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Memphis Gears Up For Zeroto510 Demo Day

When you think about Memphis Tennessee thoughts of music, culture, barbecue and Elvis Presley often consume those thoughts. You may not be quick to associate the birth place of Rock & Roll and the overnight package (FedEx) with startups, innovation and bio medical devices.

Since 2006 Memphians have band together to launch several entrepreneurial and startup resources. In fact the city of just under 650,000 residents has an infrastructure of resources for startups and entrepreneurs that would rival cities twice it’s size.

Four of those resources, Seed Hatchery, the local startup accelerator program; Memphis Bioworks Foundation, the local bio and life sciences incubator; along with Innova and MB Ventures (both venture capital firms) have created Zeroto510.

They’re calling Zeroto510 the first cohort-based medical device accelerator. To that end Eric Matthews the President of Seed Hatchery is working with Allan Daisley, who runs Memphis Bioworks, to apply the Seed Hatchery and familiar tech incubator model to medical device ideas, and turning them into startups.

Charleson Bell, a PhD candidate at Vanderbilt University, and the co-founder of Zeroto510 resident company, BioNanovations explained: “Doctors and researchers have great ideas that often times get shelved because they don’t have the resources or skills to apply a business model to those ideas”.

That’s exactly why Seed Hatchery and BioWorks started Zeroto510. Chief Brand Officer at LaunchYourCity, the company that manages Seed Hatchery told us: “In addition to seed capital and mentorship the six companies in Zeroto510 also receive advice on marketing their idea and pitching it to investors”.

Mike Hoffmeyer CEO and Co-Founder of Memphis based Paytopia was a recent graduate from the 2012 class at Seed Hatchery, and told us “I consider myself a smart guy but after a few minutes of Zeroto510 pitches I was totally lost”. Hoffmeyer is helping the Zeroto510 residents with refining their pitches into laymen’s terms.

For a better understanding to Bell’s company for instance. Bell and his co-founder Andre T. Stevenson developed separate research projects at Vanderbilt. Bell had discovered a new nanoparticle that could be used with far better accuracy than what’s currently available, to identify and track virus’, bacteria and infections. Prior to Zeroto510 Bell would roll through his presentation despite losing people’s attention because he was talking over their heads.

Now his pitch includes a great description of a nanoparticle “imagine taking one piece of human hair and dividing it by 1000, that’s roughly the size of a nanoparticle”. The PhD scientist seems a little uneasy about the example because you can’t objectively measure one piece of human hair, but it gets the point across.

The name Zeroto510 comes from the term 510K clearance which is the clearance given to medical devices. With a 510K a similar device or process that has already been approved by the FDA is compared to the new process or device, which fastracks the approval process at the FDA.

The goal around ZeroTo510 is to take the medical device and process startups from 0 to a point where they are ready for their 510k

There are six startups in all going through the current session at Zeroto510 which are:

BioNanovations uses nanotechnology to more quickly diagnose specific types of bacterial infections. Rather than treating with broad antibiotics and waiting days for test results, TestQuick provides physicians a portable option that can recognize a flesh-eating bacteria in only 30 minutes.
HandMinder is building a glove-like device that aids the rehabilitation process for stroke victims. Self-contained and battery-operated, the glove provides an affordable and convenient alternative for regaining motor control.
Nanophthalmics brings engineering concepts to clinical medicine, creating microscopic tools with etched glass for ocular surgery which will help remove scar tissue for patients with retinal or corneal diseases.
Randall Surgical is working on soy-based surgical positioners, an eco-friendly alternative to the foam currently used that contains petroleum and releases toxic chemicals when incinerated after use.
Restore Medical Solutions increases the speed and effectiveness of the sterilization process necessary for surgical instruments. Their product could lead to cleaner tools and the ability to perform more surgeries in a day- wins for both hospitals and patients.
Urova Medical is building UroGuide, a device that can be implanted during an outpatient procedure that provides a permanent and safe solution to stress urinary incontinence in women.

Like most incubators, the current session at Zeroto510 will culminate with an investor pitch day later this afternoon. If the program is effective, the audience will have no trouble understanding the brilliant minds behind these startups.

Linkage:

More about Zero To 510 here

Check out LaunchMemphis.com

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Video Pitch: Asheville Startup Corpora Pitches At GigTank Demo Day

One of the startups in the entrepreneur track at the GigTank in Chattanooga is Corpora from Asheville. Corpora is a real time intelligenet agent that uses Twitter status updated and other public facing data to determine the health of individuals by geography, providing insights into the spread of illness and quantifying the impact of previously elusive factors on public health.

Andrew Abumoussa the CTO of Corpora was ready with his presentation on what seems to be an innovative new way to track health problems in mass. Now we’re not talking about an ecoli breakout. In his slides he showed off the value of aggregating this data from Twitter for things like allergy breakouts and other similar problems.

One of the judges asked Abumoussa if they were working on aggregating the data from other social networks telling Abmoussa he didn’t see people “Tweeting about that rash”. After a quick chuckle from the audience that raised a valuable point.

The team hails from Asheville North Carolina and is hoping to win the GigTank contest today and walk away with extra venture capital from one of the 500 investors in the room.

Check out his pitch here:

Linkage:

More Gig Tank Demo Day coverage here

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Chattanooga GigTank Mentors Log Over 600 Hours

One of the biggest things that’s struck me about the Gig Tank and Gig Tank’s demo day is how the entire city has come out to show their support. Last night we talked about how various businesses throughout downtown Chattanooga participated in the event by holding events.

We went to a reception at co.lab as well as CraftWorks headquarters. There were other events earlier in the day that we unfortunately missed.

This morning there was a bike ride organized, a tour of the Hunter Museum and a tour of the world famous aquarium here in Chattanooga. Chattanooga as a whole seems invested in the success of the entrepreneurs and students who’ve been hard at work the past three months in anticipation of the big day today.

Chattanooga is also invested in the gig itself. It’s exciting that 1 gb fiber is available everywhere in a 600 square mile radius. This morning we had the opportunity to have breakfast with Hamilton County Mayor Jim Coppinger who admittedly isn’t a big “tech” guy but certainly understands the opportunities that come with the smart grid and the 1gb fiber.

The entire “gig” is part of his county. There are 340,000 folks in Hamilton County and of course the biggest part of that is the approx 170,000 people living in Chattanooga.

Coppinger is excited about where the “gig” goes for infrastructure, beyond running communications for power and water for residents and businesses. Coppinger is excited about what the gig will do for education in his county. Currently he has high schools with 500 students and on the other end of the spectrum, schools with 1500. Using remote teaching, relying on the back bone of the gig would mean that students county wide would have a consistent quality of education.

Mayor Coppinger, who served as Fire Chief before being elected Mayor, is also excited about what “The Gig” can do for public safety and first responders.

On the entrepreneurship side Mayor Coppinger is ecstatic about what’s happening with the Gig Tank along with the 60 companies being grown at a small business incubator on the north shore. That incubator has held 60 companies at a time and generally employs 300 per session.

Chattanooga’s support came out this morning when Four Bridges Capital and co.lab’s Charlie Brock pointed out this morning that the mentors for the GigTank entrepreneur’s track offered up a cumulative total of over 600 hours of mentorship during the three month session.

Mentor’s really got engaged with the entrepreneurs and the students as well and have provided more guidance than one would expect, which all lends itself to the buzz going on in Chattanooga surrounded by “the gig”

Linkage:

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Bull City Stampede Launches Seven New North Carolina Startups

Last week, people from all over the Raliegh/Durham/Chapel Hill area, known as the Triangle, showed up for the final presentations of the Bull City Stampede startup program. The end result was seven new North Carolina startups were launched.

Bull City Stampede is a sixty day accelerator program which provides startups with office space, furniture, wifi and other resources that they need to grow their companies. The 60 day program culminated with a demo day event to a packed house, at Beyu Caffe in downtown Durham, North Carolina.

This sessions Bull City Stampede Class included some tangible product startups in the fashion industry, jewelry industry, financial services, social media and even a jazz non profit. This variety showed off the new types of businesses and startups that are calling the Raliegh Durham area home. This is great news for the region as they plan for the launch of their Startup North Carolina regional partnership of Startup America which launches on August 20th.

“This was a special group of entrepreneurs that supported each other and built better companies because of their time with startups outside of their industry,” said Adam Klein, Startup Strategist for the Greater Durham Chamber of Commerce. “We had non-software companies receiving help from the techies and vice versa. It shows the power of putting creative people together in a creative environment.”

While the event launches seven startups out of North Carolina, one of the startups Alekto, relocated from Washington DC for the Bull City Stampede program and has decided to stay in North Carolina. Five of the startups will continue growing their business in NC.

The Bull City Startup Stampede also partnered with Pruvop, a digital products lab in downtown Durham, to award one startup a prize package including $5,000 in custom software development & consulting. Pruvop co-founder Adam Schultz announced The Art of Cool as the recipient of the software package. The Art of Cool is a jazz presenting non-profit working to launch an international jazz festival in Durham.

“In addition to sharing the vision of a prospering, culturally vibrant Durham, we were personally impressed by Cicely’s (AOC founder) drive, hunger for feedback and the ability to pivot and grow rapidly based on the feedback she was given,” said Schultz. “It’s organizations like hers that we love to work with.”

“The Stampede is the launching ground for startups in Durham,” said Matthew Coppedge, Director of Marketing at Downtown Durham, Inc. “We are part of the pipeline developing in Durham that helps early-stage entrepreneurs go from concept to market quickly.”

To date Stampede has done a good job of accelerating startups and then keeping them in North Carolina. So far 28 companies have gone through the program and 15 have remained in downtown Durham, a statistic that you don’t typically find with accelerators who open up their applications nationwide or globally.

Bull City Stampede has provided this list of all of this sessions class and their Twitter handles:

• Alekto empowers consumers through innovative credit reporting management services. @AlektoCo

• Directed Deposits helps individuals find and fund high interest, FDIC-insured savings accounts that are good for your wallets and the issues & communities you care about. @DirectedDeposits

• Freshly Given embraces minimalist style, creativity & sustainability through accessories, handmade from genuine re-purposed leather. @FreshlyGiven

• Offline Media is envisioning a world where “social” means more than just sitting behind a computer. @offlinemedia

• Seam Happy designs and makes custom promotional products, decor, and apparel. For business, home, and general happiness. @SeamHappy

• Social Media Phobia Solutions is a fearless digital media consulting and business management firm. @BreeLDavis

• Sweeps helps you get just about anything done by motivated college students for $25 per hour. @SweepsJobs

• The Art of Cool Project is dedicated to preserving, presenting, and promoting the local vibrant, varied, and surprisingly under-appreciated jazz and art scene in Raleigh-Durham. @theaocproject

Linkage:

Check out Bull City Stampede Here

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The Brandery’s Rob McDonald & Mike Bott Explain Why Their Program Works VIDEO

The Brandery, an incubator founded in 2010 in Cincinnati is uniquely different from most of the incubator’s across the country. A blanket description of what an incubator does for startups wouldn’t justify what co-founder; Rob McDonald, Dave Knox and JB Kropp have put together at 1411 Vine Street in Cincinnati’s Over-The-Rhine neighborhood (Voted Cincinnati’s best neighborhood in 2011 and 2012)

First off The Brandery is in what appears to be a traditional older storefront in a building dating back to the 1860’s. The building the Brandery is in as well as the surrounding buildings typically housed a storefront on the bottom floor and then residential units above. In the case of the Brandery, the first floor has been converted to bull pen style desk space where each of the 11 startups in this session can collaborate, bounce ideas off of each other and inspire each other through competition.

The second floor houses a group classroom like area and the third floor is what Brandery GM Mike Bott says they’re informally calling the “alumni penthouse”.

We got the chance to have an in-depth interview with Bott and McDonald who are very proud of what they’ve built so far. While the Brandery runs a familiar model, which most of the Global Accelerator Network accelerators utilize, there are things about the Brandery which are inherently different, that make it a special place to grow a business.

First off the Brandery is a non-profit organization. Yes the companies selected for the program give up six percent equity for a $20,000 seed investment. However, that investment is coming from the Brandery, and not the founders, or investors. In other words, as Bott confirmed, when Brandery alumni start to make big exits, the money goes back to the Brandery directly to run the program and invest in more worthwile startups.

Next, the Brandery keeps the class size small. This year there are only 11 companies. Companies move in at the start of the session. They have three months of vigorous boot camp style work, training, seminars and business education, but after Demo Day they don’t move out, in fact they are encouraged to stay around where they still get the benefits of the mentors who show up to the Brandery for basketball, beer pong and the latest new and interesting lecture.

Even after the first year, alumni companies can pay very minimal rent and move up to the alumni penthouse.

The Brandery companies are also encouraged to play a big role in the Cincinnati entrepreneur and startup community. For instance, just after arriving in Cincinnati this year, all of the Brandery companies participated in the BunBerry TechBurry Pitch Wars, which 2012 Brandery company Crowd Hall actually won. But what’s great about that event was that all three Brandery classes were represented there.

Also at Startup Weekend Cincinnati all of the Brandery companies have been given a free pass to help Startup Weekend teams, and were even encouraged to pitch. In fact, CrowdHall’s Austin Hackett pitched one of the ideas that’s being built this weekend. While there was a lot of banter on Impulcity about Hackett and his Startup Weekend venture, he assured us that his team is 100% committed to Crowd Hall and we’re working on that all weekend too. Even Brandery co-founder Rob McDonald was an official mentor for Startup Weekend as well.

The involvement with the community works both ways though as Bott explained later on. For instance 11 different local advertising agencies in Cincinnati have donated time to work with each of the Brandery companies. There are also a lot of area mentors who work closely with each Brandery company.

Check out our indepth video interview with Rob McDonald and Mike Bott here:

Linkage:

The Brandery’s Website

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South Carolina Startups Get New Innovista Center For Product Realization

South Carolina startups now have another new exciting resource to tap into. The University of South Carolina has announced it’s plans to open the Innovista Center for Product Realization or ICPR. The main funding for the new center is coming from a $645,000 five year federal grant. The main purpose is to help startups with product development.

The center will be available to students, alumni and residents who are working on a startup based in South Carolina.

One of the major constraints facing firms outside of regions like Silicon Valley is access to sufficient capital and talent to achieve critical mass and scalability for their product offerings,” said Don Herriott, director of Innovista. “ICPR will provide the infrastructure, resources and collaborative relationships that capital-starved startups require to take their idea or technology to the next level.” reports the SC-Israel collaboration.

Startups that utilize the center and it’s resources will be able to tap into the expertise of USC faculty at the College of Engineering and Computing, the Darla Moore School of Business and the university’s Office of Technology Commercialization.

“The product realization center is yet another example of the university’s commitment to cultivating innovation, entrepreneurship and technology commercialization,” Herriott said. “It furthers Innovista’s mission of attracting and growing new high-tech businesses to our community and across the state.”

We’ve recently reported on two exciting startup ideas brewing in and around the University of South Carolina. The first was a report on two engineers working on developing a t-shirt material that could charge phones directly from the shirt itself. The other 52 apps, is an innovative app development startup that will release 52 apps a year by vote (we reported on them 4 weeks before mainstream media).

Individuals and startups looking for more information on ICPR should reach out to Lauren Edwards at (803)777-9796 or by email at laurene@mailbox.sc.edu

Linkage:

Source: SC-Israeli collobaration

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Washington DC’s Acceleprise Welcomes First Six Startups

Back in April we brought you this story about the newly formed accelerator in Washington DC called Acceleprise. Acceleprise is targeting new startups in the enterprise space. TechCrunch called it the 500 startups for “enterprise”.

Acceleprise has great DC based founders in Sean Glass, Allen Gannett and Collin Gutman. They also have some great mentors that include well known founders, executives, venture capitalists and experienced operators. Their mentor list includes Scott Case, head of Startup America, Katharine Weymouth CEO of Washington Post Media, Maria Thomas former CEO of Etsy, Sonny Ganguly CMO at wedding wire and many more.

Their website says they are “The Enterprise Technology Accelerator”. Enterprise was a natural sector to pursue, Glass told TechCrunch’s Sarah Perez that he started thinking about how he wanted to do his personal angel investing. He found while evaluating his portfolio that he had the most success with and was able to help the most in early stages, were all enterprise focused.

Washington DC is also the perfect location for an enterprise focused accelerator. Of course the federal government is the largest enterprise customer in the country. In their immediate surroundings you have most of the largest defense companies and contractors in the world. Accelleprise is also a quick 4 hour drive to New York City and not to far from Atlanta as well.

They’ve now announced their first class of six enterprise focused startups. Each chosen startup will receive a $30,000 seed investment, mentors, office space and business resources.

The six enterprise startups have a mixed range of ideas but all tie back into services, applications and ideas that will benefit the enterprise space.

The Washington Post published this list of the six startups:

ConferenceEdge provides Web-based software that facilitates event management. Organizers can use the program to register attendees, corral feedback, manage digital marketing and process electronic payments.

Conjure sells software that allows companies to store and access strategic ideas or best practices that may otherwise wind up forgotten and unused in e-mails, PowerPoint presentations or an employee’s mind.

ExecOnline enables large corporations to offer online business courses to their employees through its partnerships with universities. In addition to its online learning platform, ExecOnline helps to develop the curriculum and puts forth investment capital to get a program started.

Employers looking to slim down their workforce and save on health care expenses use FitFeud to coordinate fitness competitions across their organization. The software can be used to register participants, send reminders, track progress and assess return on investment.

Mercury Continuity helps businesses and government entities keep their information technology network humming in the event of a “catastrophe” or other disruption. The company works with technology partners to deliver broadband connectivity in multiple ways, including through satellite and fiber-optic technologies.

Companies or individuals can store and manage their credentials online through Sigkat, then use them to validate their reputation with employers and business partners. The firm aims to make the exchange of credentials both reliable and inexpensive.

Linkage:

Find out more about Acceleprise here

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Detroit Accelerator: TechTown Hosting Startup Soup August 3rd

The creativity in pitch events gets better and better. We’ve all heard of the Startup Bus to Austin’s South by Southwest Festival. Several cities have had Startup Trains, where people work on startups on a day long train ride, we’ve even heard of a Startup Beach House (that was unfortunately cancelled).

Now, Wayne University’s TechTown Accelerator is hosting Startup Soup.

The event is open to the public and will be held on August 3rd. Startups that want to pitch must register at the link below before July 31, 2012.

The pitches will be five minutes and there doesn’t seem to be a theme for the pitch contest. There is a nice $1500 cash prize along with 5 free TechTown seminar passes for the winner. The winner will be chosen by a panel of local tech community judges.

The finalists will all receive complimentary tickets to 2 future TechTown events. The events at TechTown are all meant for startup enrichment and offer valuable business resources and continuing education.

After the pitches and the winners are selected there will be an evening of networking, and you guessed it… soup.

The event starts at 5:30pm August 3rd at TechTown 2051 Rosa Parks Boulevard in Detroit.

Linkage:

To register to pitch click this link

Source: CBS Detroit

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TechStars Announces New Patriot Bootcamp July 18-20 in DC

Veterans are you ready to venture out on your own? Have you had a great startup idea like former Navy Seal Doug Moorehead? If a startup is in your civilian career path then pay attention to this important announcement from TechStars.

TechStars, the Boulder Colorado based accelerator with programs all over the country (“everywhere else”) has announced a new three day bootcamp designed for veterans who want to learn everything there is to know about launching their own startup.

The intense three day program will occur next month on July 18-20 at Georgetown University in Washington DC. If you’re interested in participating you can apply here.

During the three day program participants will hear from successful TechStars alumni, industry leaders, DC area startups, mentors and speakers. All of the speakers and mentors are emotionally invested in supporting Veteran entrepreneurs.

TechStars said on their website:

“Over the course of the three-day program, the presentations by TechStars mentors and one-on-one mentoring will guide the participant to solidify a business idea, focus their fundraising pitch, improve their accelerator application, refine their product concept, or demonstrate progress as it relates to their entrepreneurial path. Each participant or group of participants will deliver a short presentation on Digital Demo Day to share their progress.”

TechStars has assembled a great group of sponsors for Patriot Bootcamp including: the Kauffman Foundation, Kauffman Fast Trac, Silicon Valley Bank, Prediculous and Georgetown University.

Linkage:

Find out more about TechStars Patriot Camp Here

Here’s the application

Mass Challenge Announces 125 Startups In Third Session

MassChallenge kicked off the week by announcing the 125 startups that have been chosen to participate in it’s third edition of their accelerator program/competition. MassChallenge is the largest accelerator competition on the east coast.

This years class of 125 startups includes 90 startups from the Boston area, with the other 35 coming from all over the country.

There are 46 tech startups, 25 social startups, 21 in bioscience and life science, 11 in clean tech and energy and 22 in miscellaneous categories.

Here is the complete list.

Energy & cleantech

Arbsource
Black Island Wind Turbines
Bootstrap Compost
Dynamo Micropower
HydroConfidence, Inc.
Invisergy
NBD Nanotechnologies
RainBank Inc.
Solar Tri-Gen
TireTech
Zagster

General

ARCBAZAR
Bio-Fiend
CrewTide
Cryoocyte
Fetch Storage
FX Aligned
GG’s Originals
HelmetHub Corporation
JGOOD
LiquiGlide
LittleBonsai, LLC
Memory on Hand
Ministry of Supply Inc.
Modalyst
Pegasus Performance
Roammeo
RouteSprout
Strong Arm Technologies, Inc.
Sweet Corn Tortilla Chips Inc
TableZest
Te Tama
Zoora

High tech

42stats
A.I.type Ltd.
Akselos
Appsembler
Atomic Tower, Inc.
Bottol
Bounce Imaging
Calcbench
Capital Market Exchange (CMX)
Citybot, Inc
CoachUp
Delightfully
Distinc.tt
docTrackr
Dpicd
Drones For Peace
FansFave
Fantasy Politics
HandyBook
iAgree
IntegralReach
Kahnoodle Inc
Kanopy
Kernel Corp. LLC
Klypper Inc.
Lifeables
Magru
MegaMIMO
Mindcrimp
MOVL
Nordic Technology Group (NTG)
Nsyrt Corporation
pymetrics
Recruiterbox
Schmooze Butler
Securigin Inc.
SocialMadeSimple
Stable Solutions
STUI
Texifter, LLC
Tomorrowish
ToolSense
TripReactor (formerly WaySavvy)
Veenome
Vsnap
Wanderu

Life sciences & health care

Akrivis Technologies
Automated Medical Instruments, Inc.
CardioWave
Cellanyx Diagnostics
eTransitions
Guided Surgery Solutions
Imagnus Biomedical
Ionu Biosystems
iSpecimen
Lab Automate Technologies Inc
Nanoly Biotech
Neumitra
Noor Pharmaceuticals
OnDeckBiotech
PhotOral, Inc.
Quantamerix
Sextant Therapeutics Inc
Ubiqi Health
Vaxess Technologies
WindGap Medical Inc.
Yosko

Social impact

ArtPulse
Chartus.org
Design Museum Boston
EcoValuePoints
Freight Farms
Global Research Innovation & Technology
Gradeable
IoVista
Lovin’ Spoonfuls Inc
LuminAID Lab
Market Publique
Native Brain
NBA Math Hoops
Persistence Plus
Prepmatic
Prime Student Loan Guarantor Corp.
Project Dots
RallyPoint Networks, Inc.
Recovers.org
RetiCue
SilviaTerra
Soundfest, Inc.
Spill
TinkerStories
Zimba

MassChallenge has been the catalyst for growth for lots of great startups. We recently interviewed Brass Monkey, a MassChallenge startup at TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2012 last week. Good luck to all 125 startups from “everywhere else”.

Linkage:

Source: Boston Business Journal

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Chicago Startups: Catapult Chicago Announces Freshman Class

A new startup accelerator/incubator has announced it’s freshman class. They have 7 startups in this first round, that were selected out of hundreds of applications. According to FoxBusiness, the 7 startups were chosen by their peers, founders of startups themselves.

Catapult Chicago will furnish very reduced rate office and common space, access to resources and mentors as well as equipment and other services that startups need. The seven companies in the first class will also work in a collaborative setting so that they can bounce ideas off of other founders in like minded situations.

The first seven companies have a six month tenancy with the option to renew at the end of the period.

“We interviewed over 100 companies and the caliber of the new startups speaks well of our peer- selection model,”Catapult Chicago Co-Founder Ryan Leavitt told Fox Business. “These companies will add to the spirit at Catapult which, in many ways, acts as one collective startup with 12 different business lines.”

The startups in the freshman class at Catapult Chicago have good pedigrees as well. Mixed in the bunch are graduates of Chicago’s own Excelerate Labs, Techstars Cloud in San Antonio, and BluePrint Health in New York.

Here’s the class:

Dabble, a platform for users to sell in person classes for $20 with a wide range of curriculum available.

Buzz Referrals a marketing promotion platform.

Bucketfeet, an artist designed footwear company.

Kula, a peer to peer mobile market place.

Shiftgig a networking site for the service industry

Temp a Big Data startup.

Precured Health, a Health 2.0 startup that helps hospitals discover and evaluate medical devices.

While a lot of the attention in the Chicago incubator/accelerator scene has been on 1871, Catapult Chicago is a welcomed piece of Chicago’s thriving tech scene. They occupy 12,000 square feet of Class A office space in the River North Area which is the focal point of Chicago’s startup scene.

Linkage:

Find out more about Catapult Chicago here

Source: Fox Business

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Texas Startup Incubator Receives $6 Million And Takes A Name Change

A startup accelerator in Texas has just received a huge cash infusion and changed it’s name to honor it’s donor. Texas Venture Labs at the University of Texas, Austin, has just received $6 million dollars from Texas millionaire entrepreneur Jon Brumley.

Brumley made his fortune in energy, having founded six publicly traded oil and gas companies in the oil rich state of Texas. He also led the merger of Fort Worth Children’s Hospital and Cooks and was the chairman of the Texas state board of education in 1985. In 2005 Forbes named Brumley and his son, Johnny, “Enrepreneurs of the Year”.

“Texas Venture Labs is a gem in the Texas entrepreneurial ecosystem,” Brumley told The Statesman. “It provides critical, hands-on experience for aspiring entrepreneurs who learn as students the effort required to get a new venture through the financing process. For me, this gift is an opportunity to build our capacity to grow the economy of Texas, while giving a leg up to young entrepreneurs.”

Brumley is a University of Texas Alumni. Texas Venture Labs, which is part of the McCombs school of business, hopes to expand the program to other UT campuses with Brumley’s gift. UT has renamed the accelerator the Jon Brumley Texas Venture Lab.

The announcement comes on the heels of the annual “Global Venture Labs Investment Competition” which was held on the campus this week.

Linkage:

More on The Jon Brumley Texas Venture Lab here at their site

Source: The Statesman

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Startups Cincinnati: UpTech Accelerator Announces Inaugural Class Of 8 Startups

Cincinnati area, UpTech is a rather new accelerator. It was formed in January of 2012 and they’ve been working diligently over the past 5 months to build their business, their space and solidify their inaugural round of startups. Each of the 8 startups selected will receive an investment of $100,000, along with mentorship, support services and research assistance from Northern Kentucky University.

“We are thrilled to finally announce to our region UpTech’s first round of winners,” said Bill Scheyer, President of Vision 2015 and an UpTech co-founder. “Our ultimate goal is to fund 50 of the best and brightest early-stage informatics companies from the United States and abroad. These eight companies will complement the foundation of a growing informatics cluster in our region, an important business sector in a 21st-century economy.”

The contest was judged by a panel of business analysts, executives and investment experts from companies like CBS, Dell, Proctor & Gamble and more.

Some of the ideas the selected startup companies are working with are untapped markets.

7 Moose games, founded by Brett Carter and Susie D. Roth, specializes in the gamification of complex and sometimes dangerous business training simulations. For example they may produce vide game style training modules for the public safety sector that could include fire safety, or even hostage negotiations. They also have had interest from oil and gas companies that can’t provide real world training on some of the more risky aspects of their industries.

Our goal is to use game engine technology to create extremely effective simulations which illustrate inherently complicated and/or dangerous subjects,” the company said in its UpTech application. “Oil and gas, public service and health, armed forces and game industry professionals are a few examples of the industries which have expressed interest in our products.”

Citilogics, founded by Jim Uber and Stu Hopper, is developing realtime data fusion software for water utilities. Their software will help reduce energy costs, reduce water leakage, improve service reliability and the quality of tap water.

Founder Jim Uber has had twenty years of experience in the water industry including developing water security software and a multi-species water quality simulation package.

“We develop models, analytics and software that help our clients better operate and manage their large-scale urban water infrastructure investments, and deliver a wide range of services from complex engineering and data analyses, to full functional software custom software solutions,” the company said in its UpTech application. “Our current focus is data fusion software that will revolutionize efficiency and effectiveness in the water industry by reducing energy costs, controlling leakage, improving service reliability and enhancing water quality.”

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New DC Accelerator Acceleprise Embracing Enterprise Tech Startups

Acceleprise is a new Washington DC based accelerator that is targeting new startups in the Enterprise space. TechCrunch recently said that Acceleprise wants to be the “500 startups for Entreprise”

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