Mark Cuban-backed RECESS Combines College, Tech, and EDM

In the old days, when you wanted to start a business in college you had a few options. You could start on the side, working between classes, maybe joining some business club. Or you could drop out and hope the risk was worth it.

Now, thanks to RECESS, you have an even cooler option. No more choosing between boring career fair and selling knives during the summer.

Spawned from Glowfest–an EDM concert series–RECESS brings together college kids, tech companies, and EDM artists in a crazy, packed day. The conference–deemed a “music and ideas festival” by the company–travels to college campuses across the country and essentially pops up SXSW for one day.

The day is split up into different categories, cleverly deemed the Playground, Study Hall, Pitch Competition, and Concert.

During the Playground, college kids experience a career fair on steroids. They can interact with successful tech companies like About.me, Dollar Shave Club, Doctor On Demand, and WillCall. Internships, jobs, and valuable relationships with startup founders and employees can be made on the Playground.

During Study Hall, the festival moves to a more traditional conference. Speakers come in to talk about startups and the future of the tech industry. This spring boasts some great speakers, including Scott Case and Jeff Hoffman, who have also spoken at the Everywhere Else conference series.

The Pitch Competition is billed as March Madness-style event where students can pitch their business ideas. They’re working their way to the final competition in Las Vegas later in the spring.

Finally, the concert. Because life’s been far too serious that day. Each event boasts a different show, and EDM artists like deadmau5, Diplo, and Krewella come in for the party.

“RECESS curates the best day of college by bringing together successful entrepreneurs, the coolest new startups and the hottest acts in music to campuses across the country,” said RECESS Co-Founder Jack Shannon. “Our mission is to inspire the next generation of entrepreneurs that will change the landscape of tomorrow’s businesses while offering participating brands unprecedented campus access to activate students.”

The company is backed by investors like Mark Cuban. This isn’t his first investment in a live entertainment company; he made the biggest deal in Shark Tank history last October with creepy scare company Ten Thirty One Productions.

The traveling festival kicks off at University of the Pacific on March 21. Admission is free, and you can find the rest of the 6 tour dates on the company’s website.

The Biggest Deal In Shark Tank History Comes Just In Time For Halloween

Last Friday Shark Tank returned with one of the creepiest pitches ever. Former Clear Channel Communications executive Melissa Carbone walked in with a snarling zombie in tow, and as the pitch continued a scarecrow, clown, a chainsaw murder came out of the display to terrorize the sharks.

“Don’t eyeball me. I will kick your tush back to Texas,” Mark Cuban informed the chainsaw-wielding actor.

The founder of the Ten Thirty One Productions, the company behind the popular LA Haunted Hayride was looking for $2 million dollars to expand her business to New York. Despite earning $1.8 million in 17 days, many of the sharks disagreed with Carbone’s $20 million valuation.

“I’m an expert in high-octane scare,” Daymond John said. “Put on a piece of jewelry and walk around where I grew up. That’s a high-octane scare.”

He went on to offer $2 million for a 40% stake in the company. Carbone paused before countering: $2 million for 20%.

It took Cuban–whose face showed nothing but disgust at the beginning of the pitch–about 2 seconds to jump in.

“I’ll take that,” he said, slamming his notebook closed.

And, just like that, the biggest deal in Shark Tank history is done. Cuban, of course, is well known for his wide portfolio and often unusual investments. As the segment ended, he told the other sharks he believes the future of entertainment is in experiences.

However, a lot of sharks argued that Carbone’s company will never see the kind of profit she projected. We all know that not everything goes right when we launch new endeavors, and Ten Thirty One’s plans are ambitious. In 2014 they plan to launch a series of horror campouts along the West Coast, as well as a New York Haunted Hayride in October. They have some–sorry–scary goals. Still $2 million from Mark Cuban can’t hurt.

Find out more about Ten Thirty One Productions at their website.

Mark Cuban Never Sleeps: Backs Harvard Startup HourlyNerd

HourlyNerd, Boston startup, Harvard Startup, Mark Cuban

(HourlyNerd team photo: HourlyNerd)

Just yesterday we reported on Mark Cuban’s two most recent investments. Now we have a third. Back in July we reported that Mark Cuban had backed Harvard startup Tivli, a company that brings live TV over the internet to college students. The company allows college students to view their live TV content over any connected device no matter where they are on campus.

Well Cuban is back at Harvard investing in another high growth potential startup, again in a totally different industry.

HourlyNerd, the Harvard startup, is the latest startup trying to connect MBA’s to work. The company says they have 900 MBA’s who are willing and ready to work for small businesses on an as needed basis. The service is ideal for “small businesses that want to access premier quality professionals at reasonable rates and on an ‘as needed’ basis,” HourlyNerd told the Boston Business Journal.

There are a lot of MBA graduates and MBA students that upon completion (or nearly completing their MBA) struggle trying to find the ideal long term placement for themselves. There have been a handful of startups that are trying to find ways to connect these MBA’s to work, be it extremely short term or on a project by project basis like DC based MBA Project Search which we profiled back in November.

In regards to HourlyNerd, Cuban said in a statement that the company “fills a need every entrepreneurial company faces,” and said he expects to use the service “heavily.” Cuban is investing rapidly in several startups that run across a variety of industries, often times outside of his direct scope.

Cuban led HourlyNerd’s $750,000 round with a reported investment of $450,000. The company was founded in a Harvard University course by Rob Biederman, Peter Maglathlin, Joe Miller, and Patrick Petitti.

The Business Journal notes that Accanto Partners and Connect Ventures also participated in the round.

See how our co-founder Nick Tippmann directly helped Atlanta startup Badgy get an investment from Mark Cuban.

Mark Cuban Shows Variety In Portfolio With Latest Startup Investments

Some may think that Mark Cuban’s investment strategy is all over the place, but teh truth of the matter is it goes hand in hand with his varied background. Cuban’s career crosses a variety of industries, all of which were self taught.

Cuban began his career as a self taught computer salesman who didn’t even own a computer. From here his next big accolade is selling broadcast.com to Yahoo, starting HDTv (now axs). Now he’s also a NBA franchise owner, shark on ABC’s Shark Tank, dancer on Dancing With The Stars, startup investor, philanthropist, and more. With all of that in mind Cuban is still just one of the guys, just ask anyone that knows him or frequents places he likes to hang out.

Cuban’s investment portfolio encompasses lots of industries. He’s invested in things that touch his TV business like Tivli and One Condition. He’s also invested in app selling company Apptopia, multilingual analytics firm Linquasys. and local rewards startup Badgy. That doesn’t even scratch the surface of Cuban’s portfolio; you can find more of his investments here.

Cuban’s two most recent statup investments are equally diverse.

After meeting Kim Taylor at the Kaplan accelerator program for edtech startups, Cuban led a $500,000 round for Ranku. Taylor also happened to be one of the featured entrepreneurs on Bravo’s reality show about startups called Startups: Silicon Valley.

Ranku ranks colleges by the success its graduates have with finding jobs rather than how they rank on the US News & World Report list. Obviously this is a much more relevant way to rank schools for students headed into college.

On Wednesday evening TechCrunch’s Anthony Ha reported that Cuban has also backed legislation tracking and prediction startup FiscalNote. The $1.2 million dollar round will help the startup continue working on new technologies to support their original model.

FiscalNote provides a service to businesses that keeps them up to date with legislation across all 50 states that may affect their business. Co-Founder and CEO Tim Hwang told Ha that many businesses are affected by these changes in legislation and for a business to keep up with them they would need a large staff hitting refresh on all 50 states websites continuously. Beyond that they would need to decode that legislation and see how it really affected their business. FiscalNote’s algorithm does all of that for them.

For more on Mark Cuban and his startup investments check this out.

Mark Cuban, NEA And More Back Boston Startup Tivli

Mark Cuban, Tivli, Startup, Boston Startup

Mark Cuban (photo: JD Lasica flickr)

Tivli is a startup that’s bringing college students live TV over the internet. The company streams live TV, including broadcast channels, to students on their web connected devices, no matter where they are on campus.

The Boston Business Journal reports that Tivli was founded by 2009 Harvard engineering graduates Tuan Ho and Nicholas Krasney. They also beta tested the product on Harvard’s campus in 2011. The Tivli service has since expanded to Yale, Texas A&M, The University of Washington, and Wesleyan University.

“Tivli is a fast-growing entertainment service for college campuses that streams live, time-shifted and on-demand TV content to students on their terms — when they want, where they want, and on the devices they want,” said Christopher Thorpe, the company’s CEO in a news release on their website. “Tivli also provides an innovative service to the universities with cost-effective, secure video distribution over their existing data networks. Moreover, students tell us that Tivli makes their on-campus living experience even better. We’re proud to have earned the support of our world-class investors and look forward to working with them as we build a great company.”

On Wednesday the company reported that they had closed a Series A round led by New Enterprise Associates (NEA), with participation from Felicis Ventures, Rho Ventures, HBO, Mark Cuban’s Radical Investments, WME, and CBC New Media Group.

Cuban, the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, ABC Shark Tank shark, and angel investor routinely invests in startups in a wide variety of technologies. Tivli was especially appealing to him because it’s in the video space ,which he is very familiar with. Cuban is also the founder of HDNet which is now AXS TV. He also made his first billion selling broadcast.com to Yahoo.

“I’m excited to be part of Tivli and think they are the future of entertainment on college campuses,” Cuban said in a statement.“Tivli is a great complement for AXS TV and my other entertainment investments.”

You can find out more about Tivli here.

Here’s a way not to get an investment from Mark Cuban.

Mark Cuban Crowdsources Next Maverick’s Uniform

Ever since our co-founder and CEO Nick Tippmann got Mark Cuban to come to his Shark Tank Season 3 Premiere party in Indianapolis, we’ve covered Cuban and his investments in startups. Cuban’s personal blog, blogmaverick, describes the billionaire investor, Shark Tank Shark and owner of the Dallas Mavericks, to a “T’. Not because he’s the owner of the NBA team with the same name, but because he’s a maverick himself.

Cuban isn’t one to do things the “normal” way. After a dismal season this year, Cuban has decided that maybe the Mavs need a change in uniform. He wants to implement the change in the 2015-2016 season.

On his blog, Cuban announces to the world and the Maverick’s fan base that this change is coming. More importantly though, Cuban isn’t hiring some big shot consultant or spending millions of dollars to come up with 10 mediocre designs. He’s crowdsourcing. He wants fans of his beloved Maverick’s to design the teams next uniform.

Now he wants the uniforms to fit the NBA uniform format. He also wants to keep the logo intact and try not to stray far away from the current color scheme. Of course he’s looking for creativity stemming from the great people that love his team.

He’s quick to point out that any design submitted immediately becomes the property of the Dallas Mavericks and if you don’t want to adhere to that you need not submit.

“Who will own your design ? The minute you post it, the Mavs will. If you think its horrible that the Mavs own your design. Do not post. If you think its cool that the Mavs could possibly use your design and you will have eternal bragging rights , then post away.” Cuban writes.

If Cuban feels up to it he may throw in some tickets for the designer. There’s no promise of anything except bragging rights, and he may not select any fan design at all. “That is life in the big city. Move on.” Cuban adds.

The contest is open until the end of May, click on over to Blogmaverick for more.

Check out more of our Mark Cuban coverage here at nibletz.com

Mark Cuban Leads $1 Million Dollar Round For Florida Startup LinguaSys

LinguaSys,Mark Cuban,Florida startup,startup

Mark Cuban (photo: JD Lasica flickr)

Florida startup LinguaSys is the latest startup to graduate out of the Technology Business Incubator at the Research Park at Florida Atlantic University (TBI). The company provides translation and multilingual text analytics to businesses and government.

They’re also the latest startup to catch the investment eye of billionaire Shark Tank investor and the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, Mark Cuban. Cuban has reportedly led a seed round of funding of $1 million dollars that will allow the company to expand into their own offices in Boca Raton.

The TBI is an exceptional facility, and we are proud to have launched our business there,” LinguaSys CEO Brian Garr said in a news release. “It provided us with a stimulating work environment and a variety of resources which helped us to be successful.”

The company was founded in 2010 by three founders that have over 30 years of combined experience in the human language technology space. LinguaSys had their first product out to market within three months of forming.

Now LinguaSys has expanded to Germany and Australia as well as their Florida home base. They’ve grown to 14 employees and they’re also a partner with Salesforce providing their text analytics capabilities inside the Salesforce Marketing cloud.

For more on LinguaSys visit here.

Here’s how not to get an investment from Mark Cuban.

Mark Cuban Backed Apptopia Tops $1 Million In Sales

Boston startup Apptopia is another startup we’ve been tracking for quite some time. We first brought you the story about this company that helps app developers actually sell their apps and app businesses, back in March of 2012.

While app markets seem to be a dime a dozen these days, Apptopia is not an app market at all. Apptopia allows developers to take their developed app projects and sell them for whatever reason they want. Perhaps they just got a thrill out of creating something and they’re ready to move onto the next idea. Or maybe developers are just creating apps to sell in a marketplace like Apptopia.

The vision for Apptopia caught the eye of ABC Shark Tank shark, and investor Mark Cuban, who likes to invest in original ideas that can cause a disruption. Cuban led the startup’s $1 million dollar seed round.

Last October we reported that Apptopia had cleared $25,000 in sales. Last week the company reported that they had participated in over 275 app acquisitions which amounted to over $1 million dollars in sales.

With growth like this in an entirely new market, Apptopia was named one of the “World’s top 10 most innovative companies in mobile” by Fast Company.

Apptopia isn’t just like “ebay for apps” they have a sophisticated algorithm built into the background that is able to take an apps current downloads, ratings and other metrics and triangulate it’s current valuation, to project future earnings.

“Take the popular app Temple Run, for example. Apptopia’s unique algorithm uses public data about Temple Run (245.7 million downloads, 4.7 million ratings) to triangulate its current valuation ($41.2 million) and project future revenues ($11.2 million over the next six months). Apptopia can perform this analysis on any app, making it an extremely useful tool for developers and investors alike.” an Apptopia spokesperson told us by email.

To find out more about Apptopia or sell your own app check them out at apptopia.com

Here’s a way not to get an investment from Mark Cuban.

Here’s A Way Not To Get An Investment From Mark Cuban

Mark Cuban (c) hanging out with nibletz co-founder Nick Tippmann (r)

You may have heard through the grapevine that Mark Cuban is an aggressive investor in early stage startups. Take the Shark Tank out of the equation and Cuban is still eager to invest in good technology.

Many people also know that Mark Cuban is one of the nicest and most approachable billionaires in the world. You can pretty easily find his email address online and if you’ve got a good question or a good pitch he’ll actually respond to you. Heck he’ll even let you talk smack about basketball.

But earlier today one startup founder took the absolute wrong approach to win over Cuban’s ears and investment. It seems that this founder is in the process of closing a round. He apparently has a commitment from Peter Thiel and wanted Cuban to get in as well.

So what does he do? He emails Mark Cuban with the subject line: “Peter Thiel invested so you’re lucky I’m emailing you”.

Cuban took to Twitter for his response:

Cuban than tweeted this message to follow up:

Interview With Mark Cuban Backed Techstars Grad Condition One VIDEO

Condition One is a New York Techstars graduate that closed a $2.35 million dollar round back in October, led by Mark Cuban.

Academy award nominated photographer and videographer [Danfung Dennis]has seen his work in Newsweek and the New York Times. He’s been hailed for shooting some of the best war footage ever seen. That’s in part because Dennis has found a new way to capture more of what we see in video.

Humans actually see a wide range of things in their peripheral vision and then adjust based on what’s interesting in their range of vision. Video isn’t that way. Video can actually see what’s shot straight on, but then, because of the way us humans see, it doesn’t feel as natural.

Dennis has created Condition One to capture and share things that typical video misses and includes a 180 field of vision. Condition One is software that takes that warped 180 degree footage shot with a fisheye lens and then translates it back into a clear flat image that we see. It’s somewhat like the Lytro that lets you shoot out of focus photos now and focuses them in later.

Even with Shark Tank, people know that Mark Cuban isn’t typically an investor at seed stages of the game. However, in addition to the Maverick’s Cuban’s other large business is HDTV which was just rebranded as AXS TV. This is where Condition One makes a lot of sense. Cuban’s AXS TV is known for it’s live concerts and events. Condition One’s technology is perfect for capturing events and putting them into a better viewing perspective.

Nibletz co-founder Nick Tippmann got to interview Condition One at Eureka Park as part of CES 2013 last month in Las Vegas.

Startups from New York and around the country are exhibiting at the largest startup conference in the US, everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference

New York TechStars Startup Condition One Raises $2.35M From Mark Cuban And More

New York Techstars alum Condition One has just closed a seed round at $2.35 million. The round was led by Dallas Maverick’s owner and billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban as well as Manilla CEO George Kilavkoff and more. Cuban initially invested $500,000 in the immersive video startup earlier this summer.

Academy award nominated photographer and videographer Danfung Dennis has seen his work in Newsweek and the New York Times. He’s been hailed for shooting some of the best war footage ever seen. That’s in part because Dennis has found a new way to capture more of what we see in video.

“Our technology is going to enable some amazing new concert experiences where the user can pan back and forth between the stage and the crowd, between the drummer and guitarist, or between the action onstage and what’s going on backstage,” Condition One COO Andrew Chang told The Verge.

Condition One allows viewers to take videos of concerts, and sporting events and then pan back to the action that they really want to see, bringing into focus the parts that are most important to them.

“My work has been an evolution from still images to video and now into immersive experiences,” said Dennis. “Yet, I’m still motivated by the same idea: that the future of storytelling will be driven by technology.”

Linkage:

Check out Condition One here

Source: TC Verge

Huh a Startup Conference where we can exhibit for less than $400?

Interview With Mark Cuban Backed LA Startup: Mention Mobile

Shark Tank season 4 kicked off two weeks ago with Indiana University, Kelley School Of Business graduate Derek Pacque’ turning down a $200,000 investment offer from Dallas Maverick’s owner and billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban. Pacque’ turned down the investment because of the equity stake Cuban wanted in exchange.

That wasn’t the case with Mention Mobile founder Ryan Ozonian. Ozonian took a one in a million shot and sent Cuban an email with a two year old blog post. According to Ozonian in just 8 minutes Cuban replied. That single email exchange led to Cuban investing $250,000 back this time last year. Cuban followed that investment up with another undisclosed investment in April of this year.

Mention Mobile is a social gaming company that already has a handful of titles under the belt utilizing the popular Facebook platform. Some of their titles include: Trivia Friends, Doodley, and Zombie Bash: Christmas Attack. Their about to launch a new game, partnering with Chillingo as the publisher, called Word Derby. They expect to get that game out to users later this fall. It will be the first asynchronous word game for Chillingo.

We got a chance to talk with Ozonian about what he and MentionMobile are doing in the interview below:

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

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Bloomington Indiana Startup Weekend Is Back November 9th

Bloomington Indiana, home to Indiana University, is a hotspot for startups and entrepreneurial activity in Indiana. It was while attending the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University that Nick Tippmann not only helped organize Startup Weekend Bloomington, but also a Shark Tank Season Premiere Party with Mark Cuban.

Now, Startup Weekend Bloomington is back. While a lot of cities Bloomington’s size are embarking on their first or second official Startup Weekend event, this will be the fourth in the town of just 81,000.

This time around the organizers include Matt Burris, Jessica Falkenthal, John Adamson, Paul Simacek and Chris White. They also have Steve Bryant the Executive Director for the Cook Center for Entrepreneurship at Ivy Tech on board as a coach. They also have Kyle Johnston, President of Onsite OHS signed up to judge. They will announce more coaches and judges soon enough.

For those of you not familiar with Startup Weekend, it’s a 54 hour startup hackathon that starts on a Friday evening and finishes up on Sunday evening.

Friday kicks off with “Friday Pitches” those entrepreneurs and founders who have registered and have an idea they would like to see turned into an actual startup have 60 seconds to pitch that idea. After the pitches the crowd votes, by show of sticker, on which startups will be built over the next 52 hours. After the ideas are picked, teams form and breakout into groups for the next 50 or so hours to develop, build out their ideas and prove customer validation. This is a daunting task for some.

Some Startup Weekend venues allow the teams to work around the clock in true hackathon fashion. Others typically break for the evenings around midnight and come back first thing in the morning at 8am or 9am.

On Saturdays, teams dive head first into creating websites, designing mock ups for apps, and hitting the streets interviewing potential users about their idea. Some of the teams are lucky enough to have outside people they can go to by phone, skype or in person to work out the kinks. Coaches and mentors are also on hand to help answer key questions about viability, design, legality and everything else a business would need to know to launch.

Sunday is the day of reckoning for the remaining teams. At the end of the evening they will have five minutes to present their idea in it’s finished state and get grilled by a panel of local judges.

Startup Weekend’s are typically fueled by tons of food (Pizza, donuts etc) and plenty of caffeine.

Lunker, a social app for fisherman, was the winner of Bloomington’s last Startup Weekend event which was held in May. The team received a grand prize package featuring goods and services from local businesses and organizations, including three months of office space at The Solution Lab, legal services from Mallor and Grodner, accounting services from BKD, a free marketing campaign from BizProps and a free business plan review from Localstake.

If you’ve got what it takes, head on over to the official Startup Weekend website at the link below.

Linkage

Here’s the page for the next Startup Weekend Bloomington

Here’s our coverage of Startup Weekend

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