dnc2012 Archives - Serious Startups

North Carolina Startup Accelerator: RevTech Labs Graduates Wednesday

When we were in Charlotte North Carolina for the 2012 Democratic National Convention we got to work out of Packard Place, a gigantic incubator for high growth potential startups in beautiful Uptown (read downtown but that’s what the natives call it), Charlotte North Carolina. Packard Place is home to two accelerators, one focusing on social entrepreneurship while the other one, RevTech Labs, is Charlotte’s first traditional co-hort based tech startup accelerator.

RevTech Labs announced the program back in May. The first class of 7 startups were able to move in the entire month of June and the program kicked off officially on July 2nd. The startups took a one week break (at least from the space) during the DNC when hundreds of bloggers moved into a temporary news room set up in the space.

The accelerator took some cues from other already established accelerators in their inaugural session. For starters, they required that every startup have a developer as a founder or a developer as a co-founder and present at the accelerator. Many accelerators in the past have allowed startups without developers to move into their programs. In some cases the startups spent much of their time in the accelerator either outsourcing development or dealing with the headaches of managing outsourced developers.

RevTech Labs also housed mentor startups in the same space. MailVu and DealCloud were two of the startups selected to mentor those in the cohort. They were able to secure space in the accelerator in exchange for helping their fellow startups.

Wednesday the seven startups in the first class will show off what they’ve been working on throughout the summer. Not only that but Packard Place, and RevTech Labs have partnered with the NC region of the Startup America Partnership, Startup NC, to host a startup expo alongside demo day. Another 10-20 local NC startups will get to exhibit during the three hour event Wednesday afternoon from 2-5pm.

Investors, entrepreneurs and potential customers will hear pitches from these 7 startups:

Viddlz

Welcome to the local community marketplace for scrumptious food. Our viddles (food) are prepared and grown by your neighbors, the bakers, farmers and artisans living virtually next door. Charlotte is the first stop and the Viddlrs (local bakers) provide homemade, beautiful baked goods. Viddlz makes it simple and economical for quality food providers to start or grow a great food business.

Dataset/IO

Dataset/IO provides beautiful, simple and powerful data solutions for the Capital Markets. Our solutions offer the ability to manage enterprise data quickly and easily – scaling on demand – while placing the control firmly back in the hands of our data team.

Spatially

Spatially is developing a better interface for product search in today’s touch-driven world. The technology uses [a technique known as] faceted search and displays search results in a highly interactive 2D interface.

DogDashGame

Dog Dash represents a new genre in mobile gaming by introducing a 3D-audio only concept. Users will have to utilize their auditory skills to navigate them through oncoming traffic and away from the pursuing cops. Head phones are required for the true 3D-audio experience and the game is expected to launch on the iPhone this summer.

The Torch

The Torch helps you plan for the unplanned. The Torch is an online and mobile application that makes it easy to organize your “What if?” plan and share it with the people closest to you, so they will know what to do in an emergency.

Flavma Inc.

Flavma Inc. revolutionizes pharmacy software. We’ve built the first Medicare Part D Plan Finder for the iPad. Currently, we are working with Independent Pharmacies to improve their processes and quality of patient care using modern technology.

Autopilot

Autopilot allows you to book a vetted, professional driver on demand when you can’t, shouldn’t, or simply don’t want to drive your own vehicle. You can reserve a driver with the push of a button, track their arrival, and enjoy the benefits of automated, cashless payments all from your mobile device.

The demo day event will be held at Packard Place and if you would like an event you can email them here

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LiveBlog: Startup America Panel At The DNC 2012: How Government Can Foster Startups

1:22pm: Igor Jablokov: startups are becoming the R&D cauldron for big established businesses now. Rather than keeping in house R&D and upsetting Wall Street big companies are vetting startups that they could acquire with the new technologies they want/need

1:20pm: Chopra: Obama challenged America to double their exports. EdTech startups are having more success overseas. Other countries are hungry for education and EdTech. “We are more accustomed to selling Boeing overseas rather than having entrepreneurs sell EdTech overseas”

1:15pm: What role does government play in demand: Polis: Sound economic stewardship, restoring our fiscal integrity, getting rid of the special interest loopholes, new trade policies

1:09PM Scott Case: Tells Chopra he is only the second elected official he has ever spoken to as the CEO of Startup America Partnership, that has said “why don’t we build our own companies” rather than “what factories can we get to come here”

1:06PM: Martinsville is going to invest in entrepreneurship locally stemming from Startup America. Chopra visited Martinsville, a community with double digit unemployment and found that entrepreneurship and talent is all about making a job just as much as it is about getting a job.

12:59pm: Dan Roselli: The stimulus act isn’t the government rolling up a dumpster full of cash. He and his business partner used the Stimulus Act to help buy and revitalize the building that now houses the PPL. When it’s not home to bloggers and online media for DNC 2012, Packard Place is the incubator for incubators and 5 floors of startups, entrepreneurs and founders.

12:56pm: Cowell on the innovation fund in North Carolina. Policies like founders tax credits can help founders and spur entrepreneurship. NC is the the 20th state in the US that is offering an “innovation” type fund. Government isnt typically good with these kinds of funds, so they want to outsource and have a public/private partnership. NC uses Credit Suisse as a third party officiant of their fund and gives them an “arms length” distance from the fund itself.

12:54pm: Scott Case question “Where do you see the line” in regards to where government is part of startups. Chopra is talking about policy barriers that make it harder for startups to break into markets. Healthcare data ecosystem counts over 200 new products or services that utilize health data.

StartupRockingon With StartupRockon At The DNC

It’s been a festive night in Charlotte North Carolina. While many started partying like a democrat Friday evening, StartupRockon and StarutpAmerica along with MassChallenge have kicked off their presence at the StartupRockon party tonight featuring national recoding act The Roots.

The party has had some great people from startup ecosystems throughout the country, Luke Rafenstahl the Mayor of Pittsburgh is a huge startup advocate and he arrived early for the festivities.

Our awesome social media liaison for the StartupAmerica partnership Anna Eisenberg along with Kathleen Warner the COO of Startup America and the partnerships Communications Director, Chris Roche have been talking innovation all night.

The Publisher of Hypervocal, and founder of StartupRockon, Lee Brenner has done an exceptional job of organizing these events in a short amount of time. Brenner pointed out on stage this evening that this is just the startup of StartupRockon at the Democratic National Convention. More programming including panels with StartupAmerica CEO Scott Case and Huffington Post Publisher Arianna Huffington kick off tomorrow morning.

As for The Roots they’ve been tearing the roof off the mother sucka tonight kicking off the party with a tribute to The Beastie Boys MCA and the godfather of DC GoGo Chuck Brown. A Roots version of Paul Revere complete with vocals from MCA and a mad GoGo swing kicked off their set.

We’ll be here all week reporting all the startup goodness from the must attend political event of the last four years the Democratic National Convention.

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More of our DNC 2012 Coverage Here