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

Gangnam (style) SpringBoard Startup Flitto Is THE Translation App

Flitto, a SpringBoard London graduate has the Gangnam style for sure, that’s because they are based in Gangnam South Korea. They are truly rockstars for graduating from SpringBoard London which has become TechStars.

When you think about Flitto don’t think translation app. Simon Lee, Flitto’s founder describes the app as: “a social translation platform that lets you access all kinds of content in your own native language. Any user can add translation and earn points and ‘karma’ from other fans for your translation work.”

Flitto serves up translation from the crowd, making it easy to get quick, real life translations on content rather than mechanical translations which can sometimes leave the user just as lost as before the translation.

“The language barrier can be broken down by hiring professional translators. But we’ve tried to be smarter than that. We can get rid of the language barrier without hiring one single translator just by using the greatest tool humans have ever made – the Internet.” Lee said on the SpringBoard/TechStars London Blog.

We got a chance to catch up with Lee at the SXSW Interactive Tradeshow in the Gangam Style startups showcase.

Check out these other stories from SXSW

We’ve got more TechStars coverage here.

California Startup Uptoke Raising A Series A To Bring Weed To The Board Room [video]

UpToke, California startup,startups,Jason Levin,Cannabis

Jason Levin, founder of UpToke. (photo: fortune.com)

California entrepreneur Jason Levin is a formally trained engineer on a mission. He’s not a hippie, a dope man, or a pot head, but he does see the opportunity in Cannabis.

His company, called Uptoke, has produced an upscale vaporizer used to inhale marijuana. The cigar like vaporizer, brings a more “professional” appeal to smoking marijuana. Even in prototype form it’s a well designed, high class looking device.

The technology, Levin says, doesn’t actually ignite the plant, but rather heats it up, incredibly fast.

The Uptoke vaporizer can get to 375 degrees, in a sealed packages so users don’t burn themselves, in under 6 seconds. The battery life lasts all day and Levin says you just charge it up like a cell phone at the end of the day.

Levin doesn’t look like a guy who would fit in a “stereotype”. He sees the opportunity in the Cannabis industry. He’s also very careful not to step on the toes of those who aren’t supportive of the industry.

He will not market his device in markets where there are no laws governing cannabis use. He has a legal team in place and has an industrial designer coming on board to help design the final product.

Levin is currently raising a Series A round for Uptoke and was just recently in Seattle pitching a group of investors at the Washington Athletic Club.

Check out this video of Levin below.

Check out these startup stories from nibletz.com

Everywhereelse.co 2014 Early Bird Tickets Down To 12, Village Booths 5

After the huge success of everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference last month in Memphis Tennessee, we immediately went to work on 2014.

Dell, American Airlines, Amazon, .co, Baker Donelson, and Archer Malmo have signed on to support the 2014 event of the year and we’ve got more programming, more workshops, FOOD and more for 2014.

Everywhereelse.co 2013 the startup conference featured three days of programming, three startup pitching contests with $60,000 in cash given away, three amazing after parties and every attendee (1280) went to the Memphis Grizzlies NBA game that sunday night.

Everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference is the event for startups “Everywhere Else” we saw attendees from 41 different states and 7 countries with 72 startups from across the country. It’s the largest single venue startup conference in the country and the largest startup conference in the world dedicated to startups everywhere else.

If you’re interested in sponsoring email info@everywhereelse.co

1280 people packed in the ballroom for everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference 2013

Some of our speakers in 2013 included: Scott Case (CEO of Startup America and Co-Founder of Priceline), Ingrid Vanderveldt, Rohit Bhargava, Danny Boice, Brant Cooper, Pat Vlaskovitz, Gabe Lozano, 500 startups graduate Sara Ware and more.

2014 we add more content, a hackathon with Amazon Web Services, Free breakfast and lunch and more.

We introduced the 2014 tickets at 2013 prices, ending on March 27th when our first price increase kicks in. We set aside 400 attendee tickets at the early bird rate and 50 startup village booths. As you can see below we’re down to 12 attendee tickets and 5 startup booths (at least at the time this was written)

Event Registration Online for Everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference 2014 powered by Eventbrite

For more on the conference check out these stories at nibletz

American Airlines And Their Partnership With Startups [video][AAMRQ]

When startup people talk about airlines and airplanes they are typically talking about some new startup to order up a jet plane or to help you find the cheapest fares. Well lately we see more and more American Airlines signage, and people at startup events.

Are they scoping startups for their next talent? Are they trying to find the next innova

tion? Are they looking for their next customers?

Quite frankly the answer is all three. American Airlines has been partnering with startups to get the conversation going about entrepreneurship and innovation.

They found that many people taking American Airlines these days are entrepreneurs, startup founders and small business owners. While every airline has a program for huge enterprise corporations, no other airline has started working on partnerships to fuel the next w

ave of American business, startups and small business.

Now, Amer

ican Airlines has a team set up across the country to talk with startups, entrepreneurs and small businesses everywhere about the benefits of American Airlines.

Through their Business ExtAA program, American Airlines offers similar benefits to entrepreneurs and startup founders that Fortune 500 corporate officers get. Their Business ExtrAA rewards program offers increased mileage earnings, discounts and amenities that are second to none.

They’ve also partnered with several startup organizations like Startup America, Startup Weekend

, Tech Wildcatters, Tech Cocktail, Launch Tennessee, and even Nibletz and Everywhereelse.co. They know the importance of making that connection and developing brand loyalty early on.

While programs like the Founder’s Card are great, many entrepreneurs have found out the hard way that most of the benefits to programs like those require at least a series A round or even a series D. American Airlines has made their programs accesible to even bootstrapping founders.

Their team across the country isn’t just a bunch of sales people hawing American Airlines, all of the team members are engaging and they’re connectors. While they are very up

front about their goal, to get more small businesses and startups in the habit of booking American, they are eager to connect startups with other startups and other resources in their network. For instance the everywhere else conference in 2014 will offer a special rate from American Airlines and a special rate from their partner Avis.

Down at South By Southwest Aleda Schaefer and Paul Swartz, two of the people on American Airlines’ startup team, were frantically running around introducing people, meeting people and even engaging in startup pitch contests and other events. Their attitude and likeness to startups couldn’t be more genuine.

American Airlines was one of the key sponsors for the Launch Your City trip to Silicon Valley. This trip allowed several startups and ecosystem partners from Memphis Tennessee to spend a week in Silicon Valley touring VC firms, accelerators, incubators, co-working spaces and networking. The American Airlines team also set up meetings for the group including a tour of RocketSpace and they took some of the group to a startup job fair Thursday morning to meet other startup founders, who were at the stage where they were hiring employees.

American Airlines has strategically placed one of their “startup liasons” in Boston, New York, Dallas and San Francisco, adding their Silicon Valley rep last, because they realize the importance of startups everywhere.

Check out the video below where Schaffer offers a little more insight into American Airline’s involvement with startups:

500 Startups Company Waygo Talks To Nibletz [video][500 startups]

Earlier this morning we brought you the interview with Spinnakr founder Michael Michael Mayernick who talked with us about laying their foundation in Washington DC which helped them prepare for and then graduate from 500 Startups in Silicon Valley.

Ryan Rogowski, the cofounder of translation startup WayGo, also talked with us about their experience in Rhode Island before being chosen for 500 Startups.

In the video below Rogowski talks to us about the much lower cost of overhead in Rhode Island, and how it allowed them to speed up their development process. Waygo was able to catch the eye of 500 Startups founder Dave McClure, who is a very frequent traveler, the kind that Waygo was designed for.

As for what they do?

Waygo is a mobile app that allows you to hover your smartphone camera over text or images and get a translation. For instance, if you want to order Chinese Food from a Chinese menu written in their native tongue, Waygo would allow you to scan the menu and get real time translations. The best part? Everything is done locally on the device side which makes the translations come extremely fast.

Waygo is designed with the tourist in mind. You can use Waygo to translate Chinese food menus, and signs on the road, bars and restaurants.

The idea came about over two years ago when Rogowski was living in China and realized how hard it was to translate things in real time.

Check out our video interview with:

Check out more 500 Startups coverage from nibletz!

Detroit Startup Glocal: Share Your Local Content With 113 Cities Around The World [video][sxsw]

Detroit startup Glocal is a new local sharing site that allows you to share your pictures, videos and other content with 113 cities worldwide.

Glocal aims to be the source for localized content, shared with the world. Content creators can share their articles, photos and videos from their city. Content consumers can use Glocal to find out what’s going on, what to do, where to eat, local news and more for any of the 113 cities (and growing) that Glocal has a community for.

The company, founded by Lincoln Cavalieri, launched back in October after a three year development period, and after raising $1 million dollar seed round from Compuware’s venture capital arm.

One of the things that makes Glocal unique is the diverse range of content being created by community members. For instance, content creators in the Memphis community have offered everything from great burger and restaurant suggestions, to photos from a tour of the Fedex world headquarters.

A quick check in Chicago has highlights captured from various Saint Patrick’s day parties, to fan pics of the Chicago Bulls and even local news like a recent lawsuit in McDonald’s.

A tour of the Berlin community turns up beautiful photos of the city, the newest Mercedes Benz and a variety of local news.

Right now Glocal can be accessed via mobile web but Cavalieri already has his team working on native apps for Android, iPhones and iPads.

You can sign up to contribute content, or peruse the Glocal offerings here at Glocal.com

Check out our quick video interview from SXSW below.

We’ve got a truckload more SXSW 2013 coverage here.

Tennessee Showcasing Startups, Culture And More At Southland June 11th and 12th

Launch Tennessee and the Music City Music Council have teamed up to hold a new startup and innovation conference in Nashville in June. The conference, called Southland, butts up to two of the regions biggest music events, Bonaroo and the Country Music Association Music Festival.

This unique scheduling allows fans of both music and innovation to plan a nice 10 day trip to Nashville and enjoy a mixture of both.

Southland will feature venture capitalists and angel investors from across the country along with an extensive lineup of speakers and panelists with a firsthand knowledge of the power of innovation and its ability to transform a region’s ecosystem. Speakers include Sarah Lacy (Founder, PandoDaily), Michael Sippy (Vice President of Consumer Products, Twitter), Michael Marquez (Co-Founder, Code Advisors), KC Estenson (SVP & GM, CNN Digital), Ali Partovi (Co-Founder, Code.org), and many more from CNN, Scripps Networks Interactive, IBM and others.

“The Southeast is a hotbed for technology startups,” notes Charlie Brock, CEO of LaunchTN. “This conference is going to be the premier event for bringing together the best our region has to offer in entrepreneurs and cultural tastemakers, along with investors, technology and health care executives from around the country.”

In addition to the usual startup conference programming, like a startup village, and engaging keynotes speakers and panels, Southland will also offer a “Makers Marketplace” of southern culture featuring local musicians, BBQ pit masters, small batch distillers and southern artisans.

Unlike the national everywhereelse conference hosted in Memphis Tennesse, which highlights startups and innovation across, Southland is poised to be the largest regional conference for innovation and startups. Sandwiched in between the two major musical events, the Southland conference will offer an unheard of and very attractive cultural and innovation injection to all attendees.

Tickets are only $300, interested in attending visit southlandse.com

Nibletz provide the best startup coverage in the southeast, here’s more!

Say It With A Song Using Utah Startup Gigg [sxsw]

Are you one of those people that likes to quote song lyrics when talking to people? Perhaps you were a child of the 90’s and made “mix tapes” for everyone and everything? Well there’s a startup in Utah called Gigg that puts that nostalgia back into your life.

The best part?

You don’t even need to know the whole lyric.

With Gigg you can use their app and find the song lyrics you want by artist, title or even a couple of words you think are in the song. From there the app finds the song that you’re looking for, lets you send a message with the lyric and links the recipient to where they can purchase the song.

It was great running into the Gigg team at the SXSW trade show, right smack in the middle of SXSWi and SXSW music.

For our demonstration of the app the lyric was “I Like Big Butts” and it quickly found Sir Mix A lot and a bunch of other great lyrics that would make great messages.

The app is fun and for those who like to send sappy love songs, it could be just what you’re looking for.

Check out the interview below and for more info visit gigg.com

Check out more SXSW 2013 Startup Coverage here.

Silicon Slopes Startup Speakerfy Is Turning Devices Into Speakers Everywhere [sxsw]

Have you caught onto the latest phenom in night clubs and parties? Yes I’m talking about the silent disco or the headphone party. These are parties where everyone is listening to the same music, typically being spun by a dj, but using headphones. We’ve been to headphone parties in Memphis, New York, Baltimore and of course on 6th street at SXSW.

The great thing about headphone parties is there is no outer noise and no need for someone to call the cops and complain. The bad part is the upkeep of the wireless headphone equipment.

Well… Utah startup Speakerfy has the solution. Now keep in mind that Speakerfy isn’t just about the headphone party we’ll go over a bunch of uses later. For the example of the headphone party though, Speakerfy allows any wifi connected smartphone to turn into a speaker. It supports up to 250 devices.

So now, if you’re holding a “silent disco” you can use Speakerfy and send the audio through everyone’s personal phone and they can use their own headphones or earbuds to join in the party. (if someone wrote a text communication app on top that would solve the anti-social part of the silent disco).

So all of the devices on the same Speakerfy hear the exact same audio at the exact same time.

Here are some other great uses for Speakerfy:

– Presentations at conferences
– Walking tours
– Museum tours
– your own personal radio station
– sharing music on the bus

the uses are really endless.

For more of how Speakerfy works check out the video interview from SXSW below:

Canadian Startup Quibl Is Hot Or Not For The Latest Issues

A Canadian startup has taking a format as simple as Hot Or Not and put it online for people to debate the hottest current event issues.

After a year in the making, the site officially launched on Monday and so far there seems to be some interest bubbling.

The founders took to reddit to describe their two main objectives behind Quibl

It aggregates arguments on a specific topic (like gun control for example)
It’s a tool to find debates (we have a location for each debate), allowing you to find what’s going on in your area with google map api. (http://www.quibl.com/where)

Right now the hottest debates seem to be on gun control, Have We Reached Peak Oil and Google Glass.

“For comparison sake, a debate is a bit like a subreddit but you have two columns, one for each side. Debates are always polarized like that. People post their opinion, links to articles, blogs, tweets and just pictures as argument on one or the other side. Behind each argument, you have a comment section where people still pick a side when commenting. Therefore, if you see a “red” argument that seems quite good, you can go check in the comment for “red” or “green” opinions below it. Everything is sorted by number of votes so you can “filter” the content and show what’s best in a certain amount of time. We use exponential decay formulas to depreciate argument after a while, depending on filter selection. This keeps the debate interesting by showing more new content. We have no downvotes, because it makes no sense for people arguing.” one of the founders explained.

They are hoping to scale the site so that it becomes the platform of choice for discussing hot button issues.

What we like?

The ease of voting
Their mission is clearly defined in the presentation and the UI

Check out Quibl for yourself here at quibl.com

89 Year Old Grandma Reaches Her Kickstarter Goal

Pearl Malkin,Happy Canes, Kickstarter,startups

89 Year Old Pearl Malkin creating one of her “Happy Canes” (photo: CNN)

Kickstarter, the most popular crowdfunding platform in the world, saw $319 million dollars pledged for a wide variety of projects last year. With Kickstarter anyone can get their project funded.

Even 89 year old Pearl Malkin, has successfully had a kickstarter project funded. Her project called “Happy Canes” raised $3,606 from 154 backers, BusinessInsider reported.

While Malkin is a vibrant woman at 89, at one point she was stricken with vertigo which required her to use a cane. She felt that traditional canes were drab and boring and livened her cane up with flowers that she glued to the cane herself.

She decided she would make a go of these canes for others and with the help of her grandson, put on a Kickstarter campaign. “I want to be an example to young and old people that age shouldn’t be a barrier for what you want to do in life,” she said.

Here’s the original video from CNN:

OffBeatr is Kickstarter for Porn, more here

48 Startup Stories From SXSW 2013 [sxsw]

Before we dive into this list of 48 startup stories from everywhere else at SXSW 2013, in the words of the late great Billy Mays, “But wait there’s more”. We have another weeks worth of stories so if we met you or interviewed you and you don’t see your story yet, or your jonesing for even more startup stories from SXSW keep checking back.

And of course, this was ONE writer, and we could always use your help, so click here!

Speek’s Danny Boice pitches at TechCocktail event, co-founder John Bracken gets a monkey tattooed on his ass.

We met this cool founder, Josh, from Birminham Alabama, claiming “NotIt”

If you’re crowdfunded startup needs due diligence, this DC startup has you covered

AustinPreneur Jason Cohen, on angel investing and deal flow

DC startup Homesnap returns to SXSW after nailing funding in 2012

The Sneaker Strapped SXSW take over

KC Startup TreeSwing gets you started with investing for a buck

These ladies have the ultimate breakup app

Marc Nager, CEO of Startup Weekend speaks on a SXSW panel about Startup Communities

Yes there are cool startups in New Hampshire like RockLobby

Woman founders hows off her startup that helps you tell stories through cooking

Tony Hsieh talks about startup communities

Juan DotCo, no relation to Kim DotCom, takes a break from his birthday party to chat with nibletz.

Mr. Lean Startup, Eric Ries, gives out some advice.

We attended over 30 parties, VegasTech’s was the best.

Don’t believe us, here are the Vines from the Vegas Tech Party

Interview with Bad Ass Startup Chick, Denver Hutt.

This Austin startup has home automation, REALLY figured out

Yes, Dave McClure did the Harlem Shake at SXSW

A startup from Sheboygan Wisconsin launches at SXSW, and gives away $150,000

Meet our good friend Sam from Atlanta and his startup Medicast.

Yes this is a bad ass startup from Las Vegas and it’s all about bowling.

Steve Case talks about the importance of crowdfunding for early stage startups

DC Mayor Vince Gray comes to SXSW to support DC startups

Meet Startup Bus startup BriefSkate, the first startup to build an actual physical product on the Startup Bus.

Move over Mailbox App, Taskbox is better.

We caught up with Alex from Fetchnotes at SXSW

Austin startup Stormpulse is immune to the series a crunch.

Chicago Startup tackles childhood obesity

Drunkspotting gets created on the bus after the startup bus.

Jason Cohen on the importance of AngelList.

Interview with Crowdery at the SXSW Startup Crawl.

Video pitch from MatchBox one of the LaunchEDU finalists

Interview with Shari Wynne the founder of Austin’s Incubation Station

Baltimore startup disrupts curriculum writing.

Austin startup Ordoro was our first stop on the SXSW startup crawl

Here’s the winner of the K-12 category at LaunchEDU

Here’s the winner of the higher ed category at LaunchEDU

Check out this Chicago Ed Tech startup from SXSWedu

Maryland startup Collegesnapps gets students to and through college

The big win announcement from SXSWedu

Amplify announces a tablet for middle schoolers at SXSW

I wish we had this when I was in school

I don’t care what they do, this startup has a bad ass name

We caught the premiere of the StartupWeekend EDU movie at SXSW

Cristin Frodella talks about the Google Science Fair in the Google Classroom at SXSW

Catch the evolution of SXSW in an infographic

This Boston Augmented reality startup won two honors at SXSW 2013

Startup Viagra, An Accelerator For Porn?

Cindy Gallop,Make Love not porn,NY, Startups,Accelerator

Cindy Gallop (photo: Abosch/Twitter)

According to Venturebeat, when Make Love Not Porn founder, Cindy Gallop started discussing the possibility of an accelerator for porn, former TechStars NY Managing Director David Tisch, looked uncomfortable, “get me the heck out of here” expression, says Devindra Hardawar with Venture Beat.

While some may think that Gallop is nuts, she is seriously interested about creating an accelerator for those startups in the adult industry. Her site, Make Love Not Porn, took about two years to find investors brave enough to back her idea. Her site tries to promote more realistic portrayals of adult entertainment.

“I would like to start the Y Combinator for porn,” Gallop said this morning at the Start conferencein New York City. She noted “there is nobody in the world to mentor” startups related to the adult industry, reports VentureBeat.

Adult entertainment and startups aren’t anything new. Back in August we ran an interview with the founders of Offbeatr a crowdfunding platform for adult projects, similar to Kickstarter.

VentureBeat speculates it could be a while for Gallop’s idea to take shape, we’re thinking it won’t be that long.

Sound off in comments.

We’re crowdfunding, see here.