million dollars.

The company, which isn’t even a year old yet, reported that the $5 million dollar capital infusion comes from a publicly traded multinational corporation, which they didn’t disclose.

Ask Ziggy also announced that they would be working closely with Burlington Massachusetts based, Nuance. Nuance has been a major player in the voice command space. It’s even rumored that Nuance may have some kind of hand in Siri itself.

Ask Ziggy already comes preinstalled on smartphones using the Windows operating system. It can also be found in products by Samsung, LG and Dell.

Ask Ziggy is looking to expand outside of mobile and to other devices.

“Speaking directly into a device and getting a voice reply, with zero typing required, is here at last,” said Shai Leib, CEO of Ask Ziggy told the Sacramento Bee. “This funding will now enable Ask Ziggy to deliver multilanguage, accent-independent, natural speech personal assistant apps running on all devices – including cellular handsets, tablets and even computing headsets, which will immediately change our world.”

Ask Ziggy is further developing their integration with Massachusetts based Kopin Corp and their Golden-I computing headset product. Leib is hoping that as the technology improves Ask Ziggy will be able to handle conversational type requests.

Leib used the example of “I feel like listening to some psychedelic rock” and having Pandora open and begin playing classic rock.

Linkage:

Check out AskZiggy here.

Source: sacbee.com

Nibletz is the voice of startups “everywhere else”

Austin Startup: Lumos Pharma To Develop & Prepare Autism Treatment Discovered In Cincinnati

There may be some great news for parents of Autistic boys in the coming years.

A research team at the University of Cincinnati has announced that they’ve successfully treated an animal model of Creatine Transporter Deficiency (CTD). CTD is what causes Autism in boys. Over 50,000 boys in the US are afflicted with CTD.

Creatine Transporter Deficiency causes symptoms including seizures, mental retardation and speech defects.

CTD was discovered at Children’s Hospital in Cincinnati in 2000. Almost all of the research on CTD has been performed at Children’s Hospital and at the University of Cincinnati.

This is actually a wonderful, tremendous Cincinnati-centric story,” Joe Clark the UC Neurology Professor who led the research team said to newsrecord.org.. “The disease was discovered at Children’s Hospital, the animal model of the disease was made here in Cincinnati by UC, and the drug was made to treat those mice here at Cincinnati.”

The research team found that cyclocreatine, which has been dubbed CincY, has been incredibly effective at reducing the symptoms of CTD models in animals.

Clark reported that the time from discovery in 2000 to the discovery of this possible treatment in just twelve years was actually a rather short time frame. While this work has been done on animals, it may be another two to three years befor CincY can be used to treat humans.

Clark is quick to point out that this is just a treatment for the disease and not a cure.

“Essentially, a cure is fixing a broken pipe at the break, and a treatment is making a bypass around the afflicted area without fixing it, but in a manner that eliminates the symptoms” Clark said.

Linkage:

Source: newsrecord.org

Nibletz is the voice of startups “everywhere else”

Arizona State Startup G3Box, Finalist In Dyson Competition

An Arizona State University startup in the colleges Edison student entrepreneur initiative, has been selected as a finalist in the global James Dyson Awards Competition.

The startup, called G3Box, has done something amazing for healthcare in rural areas. G3Box is converting freight shipping containers into small medical clinics. G3Box provides engineering design and manufacturing towards the conversion of steel shipping containers into durable, semi-mobile, stand-alone facilities that are ideal for remote environments.

“G3Box is honored to have been selected as one of the 10 U.S. finalists in the Dyson awards. From the start, G3Box has been about solving problems specifically in healthcare provision,” said Susanna Young, Co-founder and CEO of G3Box. “The Dyson awards are, at the core, about solving problems with new and creative ideas. We do that with a commitment to integrity, humility, and collaboration.”

Of course the Dyson Awards competition is held annually by Jes Dyson’s charitable trust. Dyson being the inventor and founder of the vacuum cleaner company with his same name.

The James Dyson Award is open to product design, industrial design and engineering university-level students or recent graduates who have studied in countries including the USA, Australia, Canada, Germany, Japan, and the UK. The James Dyson Award supports students not only with monetary prizes, but also by promoting and recognizing good quality entries. The US winner will be announced later this year.

Linkage:

Find out more about G3box Here

Find out more about the James Dyson Award here

Nibletz is the voice of startups everywhere else, here are more startup stories from “everywhere else”

Startup America Quarterly Survey Shows Growing Faith In Economy & More

The Startup America Partnership released the results for their first quarterly optimism survey. The survey is being conducted quarterly in conjunction with global management consulting firm Oliver Wyman.

The survey results from this quarter were released on the heels of two major mini conferences Startup America partnered with StartupRockon to host at the Republican National Convention and the Democratic National Convention. Both events highlighted the role that startups play in the U.S. economy.

The results of the survey echoed the importance and highlighted the resurgence of faith in the US economy from the membership of Startup America. The fact that so many entrepreneurs have faith in the direction the country is going, restores confidence all around. Nearly 50% of the survey respondents indicated they were more confident now, about the U.S. economy.

With unemployment at a rate of 8.1% right now in the United States, the most encouraging find in the Optimism Survey was that 85% of Startup America members plan on hiring in the next 12 months. This speaks to the core of the Startup America mission to serve as a resource, and organization for high growth potential startups that will ultimately add more jobs to the economy.

Out of the 85% of Startup America members that said they would be hiring in the next 12 months 42% said they would add between 3-10 employees. 11% said they would hire ten or more employees. This supports data from the Kauffman Foundation that’s said between 1980-2005 companies that were less than five years old accounted for nearly all of the net job growth in the U.S.

“As young companies grow and generate revenue they hire more employees, creating more job opportunities,” said Scott Case, CEO of the Startup America Partnership. “Our members are comprised of amazing startups from every region in the country and we encourage everyone to connect with startups in their local community in order to meet the real heroes of the economy.”

The Optimism survey will be conducted quarterly to have a pulse on where startups stand in regard to the economy.

Linkage:

Startup America Optimism survey page is here

Here’s the PDF with the raw data

Here’s more Startup News from Nibletz.com

Memphis Startup Accelerator ZeroTo510 Sets Record With Over 80% Follow On Funding In Less Than 30 Days

That headline is a true testament to the power of the cohort based ZeroTo510 startup accelerator in Memphis Tennessee. Five of the six startups in their recently graduated class received $100,000 or more in follow on funding from MB Ventures and Innova Memphis.

Four of the startups received follow on funding to continue acceleration of their businesses. Those four companies were:

BioNanovations has developed a device that uses bionanotechnology for rapid diagnosis of bacterial infection.
EcoSurg has developed an environmentally friendly alternative to traditional foam patient positioners used in surgeries.
Nanophthalmics has developed, through the use of nanotechnology, a surgical device to more effectively treat corneal abrasions.
Urova Medical has developed a minimally invasive treatment to address feminine stress urinary incontinence.

“In each case, we believe these four companies have shown the progress, the growth and proof-of-concept that were expected to move to the next phase of funding,” said Allan Daisley, director of innovation and sustainability initiatives for Memphis Bioworks Foundation and program director for ZeroTo510. “It is extremely rewarding to us as an organization, because the funding of four companies exceeds what we considered to be a measure of success when this program was launched.”

The fifth startup to receive follow on funding was Restore Medical. Restore Medical wowed the audience when Co-Founder Shawn Fynn announced during their presentation that they had already secured a purchase order valued at $3.75 million dollars pending 510k approval. In the case of Restore Medical, they decided to skip the acceleration investment and went directly to a Series A round. MB Ventures and Innova Memphis are leading that Series A round with an undisclosed investment, assumed to be more than the $100,000 Restore Medical would have received with the acceleration funds.

Handminder, a startup that has developed a rehabilitation device for people who have suffered a stroke, to regain use of their hands, did not receive follow on funding.

With an 80% success rate, by the standard of “follow on funding” Zeroto510 is the most successful accelerator in Tennessee.

Zeroto510 is a joint venture between Memphis Bioworks with cohort based accelerator programming provided by SeedHatchery a product of LaunchYourCity.

LaunchYourCity CEO & President Eric Matthews said: “The results speak for themselves. 35 companies have entered our incubators because of our efforts. EmergeMemphis has a waiting list for the first time. We have invested time and money in 12 promising startup technologies at our research institutions, two of which have started up as new companies. Over 20 companies have received pre-seed capital of $50,000 or less. Of those 8 have received follow-on capital of $100,000 or greater.”.

In addition to Zeroto510 and SeedHatchery LaunchYourCity has a sister program for independent filmmakers called “FuelFilm”. Also the local music incubator, The Memphis Music Foundation, has replicated some of the LaunchYourCity programming into their music resource offerings.

Linkage:

Check out LaunchYourCity at LaunchYourCity.com

Zeroto510 site is here

Nobody covers the Southeast like we do, more here

Nibletz is the voice of startups “everywhere else”

Central Illinois Angels Invest In Startup: Intellihot Green Technologies

The Heartland Partnership announced yesterday that the Central Illinois Angels, angel network, has made another investment to a Central Illinois based technology startup,

Intellihot Green Technologies is based in Galesburg Illinois, The company has designed, and now manufactures, tankless gas water heaters. Every year hundreds of thousands of kilowatt hours of energy are wasted by heating water sitting in a tank.

Intellihot’s tankless systems for commercial and residential locations, heat water without a tank on an as needed basis.

Central Illinois Angels have invested $325,000 in the company which started out in the Peoria NEXT Innovation Center. Now that Intellihot’s water heaters are in production their manufacturing is based in Galesburg. The company continues to maintain an office presence at Peoria NEXT.

The $325,000 is part of a larger syndicated round. The Central Illinois Angels have invested $3 million in 11 companies to date.

Linkage:

Check out Intellihot here.

Nibletz is the voice of startups “everywhere else”