NC Startup Archives - Serious Startups

CES 2013: Nibletz Will Be Rawportering From CES 2013 And Eureka Park

Imagine if you could make money by simply taking video of something newsworthy with your smartphone. This new form of reporting is called citizen journalism and startups like Charlotte NC’s Rawporter are at the forefront of this wave of crowdsourcing the news.

Rawporter was founded in 2011 by Kevin Davis and Rob Gaige two marketing executives who left their cush office jobs to to dig into the trenches of startup life and make everyone, potentially, a Rawporter.

The idea came to Davis and Gaige after they were eating at one of their favorite local Uptown Charlotte restaurants. While they were dining there was a rather big car accident right in front of the restaurant. Naturally smartphones were up in the air taking video and pictures at the scene. What Davis and Gaige noticed was that the official news stations didn’t arrive until the accident had cleared.

They, along with several others, sent their homemade videos into the news stations but none of them actually aired. Sure there some of the national cable stations ask people to send in their videos but localized rawportering hadn’t broken through.

Now Rawporter has become a platform that allows bloggers, journalists and even tv stations to crowdsource news footage and has a mechanism for citizen journalists to get paid for their videos. For small one to three man blogs, Rawporter is a great way to get video coverage of events they can’t otherwise attend or report on.

We’ll be sharing a lot of our CES video coverage on Rawporter for free. Other blogs are welcome to use the video coverage that we supply via Rawporter, all we ask is that you credit nibletz.com with a source link.

While we’re giving our videos away, if we wanted to we would be able to sell them for whatever we would like.

On the flipside if we needed video from CES or any other event we could put out a call for an assignment, let the community know how much we were willing to pay and voila we would have our video like we were there.

Check out our Rawporter CES coverage once CES officially gets rolling. We will link to it here on nibletz.com on the right side bar.

Rawporter is also the official on-site video sponsor for the biggest startup conference in the U.S. everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference, for tickets and info click here

Durham Name Your Price Startup BuyStand Raises $450,000 Looking To Raise $2M More

Durham startup, BuyStand, that is brining the name your price, Priceline, model to retail buying has just raised $450,000. WRAL Techwire is reporting that the company is looking to raise $2.5 million dollars in a mix of debt, options and warrants.

They’ve also added a new CFO, Charlie Farrell, who was most recently a financial executive at Edmunds.com

BuyStand is the latest startup from North Carolina serial entrepreneur, Joe Davy, His most recent startup EvoApp failed, of course as any good founder and entrepreneur knows failure leads to success. Failing fast is just one of the methodologies entrepreneurs in 2012 live by.

BuyStand is completely different than Davy’s previous startup.

For concept demonstration purposes Davy used one vertical market, outdoors. Obviously the platform will work for any retail good but outdoors was a great place to start.

As you can probably imagine, reading this far, BuyStand takes the “name your price” concept and applies it to outdoor goods. Whether you’re looking for the latest running shoes or the best all terrain jacket or back pack, you’ll find it at BuyStand. But you won’t find a typical priced out click through e-commerce portal.

With BuyStand the user selects the item that they want, names the price they’re willing to pay and then BuyStand sets that payment aside. Once a buyer has named a price, the BuyStand system lets the buyer know they have a taker and from there the “bid” is either accepted or rejected. If the “bid” (price) is accepted than BuyStand pays the vendor and the buyers product is shipped to their home.

It’s a two click process, name your price and click.

Davy says the need for BuyStand arises from the fact that buyers waiting for items and buying them second hand, used or “off the truck” at sites like e-Bay and Craigslist account for $200 billion dollars in lost profit.

“BUYSTAND solves this problem by eliminating the price and creating an open, efficient, free market.” Davy told the CED Start Something Blog.

Davy joined BuyStand as CEO in September. The startup was originally launched by Ted Kraus in 2011.

Linkage:

Find BuyStand on the web here

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Understand Your Dog Better With North Carolina Startup Dognition

Brian Hare, the founder and director of Duke University’s Canine Cognition Center is introducing a new startup to help normal folks understand their dogs better. His North Carolina based startup, called Dognition, isn’t going to magically give your dog a voice, however it will provide ways for you to better understand your canine friends.

Dognition will feature a website and mobile app. The first step with Dognition will be an assessment test. The test will be offered via the mobile app and will tell dog owners exactly how to administer it. According to the News and Observer, through the administration of the test, dog owners will be able to discover their dogs cognitive strengths and weaknesses. From there, dog owners will be able to set up a “Dognition Profile” report.

Dognition will go into free beta testing today and plans to open to the public for between $40 and $60 in January. That may seem a little steep to you however the American Pet Product’s Association has said that despite the recession spending on pets has risen 4.8% or more in the last few years and is on pace to raise another 3.8% this year.

Hare is also hopeful that the research they do at the Canine Cognition Center will benefit from having hundreds of dogs across the globe using the platform.

“The collective data that Dognition accumulate also hold the promise of expanding our scientific understanding of dogs” Hare said. “Academic centers such as the one he leads at Duke only have the capacity to test a few hundred dogs a year, so opening up such tests to dog owners worldwide via the Internet has the scientist practically drooling.”

Local serial entrepreneur Kip Frey has come aboard at Dognition as CEO. Also McKinney, the largest advertising agency in the Research Triangle will also support Dognition with market research, marketing, brand development and helping with the UI for the website and mobile apps.

McKinney’s CEO Brad Brinegar has three dogs and told the News & Observer: “I wake up every morning and think, ‘This is going to be big”

Science has suggested in the past that to draw parallels between humans and other mammals you need to look to dolphins and apes. According to Hare, research over the last 15 years has suggested that dogs are more intelligent than once thought.

“Dogs are more sophisticated than even the most dedicated dog lover might imagine,” Hare said.” Actually dogs, in many ways, solve problems really similarly to human children. And they’re more similar to human children than … apes.”

Frey has already raised $1 million dollars for Dognition in an angel round.

Linkage:

Check out Dognition here

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Charlotte Serial Entrepreneur Unveils Soccer Startup Social Network KYCK

Mac Lackey and Ross Saldarini are serial entrepreneurs in Charlotte North Carolina, they’re also soccer enthusiasts. The pair have started several startups and even had a few exits. Their most notable exits were selling internetsoccer.com to a public European media company, and selling Mountain Khakis to Remington.

Now they’re back at it again, infusing their love of startups, social media and soccer into one new company called KYCK. KYCK is a social network, and community for soccer enthusiasts connecting them to each other and an abundance of great soccer related content.

Through a proprietary content delivery system that Lackey calls “media layers” they are able to offer even the most scrupulous of soccer fans the best possible experience through their own personal soccer focused dashboard.

While we’re all familiar with how popular soccer is overseas, a poll conducted by ESPN earlier this year showed that soccer has climbed to the second most popular sport in the United States behind football among those age 12-24 which is one of the most important demographic for professional sports.

(source: ESPN)

With the vast amount of soccer related content, pouring in from across the globe, and the increase in popularity for the sport, KYCK is poised to become the destination for soccer fans around the world.

We got a chance to talk with Lackey about soccer, KYCK and raising a startup in Charlotte, North Carolina. Check out the interview below:

Raleigh Startup’s Media Coverage Earns A Visit From A Zoning Inspector

When 31 year old Justin Miller was interviewed by Raleigh North Carolina’s local newspaper, the News & Observer on Monday he proudly talked about his startup Deja Mi. The city of Raleigh has been very proactive about entrepreneurship and startups over the past few years. Deja Mi, an app development startup, employs 13 people, which under normal circumstances would be welcomed by the city.

After Miller’s story appeared in the paper and on the paper’s website Monday it prompted a visit from a zoning inspector the very next day. As Miller explained to the News & Observer, the company has 30 days to move their office out of the basement of Miller’s home.

According to Miller the company has been working out of the basement for over a year in an effort to preserve some of the $800,000 they’ve received in angel investments to date.

The News & Observer calls the incident awkward for city officials because they’ve been pushing startups so hard as ways to create more jobs. Obviously Miller has achieved that goal.

Justin Miller and the Deja Mi staff (photo: News & Observer)

Miller and his 13 employees have developed to photo sharing apps for the iPhone. Their newest creation, WedPics, allows wedding guests and attendees the opportunity to upload and share wedding day photos collectively. Their other app is similar in nature but focuses on event photos.

While Miller and his employees dress “startup casual” they haven’t had any incidents in the last year at the residence.

“We’re trying to build a business,” Miller said to the News & Observer. “We’ve brought in people from other cities and states to move to Raleigh to become paying citizens of the city to contribute to the economic growth …, and this is what happens.”

“Here we are trying to create an image of being business friendly, especially to technology companies – in my mind that is unacceptable,” said Raleigh City Councilwoman Mary-Ann Baldwin.

Linkage:

Source: News & Observer

Deja Mi online

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North Carolina Startup: BuyStand Introduces Name Your Price Goods Buying

Name your price was a concept introduced and revolutionized by the negotiator, William Shatner, in his ever so popular commercials for Priceline.com. Typically when talking about Priceline.com these days in regards to startups, it’s mentioning Scott Case the founding CTO of Priceline.com, and now the CEO of Startup America. Well we’re talking about Priceline.com because of that infamous name your price concept and a new startup in the Raleigh area of North Carolina called BuyStand.

BuyStand is the latest startup from North Carolina serial entrepreneur Joe Davy. His most recent startup EvoApp failed, of course as any good founder and entrepreneur knows failure leads to success. Failing fast is just one of the methodologies entrepreneurs in 2012 live by.

BuyStand is completely different than Davy’s previous startup.

For concept demonstration purposes Davy used one vertical market, outdoors. Obviously the platform will work for any retail good but outdoors was a great place to start.

It’s a two click process, name your price and click.

“BUYSTAND solves this problem by eliminating the price and creating an open, efficient, free market.” Davy told the CED Start Something blog.

BuyStand is open in an limited Beta at the moment and you can sign up for a beta invite by visiting the link below.

Linkage:

Source: CED Start Something Blog

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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

Linkage:

Charlotte Startup: Rawporter Raises $300,000 Seed Round With Two Inaugural Investments

We are very excited to report that are good friends, and longtime supporters of Nibletz and our previous ventures, have raised a $300,000 seed round.

Rawporter is a socially driven market place where citizen journalists can post their photos and videos of interesting news events. Rawporter has an e-commerce platform built in where users can sell their pics and videos to news sites, bloggers and even tv stations.

The idea was born when co-founders Kevin Davis and Rob Gaige were eating dinner in Uptown Charlotte. They saw a pretty intense auto accident outside of the restaurant. What they noticed was that all of the people passing by ( including themselves) had snapped some pictures and videos. However by the time the news crews arrived the accident had all but cleared.

Both Davis and Gaige thought that there had to be a way, outside of emailing the photos and videos unsolicited to a news director, to get eyewitness news to the media.

That’s the core to Rawporter now they’ve added social features and more.

Rawporter was able to attract funding from two new funds in their home state of North Carolina. This the first investment by the newly formed IMAF (Inception Micro Angel Fund) Cape Fear and the N.C. Fund of Funds.

Gofman Holdings also participated in the round.

“We formed IMAF Cape Fear to invest in emerging technology businesses. Rawporter is an exciting way for us to take advantage of the photo and video-sharing momentum. Additionally, our expertise in Mobile and eCommerce will better prepare Rawporter for success,” said Dallas Romanowski, Fund Director at IMAF Cape Fear.

As mentioned above, Rawporter is also the first investment by the N.C. Fund of Funds program, a component of the N.C. Small Business Credit Initiative, which was created through federal funding under the Small Business Jobs Act.

“We will be investing in early stage North Carolina companies, like Rawporter, with the potential for exceptional job growth. Our financial support will lead to exciting employment opportunities in the ever-growing North Carolina technology sector,” said Timothy Janke, Director of Private Equity Initiatives for North Carolina’s Small Business & Technology Development Center.

“Although we’re pleased with the progress to date, this funding provides the opportunity to expand faster and introduce functionality our community’s been clamoring for,” said Rawporter Co-founder Kevin Davis.

Linkage:

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North Carolina Startup: Mobile Foods To Tackle Tracking The Food Truck

The mobile food vending space is growing ten fold every year. According to the National Restaurant Association there are some 15.6 million Americans that eat at mobile food vendors already. Mobile food vending has exploded in the last five years, no longer are we talking about just hot dog carts, food trucks have become the in-thing these days.

According to research prepared in Mobile Foods’ presentation for the Duke Startup Challenge session that just ended there are somewhere between 40,000 and 60,000 mobile food vendors in the US. There are 20,000 in Austin, Dallas, Houston and Los Angeles County alone.

One of the tricky parts with your favorite food truck is finding out where it is on any given day. Now if you have a regular truck that you eat at you probably know where they are going to be, maybe they post their schedule on the truck, online or have some kind of email list that you can subscribe to. Mobile Foods hopes to solve the Food Truck location problem for you.

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Durham NC Startup: School House Apparel; Collegiate Home Grown Apparel With Purpose

Duke University Alum Rachel Weeks set out on a mission to create a line of fashion apparel that’s socially conscious. School House started when Weeks went to Sri Lanka in 2007 on a mission to build a socially responsible clothing company. She was able to do that with her first college t-shirt from her alma mater Duke University.

The first School House line was manufactured in Sri Lanka and it helped support a living wage factory there. While she was maintaining an ethically social responsible clothing line while using a living wage factory in Sri Lanka she found the opportunity to come full circle in 2011 and brought her clothing line back home to North Carolina, but that wasn’t before Weeks was able to triple the wages in that Sri Lankan factory.

While Weeks felt great about what she was doing for the Sri Lankan factory she found out later on that the factory had taken on more and more orders from other companies and the School House orders were getting pushed to the back. With an angel investment Weeks was able to hire textile and apparel expert Susan Williams who had over 25 years of experience with brands like Jockey, Levi Strauss and the Gap. The two of them together did a cost analysis and decided that home was where School House needed to be.

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