Crowdfunding Insurance Coming By Way Of Baltimore Startup Asurvest

Clarence Wooten, a Baltimore native,who was the co-founder of ImageCafe, a startup sold during the dot com boom to Network Solutions/Verisign for $23 million, has backed a new startup called Asurvest in Baltimore. While Wooten has moved out west to Silicon Valley, he’s betting on a hometown company that plans on offering insurance to people investing via crowdfunding sites.

Crowdfunding legislation was passed last year, however it’s not expected to fully roll out nationally until early 2014, while the SEC establishes guidelines for the vehicle that will allow anyone to help back startups through their first million.

Asurvest was founded last month. They will provide insurance for private and professional investors using sites like Kickstarter, Fundable and Gofunding, according to bmoremedia

“These groups are highly visible. They attract investors. They have strong business models,” Asurvest CEO Luke Cooper told bmore . “We are in an incremental improvement mode,”.

Asurvest is looking to provide assurance for those investing even $1500 – $2000.

Crowdfunding for startups works much like it does for supporting artists and products on the popular Kickstarter platform which saw $319 million dollars pledged last year.

Federal regulators are still sorting out how crowdfunding will work. After that, it will be turned over to state governments. Cooper is currently working with the state of Maine to draft legislation. After that they will move on to Maryland and expand where they see the most need.

Source: bmoremedia

Be sure to check out the crowdfunding panel at the largest startup conference in the US, everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference

Accelerate Baltimore Extends Application Deadline To December 21st

The holidays are upon us but for entrepreneurs and startup founders across the state of Maryland, across the country and around the globe who want to build their startup in Charm City, they’ll probably be on pins and needles, waiting. AccelerateBaltimore, the startup accelerator program put on by The Emerging Technology Center has extended their program application deadline to December 21st, 2012.

Baltimore is a great city to build a startup in, just ask McKeever Conwell who decided to keep his startup “Given.to” (formerly No Bad Gift), in Maryland’s tech city. Conwell, a Morgan State graduate, has been through the AccelerateBaltimore program and he’s been out west. He decided Baltimore’s best for his company.

Baltimore has a thriving tech scene (I may be biased being born and raised there). Video game studios, mobile app companies, mobile ad companies and many more call Baltimore home. In fact, mobile ad company Millennial Media, is a Baltimore startup that recently went public to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. The company has over 38,000 mobile apps on it’s network.

If you want a taste of that pie and you want to learn from some of the greatest mentors around, you still have a couple of weeks to apply. You don’t have to be based in Baltimore, but you do have to be willing to move to Baltimore to participate in the program. It’s worth it.

And speaking of Mentors, the ETC just announced 14 mentors for the next AccelerateBaltimore session including: Chris Brandenburg, Co-founder and CTO of Millennial Media, Greg Cangialosi, CEO of Nucleus Ventures, Ron Schmelzer, CEO of Bizelo and Co-founder of Baltimore Tech Breakfast and Andrew Coy, Co-Executive Director of Digital Harbor Foundation, Ann Quinn of Quinn Strategy Group, Victoria McAndrews of CMD, and Russell Clark Co-Founder of Illuminis.

“AccelerateBaltimore™ is one of the recognized programs that has proven to assist in nurturing startups from idea-stage to viable business,” stated Michael Binko, co-chair of Startup Maryland. “Formal programs like AccelerateBaltimore™, MindShare, Distilled Intelligence and others in the broader region are a great extension to high-touch entrepreneur events like our own Pitch Across Maryland. The mentorship, working capital and creative office-space provided by ETC form a great foundation for entrepreneurs who are eager to accept guidance from peer-mentors as well as program facilitators.”

The next AccelerateBaltimore session will begin in February. Six startups will be part of this next cohort and will receive $25,000 in seed funding. They’ll also participate in an intense development program, have free office space, a high level advisory team and more.

Linkage:

Apply to AccelerateBaltimore here

More startup news from “everywhere else”

Hear about McKeever Conwell’s experience in AccelerateBaltimore at the largest startup conference in the U.S.

Baltimore Startup: ParkingPanda Taps Local Firm, MindGrub For Mobile App

One of my favorite things about traveling in Washington DC and Baltimore (aside being from there) is Parking Panda. Parking Panda is a revolutionary new app that allows peer to peer renting of driveways and other under utilized parking spaces. What you’ll find after using the service is, better directions to a parking spot, not having to constantly plug meters with quarters, and the ability to save both time and money by using somebody else’s spot.

ParkingPanda also backfills peer to peer spots with under-utilized spots in municipal lots as well.

The service is currently only available in Washington DC and Baltimore however they plan on being in Philadelphia,Boston, Chicago, and San Francisco in the not so distant future.

ParkingPanda functions a lot like hotels.com. People with the space in their driveway or wherever else you can park a car, post pictures, a description, some nearby attractions and the requirements for parking there. End users who need to park their car go to the site, decide where they need to park and select a nearby option. The end user puts in their car data and their credit card and goes to the spot to park. It’s that simpe.

Of course like hotels.com the entire platform could increase it’s usability ten fold with a mobile app and that’s just whatParkingPanda has commissioned the team at MindGrub to do.

The Catonsville based design house has been around since 2004 when teacher turned entrepreneur technologist Todd Marks went a little bit ahead of the curve designing websites, and then mobile apps for Baltimore’s top shelf clientele.

Now, rather than having to plan hours or days ahead, people can utilize ParkingPanda on the fly, even as their driving aimlessly down the streets of DC or Baltimore looking for a spot.

Linkage:

ParkingPanda is here

Mindgrub is here

and startup stories from “everywhere else” are here

Tired Of Giving Crappy Gifts? Check Out Baltimore Startup: NoBadGift INTERVIEW

Nobody likes a bad gift. Receiving bad gifts can be a very uncomfortable experience. As you’re looking at that sweater that went out of style in 1990 you’ve got to smile and say thank you. Then you’re tasked with having to decide whether to hold onto that sweater for the next time your auntie comes over, return it, regift it or throw it away.

The other problem with gifting is that even though you know darn well what you want for your gifts most people just say they don’t. No one wants to feel like they’re asking for anything.

Enter NoBadGift. As the name suggests, this Baltimore startup insures you give a great gift. Why, because the recipient crowdfunds the gift that they really want from friends and family members. The Mike Washington, one of the co-founders of NoBadGift, came up with the idea for the startup when his father wanted an iPad for Christmas one year. After pooling the money for the iPad from his siblings he had an epiphany “why not do this online”.

We got a chance to talk with the team from NoBadGift in the interview below. They tell us about their gift funding system an Baltimore’s explosive startup scene. Of course being from Baltimore we love reporting about Baltimore startups.

Baltimore Startup 410 Labs Hits PR PayDirt With Evolve Communications “Rocket Packs For Startups”

Back in June of 2011 410 labs opened up their beta to their shortmail service. Shortmail is a service that helps users create 500 character emails that are concise and deliver the message without the superfluous chatter that clogs email messages everywhere.

It originally released to anyone with a Twitter account. In fact today you can still claim a shortmail account using your Twitter credentials, however in January they opened it up to anyone with a pulse via their web tool at shortmail.me

“Our goal is to bring communication simplicity to everyone,” says 410 Labs CEO Dave Troy. “After hearing from many of our our users that they love Shortmail, but don’t love their Twitter name, we’ve opened up a new name space that’s not tied to Twitter, so everyone can enjoy the benefits of shorter, more concise communication.”

More after the break
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