Seed Hatchery Archives - Page 2 of 2

Startups Get Your Seed Hatchery Application In Before Christmas (Dec 23 Early Application Deadline)

While Santa is making his list and checking it twice, early stage startup founders across the country and around the world are checking off startup accelerators on their list. Seed Hatchery, the startup accelerator in Memphis Tennessee should be one of those accelerators. They’re looking for the type of entrepreneurs that are committed to growing their startup long term and aren’t afraid of hard work.

Seed Hatchery is now taking applications for their third class. The cohort based accelerator will begin in February and run for three consecutive months. At the end of the session you and your company will be ready to pitch real investors for opportunities to invest in your business. In the meantime you’ll be backed by the 3M’s Money, Mentors and a marine style bootcamp, in Memphis.

Although sometimes overlooked, Memphis is one of the most entrepreneurial minded cities in the world. Going back nearly 100 years, Memphis Tennessee was the epicenter for this little thing called “cotton” you may have heard of it. It was cotton and the cotton exchange that spurred one of the largest investment banks in history, Lehman Brothers.

Beyond that, other globally known phenomena like rock music (the blues), Elvis Presley, and R&B radio have their roots firmly planted in the Bluff City.

Is that not enough? Perhaps you’ve heard of this company that delivers packages via planes and trucks, overnight, yes FedEx was born and based in Memphis. Holiday Inn was born in Memphis as was Serv Pro, and Autozone. Even Debbi Fields, Yes Mrs. Fields as in cookies, calls Memphis Tennessee home.

With an entrepreneurial pedigree like that you can be assured that the mentor pool for the 2013 Seed Hatchery CoHort will be stronger than most regional accelerators Seed Hatchery’s size.

Seed Hatchery was the partner for the recent Zeroto510 medical device accelerator in Memphis where 5 of the 6 teams received follow on funding of over $100,000. One of the teams went on to immediately raise over 2 million dollars. While some startup communities are still just getting started, Seed Hatchery is backed by Launch Your City which has been working on strengthening entrepreneurs and their startups for the last six years.

If you’re a Memphis area entrepreneur or in any area and ready to relocate to Memphis it’s a great place to work and a great place to build a business. Not only that, but even though the accelerator is in the thick of the winter, it’s never ver cold in Memphis.

If you’re startup is chosen to participate you’ll receive a seed investment of $15,000, access to a very strong mentor network and a strong investment community. Seed Hatchery is looking for startups that are in the area or willing to relocate for the entire 90 day cohort and stick around Memphis to tap into the investor, entrepreneurial and startup community in the region after that. To kick off your stay in Memphis TN every team and their members selected for Seed Hatchery will receive a free ticket to the three day startup extravaganza known as “everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference” where you’ll get to see the great speakers already announced and have a small group session with recent graduates from TechStars, 500Startups, The Brandery and previous graduates of Seed Hatchery.

Applying is free and the application is open now. It’s not for the faint at heart but if you’re passionate about your idea and hard working, if you’re not afraid of rolling up your sleeves this is for you.

Hit the links below.

Linkage:

Here’s the application for the 2013 Seed Hatchery cohort

Seedhatchery.com

No one brings you high growth tech news for the south east like Nibletz the voice of startups “everywhere else”

And the world famous “everywhere else conference”

Calling All Startups Seed Hatchery Applications Now Open! Get A Free Ticket To Everywhereelse.co

Seed Hatchery, the startup accelerator in Memphis Tennessee is looking for a few, well really a bunch of great entrepreneurs and their startups. They’re looking for the type of entrepreneurs that are committed to growing their startup long term and aren’t afraid of hard work.

Beyond that, other globally known phenomena like rock music (the blues), Elvis Presley, and R&B radio have their roots firmly planted in the Bluff City.

With an entrepreneurial pedigree like that you can be assured that the mentor pool for the 2013 Seed Hatchery CoHort will be stronger than most regional accelerators Seed Hatchery’s size.

Hit the links below.

Linkage:

Here’s the application for the 2013 Seed Hatchery cohort

Seedhatchery.com

No one brings you high growth tech news for the south east like Nibletz the voice of startups “everywhere else”

And the world famous “everywhere else conference”

Memphis Prepares For 48 Hour Launch October 12th-14th

We’re just a couple of weeks away from Memphis’ next 48 hour launch. We were at the last 48 hour launch hosted by Launch Memphis at Emerge Memphis back in June. That 48 hour launch saw four teams of entrepreneurs present Happy Potty, Screw Pulp, YaDoog and LostPetCast.

Very similar to Startup Weekend, 48 Hour Launch puts a room full of entrepreneurs, designers, developers and coders together for 48 hours of hacking together a business.

Friday evening all of those registered for 48 Hour Launch will eat dinner, get to know each other and then pitch their ideas in 60 seconds or less to the room full of attendees. After all of the ideas are pitched, everyone in the audience will get a chance to vote for their favorite startup ideas. At the end of the voting process, an based on how many people are registered, ideas will be chosen that will be developed over the weekend.

Saturday teams will work on customer validation and building product. They’ll have community mentors around to answer legal questions, marketing questions and anything else they can think of.

Sunday, the teams will make their final pitches to show off the work they did over the previous 47 hours.

That’s typically where the traditional “Startup Weekend” ends. Startup Weekend events end with the judging of the final pitches. That’s not where 48 Hour Launch ends though.

After the weekend the 48 Hour Launch teams are invited to utilize the other resources from Launch 48 and it’s parent company Launch Your City. These resources include office hours from experienced entrepreneurial and startup advisors, free office space in the drop in LaunchPad co-working space and some 48 Hour Launch teams may decide to apply to Seed Hatchery, Memphis’ cohort based accelerator.

While some “Startup Weekend” events are held in incubators and can pull resources, Launch Memphis makes 48 Hour Launch a natural introduction into the Memphis’ Startup Ecosystem.

Memphis’ Startup Ecosystem is spearheaded by the efforts of Eric Matthews, Andre Fowlkes and Elizabeth Lemmonds, the team behind Launch Your City. Matthews has been an integral part of the Memphis entrepreneur and startup scene for nearly a decade. He founded Launch Your City in 2006 and before that was a director at the FedEx Institute of Technology on the campus of the University of Memphis.

Fast forward to 2012, and while many cities are just laying roots in a startup ecosystem, Launch Your City has their Launch Memphis efforts, which often plays quarterback to many of the regions entrepreneurial and startup events. Launch Memphis also organizes meetups, runs a mentor network, a co-working space, and provides countless other resources to young, high growth potential startups.

Launch Your City also runs Seed Hatchery and collaborates with other area resources for C2 and Zeroto510 accelerator programs as well.

These twice yearly 48 Hour Launch events, serve as a great place for new entrepreneurs to get their feet wet and get exposed to all that Memphis has to offer. One of the great things about these particular events is the way that others who have participated in any of the Launch Your City programs come out to support the growing startup community.

48 Hour Launch boasts that for just $40 you can:

Launch brand new tech-supported companies, contributing toward our local innovation economy and creating jobs;
Learn by doing, experiencing firsthand entrepreneurial principles that can be applied to any endeavor or work environment;
Connect with like-minded and talented professionals, developing your network;
Play an active role in Memphis’ entrepreneurial community, volunteering your current skills while learning new ones;
Eat and drink well, including all meals and copious amounts of coffee and Red Bull; and
Be a part of something this collaborative, creative and cool?!

You don’t have to live or work in Memphis to participate in 48 Hour Launch. People from as far away as Alabama and Atlanta have come to Memphis for weekend startup hackathon events.

There’s still space left. Hit the link below

Linkage:

Check out our 48 Hour Launch coverage from June 2012

Check out Launch Your City here

No One covers high growth tech news for the southeast like we do, here’s more

Memphis Gears Up For Zeroto510 Demo Day

When you think about Memphis Tennessee thoughts of music, culture, barbecue and Elvis Presley often consume those thoughts. You may not be quick to associate the birth place of Rock & Roll and the overnight package (FedEx) with startups, innovation and bio medical devices.

Since 2006 Memphians have band together to launch several entrepreneurial and startup resources. In fact the city of just under 650,000 residents has an infrastructure of resources for startups and entrepreneurs that would rival cities twice it’s size.

Four of those resources, Seed Hatchery, the local startup accelerator program; Memphis Bioworks Foundation, the local bio and life sciences incubator; along with Innova and MB Ventures (both venture capital firms) have created Zeroto510.

They’re calling Zeroto510 the first cohort-based medical device accelerator. To that end Eric Matthews the President of Seed Hatchery is working with Allan Daisley, who runs Memphis Bioworks, to apply the Seed Hatchery and familiar tech incubator model to medical device ideas, and turning them into startups.

Charleson Bell, a PhD candidate at Vanderbilt University, and the co-founder of Zeroto510 resident company, BioNanovations explained: “Doctors and researchers have great ideas that often times get shelved because they don’t have the resources or skills to apply a business model to those ideas”.

That’s exactly why Seed Hatchery and BioWorks started Zeroto510. Chief Brand Officer at LaunchYourCity, the company that manages Seed Hatchery told us: “In addition to seed capital and mentorship the six companies in Zeroto510 also receive advice on marketing their idea and pitching it to investors”.

Mike Hoffmeyer CEO and Co-Founder of Memphis based Paytopia was a recent graduate from the 2012 class at Seed Hatchery, and told us “I consider myself a smart guy but after a few minutes of Zeroto510 pitches I was totally lost”. Hoffmeyer is helping the Zeroto510 residents with refining their pitches into laymen’s terms.

For a better understanding to Bell’s company for instance. Bell and his co-founder Andre T. Stevenson developed separate research projects at Vanderbilt. Bell had discovered a new nanoparticle that could be used with far better accuracy than what’s currently available, to identify and track virus’, bacteria and infections. Prior to Zeroto510 Bell would roll through his presentation despite losing people’s attention because he was talking over their heads.

Now his pitch includes a great description of a nanoparticle “imagine taking one piece of human hair and dividing it by 1000, that’s roughly the size of a nanoparticle”. The PhD scientist seems a little uneasy about the example because you can’t objectively measure one piece of human hair, but it gets the point across.

The name Zeroto510 comes from the term 510K clearance which is the clearance given to medical devices. With a 510K a similar device or process that has already been approved by the FDA is compared to the new process or device, which fastracks the approval process at the FDA.

The goal around ZeroTo510 is to take the medical device and process startups from 0 to a point where they are ready for their 510k

There are six startups in all going through the current session at Zeroto510 which are:

BioNanovations uses nanotechnology to more quickly diagnose specific types of bacterial infections. Rather than treating with broad antibiotics and waiting days for test results, TestQuick provides physicians a portable option that can recognize a flesh-eating bacteria in only 30 minutes.
HandMinder is building a glove-like device that aids the rehabilitation process for stroke victims. Self-contained and battery-operated, the glove provides an affordable and convenient alternative for regaining motor control.
Nanophthalmics brings engineering concepts to clinical medicine, creating microscopic tools with etched glass for ocular surgery which will help remove scar tissue for patients with retinal or corneal diseases.
Randall Surgical is working on soy-based surgical positioners, an eco-friendly alternative to the foam currently used that contains petroleum and releases toxic chemicals when incinerated after use.
Restore Medical Solutions increases the speed and effectiveness of the sterilization process necessary for surgical instruments. Their product could lead to cleaner tools and the ability to perform more surgeries in a day- wins for both hospitals and patients.
Urova Medical is building UroGuide, a device that can be implanted during an outpatient procedure that provides a permanent and safe solution to stress urinary incontinence in women.

Like most incubators, the current session at Zeroto510 will culminate with an investor pitch day later this afternoon. If the program is effective, the audience will have no trouble understanding the brilliant minds behind these startups.

Linkage:

More about Zero To 510 here

Check out LaunchMemphis.com

Nibletz is the voice of startups “everywhere else” here are more startup stories from “everywhere else”

Interview With Memphis Startup Work For Pie, Seed Hatchery’s First Funded Startup

Memphis has got a great startup culture, ecosystem and community. Most of that happens at Emerge Memphis in downtown Memphis Tennessee. Emerge Memphis is a co-working space, home to SeedHatchery, LaunchMemphis and LaunchYourCity. It’s also home to Work For Pie.

Work For Pie is an online community for developers, with a focus on open-source developers. It’s a lot more than a LinkedIn for developers and the only thing like it in existence right now.

The company was founded in 2011 when Cliff McKinney met Brad Montgomery at a Launch 48 event at Emerge Memphis. The two tweaked a different idea into what Work For Pie has turned into today.

Work For Pie’s unique community allows developers to start a free profile that includes a portfolio of their development work. There is also a rating system involved to show the achievements of the developers in the community. The plan as they continue, is to create a site for businesses as well and then link the two so that businesses have a talent pool of top rated developers to choose from for their project.

They’ll be able to do that now that they’ve secured a a $300,000 round in funding. Work For Pie went through the first incubator class at SeedHatchery last year and they are the first startup to get any kind of substantial outside funding round. The two co-founders are excited about working on Work For Pie full-time.

As part of that great startup culture and eco-system in Memphis, they were onhand at 48 Hour Launch this year to help mentor the four startups that are building out in the weekend event. Friendsignia, Paytopia and a host of other EmergeMemphis companies and SeedHatchery graduates also spent the weekend at 48 Hour Launch paying their experience forward.

Check out our interview with both Cliff and Brad about Work For Pie and the startup culture in Memphis:

Memphis Startup: Bryant Williams Pitches Crowdfunding Based On Social Clout

Over 20 ideas for startups were pitched Friday evening at 48 Hour Launch in Memphis Tennessee. One of the great ideas was pitched by Memphis entrepreneur Bryant Williams.

Williams wants to take advantage of the JOBS Act and crowdfunding legislation slated to take effect next month. Williams has a rather unique approach though.

What he is hoping to do is have a startup, entrepreneur or whoever is looking for crowdfunding for their project to get it based on the merits of their social graph. Basically, someone looking to get crowdfunded via Williams’ new startup would have to have their Twitter and Facebook influence factored in.

While Indiegogo and Kickstarter both allow for comments on their pages, it’s just another social network to comment on. Why bother utilizing a new comment space when you’re already posting on Twitter and Facebook anyway.

First things first though, is we have to hear the rules on the JOBS act. The SEC has until July 4th to establish those guidelines. Check out Williams pitch below:

Linkage:

See More of our 48 hour launch coverage here

Nibletz is the voice of startups “everywhere else” here are more stories from “everywhere else”

Memphis Startup: Unique Love First To Pitch At 48 Hour Launch

Tonight kicks off 48 hour launch in Memphis Tennessee. Nibletz is on location covering this 48 hour event where 4 startup companies are going to launch. The event is a collaborative effort of Launch Memphis, Startup Hatchery and LaunchYour City and takes place at the Emerge Memphis campus in beautiful downtown Memphis.

Over 20 ideas were pitched during the two minute pitch sessions tonight. Of those pitches four have been selected to be built out over a weekend of fun and camaraderie for Memphis’ thriving startup scene.

The first two minute pitch was for a unique dating site called “Unique Love”. The site focuses on people who are looking to connect that have common unique loves, obsessions or phobias. Get your mind out of the gutter this is not about fetishes, and more about cat lovers, dog lovers, people who love the stars, or antiques, places to find die hard unique interests.

It’s also a please where two people can connect with common phobias. It may be great to hook up with someone who has the same fear of the dark, spiders, or crowds. You may end up finding someone who understands your unique situation. That’s what Unique Love is all about.

Check out founder Stark Miller, pitching in the video below: