Portland’s Money Ball Customer Intelligence Startup Lytics, Raises $2.2M Seed Round

By now we all know about the movie MoneyBall that chronicled the way an economist set forth a new analytical approach to scouting vs the gut instinct of decades past. Being Memphis-based we’re seeing that all with our own Grizzlies, who’ve gone the analytical route. Although the naysayers in Memphis doubted this method last February when our star was traded to the Raptors, the team finished with the best record in franchise history. Does that method work, absolutely.

Now what if you could take that analytical approach and use it with almost any data point in customer analytics?

“We built the first cloud-based platform that collects and integrates digital and offline data to create the most comprehensive view of your customer,” James McDermott, CEO of Lytics said in a statement. “Effective marketing is built on organizations’ truly understanding their consumers – from their engagement across digital channels to previous purchases, and we deliver the most definitive and actionable customer record marketers have ever had access to.”

Using the Lytics tools, users can dive deeper into the view of their own customers, rather than taking a tiny sample of data and moving forward with a marketing campaign, direct mail, or engagement on a hunch.

Lytics collects, analyzes, and consolidates data from web, mobile, email, social, or any integrated system such as ExactTarget, SalesForce, Eloqua, SendGrid, Urban Airship, Push.io. The result is a powerful solution that enables marketers to segment data from any source, create targeted audiences and trigger highly relevant interactions with consumers in real time.

“Connecting our key platforms to derive customer insights from SalesForce, Eloqua and Netsuite is an inefficient and cumbersome process,” Jascha Kaykas Wolff, CMO of Mindjet said in a release. “With Lytics, we can finally create a customer gold record that you don’t need a PHD to understand. Lytics gives our global marketing organization meaningful intelligence about our customers and makes it even easier to orchestrate a great experience, with our current marketing tools.”

This powerful and intelligent data form was enough to garner a $2.2 million dollar seed round lead by Rembrandt Venture Partners. Voyager Capital also participated in the round.

“The shift in technology purchasing from CIOs to CMOs has created an immediate need for a new kind of digital CRM to transform customer data into a meaningful timeline that marketers can use to manage a lifecycle,” said Scott Irwin, Rembrandt Venture Partners in a statement. “Lytics has a stellar team and their new data platform is solving a big problem. We’re excited to invest and accelerate their innovation to build a solution that is helping brands strengthen customer relationships.”

One of the top cable providers and two major retailers are currently in a private beta with Lytics. The company plans to use the funding to hire staff, accelerate development, support, and grow customers.

You can find out more about Lytics here at lytics.io

Google Backs Minnesota Game Startup That Diagnosis ADHD

CogCubed is a Minnesota based startup that is using an interactive video game platform to help diagnose Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), a disorder which has affected 5.4 million children since 2007, according to the CDC.

CogCubed uses gaming platform Sifteo, which debuted two years ago. Sifteo is a set of interactive blocks with small screens on them. Developers have programmed them to do a variety of things.

In the case of CogCubed, Minneapolis child psychiatrist Monika Heller and her game developer husband Kurt Roots invented a game where children use one cube as a mallet to hit a gopher that appears on the other three cubes, according to a report in the Star Trubune.

As the game continues, obstacles such as birds and other animals start appearing on the other screens. The player must continue to focus on the gopher.

Roots and Heller have incorporated 70 different data points in the game to discern things like when the player’s attention drifts and if the player is fidgeting. The couple told the Star Tribune that the game can even help improve a child’s attention span.

While a clinical diagnosis would still require a psychiatrist, Heller is hopeful that they can get CogCubed into homes to help parents with an early diagnosis.

“Six to 12 months is the average waiting period to see a child/adolescent psychiatrist [for a comprehensive evaluation],” she said.. “How phenomenal would it be if Mom could have an assessment tool at home?”

CogCubed is awaiting FDA approval for a version of the game that can be used as a diagnostic tool.

They also have data from a study that validates Roots’ and Hellers’ claims. The study at the University of Minnesota matched a psychiatrist’s diagnosis 75% of the time. The current standard, a computer test called “The Continuous Performance Test,” is accurate about 62% of the time according to Heller.

CogCubed has raised $20,000 from Google. They’re also a finalist in the Minnesota Cup.

You can find out more about CogCubed here at CogCubed.com

Photo: StarTribune

How Startup Valuation Works In An Infographic

If you were to ask 10 different startup founders how valuation works or how they got their valuation, you would probably end up with 10 extremely different answers. And all 10 of them probably backed by some bit of logic. As confusing at it is, valuation is probably the most important data for any startup.

Valuation is important because it determines the share of the company they have to give away to an investor in exchange for money.

“Say you are looking for a seed investment of around $100, 000 in exchange for about 10% of your company. Typical deal. Your pre-money valuation will be $1 million. This however, does not mean that your company is worth $1 million now. You probably could not sell it for that amount. Valuation at the early stages is a lot about the growth potential, as opposed to the present value.” Funders and Founders wrote on their blog.

In talking with startups everyday we hear so many different valuations. We talked with a founder with an iPhone app that hadn’t even hit the market. They had no users, no customers, and no early funding, yet they told us they were looking at a post money valuation of $10,000,000. We’ve also seen startups that had thousands of users, legitimate press traction, and small seed rounds raised value themselves at $1 million dollars.

The infographic below from fundersandfounders.com sheds some light on valuation and how to measure a company’s potential.

The infographic details the valuation process from early stage, through scaling stage, and then through exit.

DC Company Social Tables Announces $1.6 Million Round

Any event planner knows how difficult it is to juggle all the different tools they use to plan. Microsoft Office, iCalendar, Evernote, paper and pens. It can be a headache to pull of a great event.

Since September 2012 Social Tables has been helping solve the many organizational challenges of event planning. They also provide tools specifically for the hospitality industry and catered events. They are making event planning easy and fun.

And, they are announcing a new round of capital with which to do it.

Yesterday, Social Tables announced a $1.6 million round led by Militello Capital. Most of the new money came from previous investors like 500 Startups and Fortify Ventures, as well as previous angel investors. New investors include Goldin Ventures, Middeland Ventures, K Street Capital, customer-turned-angel (always a good sign) Philip Dufour, and Sameer Gulati.

Jonathon Perelli of Fortify Ventures talked to Nibletz about his firm’s participation in the round: “It was a quick decision for Fortify and other existing investors to increase our investment in Social Tables in this current round. Dan Berger is a unique blend of hacker, hustler, and designer, he is a visionary CEO and he leads, hires, and manages well. Socia lTables is a clear leader in the event planning software arena and we at Fortify are strong believers in the company’s future.

Perelli will be on hand for the upcoming Everywhere Else Cincinnati conference in September.

In the last year, Social Tables has shown plenty of reasons for investors to be confident. Each month they average about 65% growth in booked revenue. Their hotel clients include franchises of Renaissance, Crown Plaza, Sheraton, and Hilton. Nonprofits, corporations, and academic institutions have all used the tools to plan events.

“Over the last year we’ve been able to prove our business model and the company’s true potential. We’ve decided to take advantage of the market opportunity by bringing in new capital so that we could scale the business even faster,” said Dan Berger, the company’s founder and CEO in a statement.

The new money will be used to expand staff and explore other markets and verticals.

We often hear that it’s too hard to get funding if you start a company outside Silicon Valley. But, Social Tables is proof that the right companies everywhere else can be just as successful at raising money as companies in the Valley.

At the Soutland Conference last month, Paul Santinelli gave startups everywhere else some advice:

Stay put.

Find great talent.

Tackle a big problem.

The money will follow.

With stories like the one from Social Tables this week, the everywhere else ecosystem has reason to believe that’s true.

Austin Startup BigCommerce Books $40M Series “C” As In Case, Steve Case

A few years ago, people were concerned about the likes of Walmart and Barnes and Noble coming into a town and closing down small businesses.

Then, Amazon came along, and we were suddenly worried about the local Barnes and Noble going under.

Amazon is obviously a giant, selling everything from clothes to books to niche home accessories. They operate on razor thin margins and are constantly expanding and revamping. Now, in our home at least, it’s common to hear, “I’m checking out on Amazon. Need anything?”

Amazon could easily take over the world.

Except, people still love their small, local businesses, too. While Amazon is growing in popularity, so is the local movement, and plenty of people would prefer to shop 100% local. They like supporting small operations. If only shopping at small businesses was as easy as shopping on Amazon…

Thanks to Bigcommerce, for a lot of businesses it is.

Based in Austin and Sydney, Bigcommerce has been battling the curse of Amazon since 2009. Small businesses–both brick and mortar and fully virtual–can use the service to set up an online store, and Bigcommerce’s tools will make it as fluid and easy for customers as Amazon. They also have a variety of features that help a small business rank high in search, build apps, and analyze data.

Most small businesses may know very little about running an online business. Bigcommerce helps them out with the Success Squad, a group of employees who train business owners in using the platform. And, their prices cater to the small business crowd with packages starting at $25/month.

On Friday, Bigcommerce announced a series C round: $40 million exclusively from Steve Case’s Revolution Growth VC firm. Case will join the company’s board.

Before this round, the company had already raised $35 million. They weren’t hurting for money, but they have big plans for the extra funds.

“The new funding will help us build out our platform even more quickly, with a focus on empowering mobile commerce, creating a more robust app ecosystem, better serving our clients, and going global,” Bigcommerce said on their blog.

With the explosion of mobile in the US market, the ability to sell through a smartphone is critical. Bigcommerce will soon offer the service to their customers, making them even more competitive with Amazon.

Bigcommerce’s goal is to democratize e-commerce, to make it as easy for the little guy to succeed as the Amazons of the world. With their new investment, the future is looking sunny.

6 Companies From Everywhere Else That Raised Money This Week

The two biggest complaints about building a company outside of Silicon Valley are 1) lack of talent and 2) lack of capital.

But that doesn’t mean NO ONE gets funded outside of Silicon Valley. Every day companies close rounds and gain that extra capital they need to scale. And, yes, they even do it outside of the Valley.

Here are 6 companies from everywhere else that raised capital just this week.

Mediaspectrum–Based in Boston, Mediaspectrum provides a platform for big media companies (think Gannett, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, etc) to manage content and advertising in one place. They raised $35.8 million, led by Insight Ventures Partners.
MobileSpaces–This Maryland company helps businesses secure mobile apps on their employees’ phones, keeping sensitive business data from leaking. They raised $8.6 million in second round funding from Accel Partners and Marker LLC.
Vivino–This wine app from Denmark followed on their December series A with another $10.3 million. The app scans wine labels and tells the drinker what brand, varietals, vintage, and year of the wine inside the bottle.
Objective Logistics–On July 19, the Cambridge, MA-based company announced a $5.3 million Series A. The app gamifies waiting tables, trying to incentive waitstaff that may need extra encouragement.
Codeanywhere–The Croatia-based company bills itself as “the Google Docs for developers” and offers a Web-based code editor. On Monday they announced a $600,000 series A from World Wide Web Hosting, LLC.
Panjo–Based in LA, Panjo is an ecommerce platform that taps into the “enthusiast market.” Within each vertical (cars, sports, pets, etc), hobbyists can sell items related to the hobby. They raised $1.6 million in seed funding, led by Spark Capital.

As I researched this story, I realized something. Few of these companies are “sexy.” They aren’t the next consumer-facing social phenomenon. They aren’t going to interest every person on earth, or even most people, really. But, most of them are solving problems encountered by people and businesses all over the world.

That’s kind of what “everywhere else” is about, right? The Valley has done what the Valley’s going to do, and now it’s time for everywhere else to step up and solve problems.

Here from several startups everywhere else that raised money this year at everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference, a Must Attend by Forbes.

Steve Case Re-Affirms Faith In Startups, Raising Another $150 Million Dollar Fund

Washington, DC-based Steve Case, founder of AOL, Revolution, and the founding Chairman of Startup America, has made some bold moves over the past few years when it comes to startups. He’s also been a strong advocate for startups everywhere across the nation and on Capitol Hill.

Monday, Case put his money where his mouth is again by announcing through TechCrunch. The AOL-owned website reports that through his venture capital arm, Revolution Ventures, Case and partners are raising another $150 million dollar fund to support early stage startup ventures.

Revolution is calling the fund “Revolution Ventures II,” and like the previous fund, it will back early stage tech companies. Some of their previous portfolio companies include ZipCar, Living Social, and HomeSnap.

TechCrunch also reported that they’ve heard $125 million was already committed.

Two and a half years ago Case launched Startup America, a three-year initiative to spur startups, innovation, and job creation. Two months ago Case, along with several others, announced that Statup America was joining forces with Startup Weekend to take the initiatives global. Now we know that Case wants to continue to do his part directly by launching more companies.

Ann Arbor Venture Firm Raises First $11 Million Dollar Fund

Huron River Ventures, an Ann Arbor and Grand Rapids, Michigan-based venture capital firm, announced late last week that they have raised their first venture capital fund.

“We started working on this fund in 2010 and we had our first close at $7.5 million in March 2011,” managing director Tim Streit told AnnArbor.com.

Huron River Ventures is a ten year fund and to date they’ve deployed about 30% across seven different companies. They plan to invest in another 7 or 8 companies within the next two to three years and round out the fund at 15.

The fund was started by Streit and college friend Ryan Waddington, who met at the University of Michigan. The goal of the fund was to invest in Michigan companies and with that mission they were able to raise an initial $6 million dollars from the State of Michigan as part of their Accelerator Fund Program.

“We’re here, we want Michigan deals, and that’s what we focus on… we invest in Michigan-based companies or companies that have a strong presence in the state. Almost all of our capital is from the state or investors who are from Michigan or still live here.” Streit said.

Announcing a fund’s closing is basically a formality; however it sends a signal to Michigan entrepreneurs that Huron River is funded and ready to invest.

Find out more about Huron River Ventures here.

source

Check out this new startup accelerator in Michigan, Coolhouse Labs.

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SocialRadar is 8 Weeks Old, Raises $12.75 Million

The 10-person team over at SocialRadar is asking, “What Series A crunch?”

Eight weeks after formally founding the Washington D.C.-based company, they are now announcing a $12.75 million round, led by New Enterprise Associates, Grotech Ventures, and SWaN & Legend Ventures. Notable angel investors such as Dave Morin, Steve Case, Kevin Colleran, Ted Leonsis, and others are also joining in.

So, what is SocialRadar? The company’s website describes it like this:

Today over 1.1 billion people have smartphone devices that can broadcast their locations. Over 2.8 billion people have social profiles online. In the future, the power of your smartphone’s location will inevitably be combined with your social network – allowing you to walk into a room and already be aware of the people around you and how you are connected to them.

SocialRadar believes they are building this technology now.

At the 2013 CTIA expo, CEO Michael Chasen explained that they first developed technology that monitored all the top social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, etc. Then, when a SocialRadar user walks into a room, the GPS on their smartphone will locate all the people they might know and explain how they know them. No more standing around awkwardly in a bar, only to realize your best friend from college is sitting just a few seats over. When you enter the bar, your phone will let you know who’s there.

What differentiates them from other “people finder” apps is privacy. With SocialRadar users control who–if anyone–can locate them.

The company is preparing for their beta launch, coming soon to iPhone and Android. They’re also building a version for Google Glass, which seems to be a perfect fit.

Chasen was formerly a co-founder and CEO of Blackboard, the online learning platform that sold in 2011 for $1.7 billion.

You can sign up for the public beta on SocialRadar’s website.

Gainesville Startup Fracture Secures $500,000 Investment For Their Photo To Glass Platform

Fracture, a Gainesville Florida startup, specializes in preserving digital photos on beautiful glass works of art.

The end result is a stunning piece of art you can hang on your wall or put on your desk. It comes out a lot nicer than the canvas prints you can order from places like Walmart. The do-it-yourself ordering system is simple enough for anyone who has a basic grasp of taking and printing digital pictures to handle.

A user simply creates an account on fractureme.com, chooses the picture they want printed, decides on the size of the printout, pays and–voila–their picture is turned into a stunning piece of glass. Prices range from $15 to $125. Printing takes between 24-48 hours and orders are shipped shortly after.

On Monday, the startup, created by two University of Florida students in 2009, announced a $500,000 angel investment from Tamiani Angel Fund. They also raised $430,000 from TAFI in May of 2012. The Miami Herald reports that they also received a $530,000 convertible debt investment, of up to $1 million dollars from the Florida Opportunity Fund.

“We are grateful for the support the Tamiami Angel Fund has given to our burgeoning company,” Abhi Lokesh, co-founder and CEO of Fracture, told the Herald. “It’s clear they share our vision and appreciate the growth potential of the printed photo display market – a multi-billion dollar market that InfoTrends predicts will grow 40% by 2017.”

Fracture reports that revenue was up 211% in Q1 2013 from the previous year.

Check out Fracture here.

Startup Tips: 11 Tips For Increasing Customer Loyalty

Brandery 2012 Alumn Flightcar Nabs $5.5 Million From Investors Including Ryan Seacrest

So back in July when we heard the original idea behind FlightCar I thought this group of teenage ivy league dropouts was absolutely crazy. Their Cincinnati startup Flightcar is a crazy idea. Their simplest pitch, “let someone else rent your car while you’re traveling” seemed a little far fetched. Combine that with the fact that there’s maybe 10 years driving experience between the three of them and even less business traveling experience, and I was totally disconnected.

Sometime during the Brandery’s demo day back in October my opinion changed. By the end of their pitch, and then a brief meeting with all three founders and I was completely sold.

With the “sharing economy” becoming more and more popular, why wouldn’t someone let another person borrow their car while they are away on a trip. People are doing it with their homes all the time now, by way of Vayala and Airbnb.

The concept is fairly simple. You’re flying out of town for a trip and you have to pay for parking for your car. Rather than paying for parking, Flightcar allows you to park your car in their lot and then while your gone it gets rented out to someone else who is coming into town for the same length or a shorter amount of time. Now, instead of spending money to park, you’re making money with your car that would otherwise be sitting in a parking lot.

To make the value proposition work Flightcar founders Rujul Zaparde, Kevin Petrovic and Shri Ganeshram had to insure a few things for their customers to be comfortable with the transaction.

Insurance: Of course the entire transaction, car, renters, drivers and passengers would need to be fully insured. Flightcar has done this by securing a $1 million dollar insurance policy.

Ease of transaction: The Flightcar team has managed to build in several factors to make the transaction as easy and painless as possible. The Flightcar website helps pre-determine the “borrowing”. Once at the airport (participating airports), you park your car at the Flightcar lot where a ride is provided to the gate. Flightcar will also wash and clean your car prior to renting it out and prior to you picking it up.

After the Brandery, Flightcar was accepted into the YCombinator accelerator program in Silicon Valley. Now they’ve raises $5.5 million dollars from investors. This first round of funding comes from General Catalyst, Softbank Capital, Ryan Seacrest’s Seacrest Global Group, founder of Airbnb Brian Chesky, with participation from a host of other investors including First Round Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, and Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, according to TechCrunch.

Check out their pitch video from Brandery’s 2012 demo day below:

Find out more about Flightcar here at flightcar.com

The Brandery is one of the country’s top 15 accelerators, check out all of our Brandery coverage here.

Are VC’s Bypassing Early Stage Health Deals?

Healthcare startups,Venture Capital,startups,funding,seed round,series a

(image: policymed.com)

Success stories, like the one of Memphis’ medical device accelerator Zeroto510, where 80% of their first class received follow on funding, seem to be growing scarce on a national scale. In their first class of six startups at the ZeroTo510 program 5 of the startups received follow on funding, with one, Restore Medical Solutions, going straight to a $2.5 million dollar series A round.

Well national medical startup publication MedCity News, released two graphs this morning that may be alarming to early stage medical startups, who often need a lot more seed money than your social, mobile, webtech startups.

The data, published by CB Insights, shows a significant number of VCs are skipping over earlier stage “seed round” deals for healthcare startups. Conversely, the same data set shows that the “series A crunch” may not be as prevalent in healthcare startups.

As you can see clearly from the data set Series A and Series B seem to be the preferred stage for a VC firm to get into a startup business, at least over the last five quarters.

According to MedCity News VC Funding in healtcare was up over the last year, in fact reaching a “multi year high”. Also worthy to note is that the medical device category is eating up the most VC funds. That should be good for the next round of ZeroTo510, Rock Health and Health Box.

Restore Medical talks to us about their $2.5 million dollar Series A round.

58% Interested In Startup Equity Investments

Guest post by Andrea with SeedInvest.com

A new study conducted by EarlyIQ, the Crowdfund Professional Association (SeedInvest sits on the Executive Committee) and Crowdfund Capital Advisors has just been released, bringing with it some very encouraging statistics. The first national study of its kind, the study was an online survey of 480 respondents nationwide (with a minimum of $25K annual income), and found that 58% of all respondents indicated a high interest in early stage equity investment.

This figure was obtained by the fact that when asked to indicate their level of interest in equity crowdfunding on a scale of 1 to 10, 58% were in the range of 7 to 10. 22% fell into the 1 to 4 category, which meant little or no intent, 20% chose 5-6, which meant they were unsure. The survey also found that investors were likely to make two to three investments annually, giving on average slightly under $2,000 towards each investment. SeedInvest advisor Jason Best remarked, “The passage of the JOBS Act was a key milestone for democratizing capital in the US. This research demonstrates the broad appeal in middle-America and we believe demonstrates a mandate rollout of equity crowdfunding in the US.”

While we are excited about the public’s enthusiasm towards crowdfunding, perhaps the most important fact to consider from this study is that investment intent quadruples overall when a neutral third party provides review of the management team. When respondents who were likely to invest and had an annual income of over $75,000 were presented with a company of which they had no prior knowledge, 68% said they would invest only with third party information, with a further 16% saying they would invest even if there was third party information of a similar company but none of the target company itself.

Continue reading at Seedinvest.com

500 Startups And More Back Philippines Startup Payroll Hero

500 Startups, LX Ventures, the Futura Corporation, 8capita Partners, Ryan Holmes (founder of Hootsuite), Dan Martell (CEO of Clarity), Benjamin Joffee and other angels have all backed Philippines/Canadian startup Payroll Hero to the tune of $1 million.

Payroll Hero was dubbed the IT Startup Of The Year in the Philippines for their back end HR platform that provides payroll, attendance and scheduling services for companies both large and small. Tech In Asia says that the company is software that makes sure “people actually work”.

The company currently has customers in the USA, Philippines, Canada, Cambodia, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, and India. They plan on using part of this investment to expand across South East Asia.

Payroll Hero was one of 16 international startups to participate in Startup Arena, a pitch contest held over the summer. Ben Joffee, who is sometimes referred to as “Mr. Asia” was one of the judges at that contest and then put his money where his mouth is by investing in this round.

More available at the source.