July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Twenty-four hours after Google released three location tools for its app developers, startups are already integrating the APIs into their products.

The founders of Valet stayed up all night to get the new API into their app as quickly as possible. Valet launched in April in the Google Play store to help people remember where they parked. It tags your parking location with a pin and reminds you when to pay the parking meter. You can set a timer for your meter and share the location on social media. There is, of course, no guaranteeing you will avoid fines, but it does cut down on the “human error” often responsible for the tickets.

Founder Will Roman recently relocated to San Francisco from Austin, Texas, to work at another startup. After “losing” his car a few times in the unfamiliar city and getting slapped with multiple parking fines, he recruited cofounder Josh Deffibaug, and the two set out to build Valet.

The app received mention on Gizmodo and a couple of Android blogs for its “simplicity and beauty” and was attracting a good number of users through word-of-mouth. But when Roman and Deffibaugh heard the news about Google’s new location APIs, they saw an exciting opportunity.

“Everyone who drives can appreciate this,” Roman said in an interview. “Parking tickets suck, and so does forgetting where you parked on a busy day, when visiting a new city, or after a night of drinking. With integration of the new Google Play Services location API’s, all features can be automated on over 95 percent of Android devices thereby preventing you from ever loosing your vehicle or getting a parking ticket again. We’re the only parking app in the world to integrate the Google Play Services location API’s.”

The location application programming interfaces (API) are part of Google Play Services, a tool kit for Android developers. Integrating location-sensing features to your app can be challenging and Google’s fused location provider “intelligently manages the underlying location technology” to make building location-aware app easier and less energy-intensive.  The technology combines GPS with on-phone sensors like the gyroscope, accelerometer, and barometer to collect your movement data and deliver a more accurate, immediate, and power-efficient application.

Using “Activity Recognition,” your phone can figure out whether you are walking, cycling, or driving which has clear applications for fitness apps. The Valet founders realized that the same technology could be used to tell when a car goes from driving to park mode, and can automatically drop a pin in your parking spot without you having to push a button.

“The new location APIs are more accurate, simpler to integrate, and back ported,” Roman said. “They solve a lot of the fragmentation issues of Android and enabled us to cater to the broadest market possible with even better reliability than previously possible.”

Competitors include iCarPark, Car Finder AR, Find My Car Smarter, Car Locator, Where Did I Park. Valet is based in San Francisco, where parking does in fact suck.

Nevahold is a platform where people rally together to get the attention of large companies. Users compose a “shout” and share it with the community to rally support for their cause. Other members of the community can join in the action by sharing on their social media accounts. The ultimate goal is that enough people participate to elicit a response.

“In today’s culture of huge, faceless companies, chances are high that you’ve hit the hair-pulling, mind-numbing, high-pitched-screeching frustration of overpaying for services, buying cheap quality products, being hit with hidden fees, dealing with the worst of customer service skills, or not even getting through to customer service and staying on an endless elevator-music hold cycle,” said cofounder Kena Amoah to VentureBeat. “Nevahold allows consumers to crowd source their social media accounts to harness their power and increase their influence when reaching out to a company.”

Consumers are increasingly turning to social media as a means to express their gripes, grievances, and appreciation for products and services. On the other end, businesses across the board are using social media to connect with consumers and for customer service support. Nevahold’s goal is to give consumers as much efficacy as possible when reaching out to these companies and is based on the principle of “strength in numbers.”

On Nevahold, people send their shout to a company’s social media contact and wait 30 minutes for a response. A shout can include photos, videos, or be a simple comment. If the company is radio silent, then advocates start to retweet an share the shout until the company responds. If the company still doesn’t respond, the question is shared one all of Nevahold’s 12 social media channels.

Nevahold gives each company a customer service score based on their response rates and time. The compare tool helps consumer see how different companies fare side-by-side. There is also a campaign feature that consumers can use to petition for a change in the company’s policy or service.

Amoah said that during beta testing, Nevahold has helped resolve 23,990 questions and complaints in the airline, wireless, and consumer electronics industry and had a 91.5 percent response rate. It recently helped students traveling to a conference stand up against American Airlines and against Barclays U.K.

The three founders met at the Meltwater School of Technology in Ghana. Meltwater Foundation has invested $90,000. Competitors include Gripevine, Gri.pe and Publikdemand.

This Boston-based startup provides agencies, brands, media, and retail customers with a platform to publish and effectively distribute content. It has a database of more than 20,000 professional writers that publishers can use to recruit and manage freelancers and keep track of workflow.

“The art of content marketing is in the beauty and quality of the writing itself – its voice and ability to speak to an audience in a personal and compelling way,” the company said on its site. “To excel at the science of web content creation, you need a technology framework to adhere to the 3 Ses of successful content.”

The three in question are “searchable, snackable, and shareable.” Once content is created, Skyword recommends keywords and suggestions for SEO and provides built-in tools for sharing across social media. Skyword also includes analytics so publishers can track marketing and writer performance, social media metrics, and search engine rankings and make editorial decisions accordingly.

Clients include IBM, MarketWatch, and AutoTrader.com. Cox Media Group led this round which will expand the team and help the company meet increasing customer and partner needs, “as content marketing becomes an integral part of brand marketing initiatives.” Skyword was founded in 2010. This brings its total capital raised to $12 million.

Photo Credit: Mike Cogh/Flickr

Abbey Post is a plus-size fashion marketplace and community. The company just released a totally rebuilt version of the site, which now features an internal social network and expanded inventory. It takes an Etsy-style approach where anyone, from independent designers to established brands, can sell their wares.

“I chose this model of peer-to-peer commerce specifically because I want to build community,” Schames said in an interview. “Plus-size women feel really disenfranchised, neglected, and left out of conversations about fashion. There are many people who think fat ladies aren’t sexy and don’t care what they look like, even though there are over 100 million plus-size women in the US. If you give them a platform to connect over fashion and buy clothes that make them feel good, that math adds up real fast.”

After leaving her sales job, Schames gained e-commerce experience by founding an online consignment store for luxury accessories. She is a plus-size women herself and was drawn to handbags and jewelry because they are size agnostic. As a professional in New York City, she said it was consistently difficult to find plus-size clothing because a lot of brands are pulling their plus-size clothes out of stores and moving sales entirely online. However, none of the online retailers provided particularly appealing options and none incorporated the social element that makes shopping enjoyable for many women. Schames repeatedly had conversations with women who felt marginalized in the same way and realized there was a bigger opportunity out there.

“I’m not sure who told people that size 14 and up love polyester, but it’s not true,” she said. “Plus-size women are tired of going to the mall and looking through two abandoned racks in the back. Fashion is aspirational and today’s runway model averages a size zero. That does not reflect a majority of women. The fashion industry wants to fetishize thinness and sell us this fantasy, but it’s not real life and it pisses me off. I have a daughter and I don’t want her growing up feeling bad because she isn’t like the magazine. Part of our mission is telling women it is OK to love who you are. I am working hard to bring a positive and accepting and inclusive environment to normal women.”

Social e-commerce and peer-to-peer commerce are trendy right now and changing the experience of shopping online. The e-commerce sector didn’t see too much innovation for many years — brands and retailers put their inventory online and shoppers searched for what they were looking for. Recently, a wave of fashion startups such as Wanelo, Luvocracy, Etsy, Poshmark, and Polyvore have taken various approaches to transforming this experience and finding new ways to browse and buy products online. At a recent media dinner about social e-commerce, Angel List founder Naval Ravikant (who is an investor in Wanelo) said this is the future of shopping.

Abbey Post is using these new models to target an underserved and highly valuable market. It is a passion project that addresses a widespread and unique set of needs. There are other plus-size online retailers out there like Avenue.com, Fashion to Figure, SimpleBe, Jessica London, and OneStopPlus, but Schames said her focus on high-end clothing and her social approach sets AbbeyPost apart. She also said there are products and features in the pipeline that will make Abbey Post an innovative tech company, rather than just a tech-enabled one.

AbbeyPost is bootstrapped and based in New York.

As the one writing about the funding news AND going to see Star Trek on day 1, does that make me queen of the nerds? Probably not, but a girl can dream.

SAP boosts startup fund by 2.6X to stimulate big data innovation

SAP is betting big on startups. And big data. The business software behemoth is more than doubling its commitment to the SAP HANA Real Time Fund, going from $155 million to $405 million, to support innovation surrounding real-time applications and big data. The SAP HANA fund launched in 2012 and primarily makes investments in early stage venture capital funds and startups building off SAP’s technology. Read more on VentureBeat.

Airwatch adds $25M into its coffers, because $200M isn’t enough

AirWatch, which helps companies manage employee’s mobile devices, raised another $25 million in a follow-on to its first round of funding today because the $200 million it received in February just wasn’t quite enough.  The round was led by Accel Partners. The Atlanta-based company makes mobile security software that manages devices, apps, email, and other content. It’s customers include Delta and Lowe’s. Read more on VentureBeat. 

MicroVentures doles out $16M in investments while it ‘patiently waits’ for the SEC

MicroVentures has a powerful pitch for startups: We’ll help you raise money. The Austin-based company helps accredited investors pool their cash together (usually somewhere between $1,000 and $30,000 per person) to fund early-stage startups like Ribbon and Medigram. For investors, it’s the opportunity to fork over as little as $1,000 but still get in early alongside more seasoned angel investors. MicroVentures has reached $16 million in investments today and claims to have surpassed any other equity-based crowdfunding platform. Read more on VentureBeat. 

Pebble raises $15M, launches SDK update for better smartwatch apps

After raising more than $10 million on Kickstarter, smartwatch maker Pebble announced today that it has received $15 million in first round funding from Charles River Ventures. That’s a pretty heft sum for a company that was initially shot down by VCs, a blow that led to the Kickstarter campaign. After nabbing around 85,000 orders on Kickstarter and successfully kicking off Pebble shipments, it’s not surprising to see investors taking a second look. Pebble says the funding will let it expand its software engineering team, scale for demand, and grow its open development platform. Read more on VentureBeat.

Marqeta raises $14M to bring ‘Starbucks-type loyalty to every merchant’

Loyalty and payments startup Marqeta has raised $14 million and announced that it will power the Facebook Card. Marqeta’s approach to e-commerce encourages consumers to make their purchases online to earn rewards from participating retailers. Marqeta keeps tracks of all that information in one place. Consumers save money and retailers gain loyalty. Existing investors Greylock IL and Granite Ventures participated in this round, along with new investor Commerce Ventures. Read more on VentureBeat.

¡Más dinero! BPM solutions provider BonitaSoft raises $13M

BonitaSoft, the business process management (BPM) solutions provider, announced today it has raised $13 million it its third round of funding thus far. The company’s open source software allows for easy business process modelling and implementation. It is based in Southern France. The Series C was led by the French National Fund for Digital Society (FSN PME), a French government initiative that invests in technology companies. Returning investors Ventech, Auriga Partners, and Serena Capital were also involved. Read more on VentureBeat.  

Luvocracy raises $11.5M in venture capital to power social commerce

Social e-commerce site, Luvocracy has raised $11.5 million in funding from Kleiner Perkins, Google Ventures, RPM Ventures, XG Ventures, CrunchFund, Marissa Mayer, Ali Pincus, Jim Lanzone, and Tony Robbins. Luvocracy is a San Francisco-based startup that lets you buy products you “luv” based on recommendations from the people you trust. You can also earn rewards if someone buys a product you recommend. Read more on VentureBeat.

EdgeSpring launches with $11M in Series A funding to help simplify analytics 

The “big data” and analytics startup EdgeSpring officially launched today with $11 million in financing from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Lightspeed Ventures. The company’s business intelligence and analytics platform enables you to quickly obtain business information from any size, structure or data without having to depend on data analysts or information technology professionals. The platform makes it easy for average users to ask questions about data like financial or user information any time and anywhere across data silos. Read more on VentureBeat. 

I don’t think you’re ready for this Jelly

Biz Stone’s under-the-radar startup has raised money from some very well-known people. In a blog post today, the Twitter founder announced closing a funding round led by Spark Capital with participation from SV Angel. An elite group of individual investors also contributed, including Jack Dorsey, Bono, Reid Hoffman, Steven Johnson, Evan Williams, Al Gore, Greg Yaitanes, and Roya Mahboob. Read more on VentureBeat.

Bitcoin startups get hotter: BitPay nabs $2M from Founders Fund & others

Relatively young Bitcoin startup BitPay has announced it has raised $2 million more in funding to lead the market in Bitcoin payment processing. This follows a $510,000 seed round it raised in January. BitPay specializes in e-commerce, B2B, and enterprise solutions for Becton and it claims processing fees as low as 1 percent with no setup fees. It signed up more than 1,900 new merchants in April, and it claims to sign up about 100 new merchants per day at this point. The new funding was led by Founders Fund, the fund behind the so-called “PayPal Mafia.” Also on the round is Max Keiser’s fund Heisenberg Capital, a London-based fund targeting Bitcoin-focused companies. Read more on VentureBeat.

Ringadoc nabs $700K to bridge the communication gap between doctors & patients

Patients need a better way to communicate with their physicians, and Ringadoc believes it can help. The San Francisco-based startup added another $700,000 to its seed round today, bringing its total funding to $1.9 million.Ringdoc helps doctors separate personal and professional messages, and enables them to triage patients before speaking to them on the phone or in person. Investors include Ryan Howard, CEO of Practice Fusion (Ringadoc is currently incubating in Practice Fusion’s offices), Sharon Knight, cofounder of One Medical, the chain of concierge primary care practices, Siemer VC, Telegraph Hill Group, and Dr. Lyle Dennis, the neurology chief at Bon Secours Health System. Read more on VentureBeat.

TheMadVideo raises $500K for video of Steve Job, among other things

TheMadVideo has raised $500K in seed funding for its platform that brands and content creators can use to make video moments taggable and shareable. The technology indexes moments in a video by people, place, things, topics etc…  so brands can pinpoint moments in videos the feature their products and link them to sale pages. The company was founded in Spain and is now based in San Francisco.

Photo Credit: Edward Beaver/Flickr

Paul Graham revealed in a blog post that Wufoo’s founder Kevin Hale will join YC as a full partner. Wufoo makes an online form building application. The startup participated in one of YC’s first classes in 2006 and was acquired by SurveyMonkey in 2011. Hale spearheaded user experience and design for Wufoo and will join existing partner Garry Tan as a design mentor, which Graham said “partly reflects the increasing importance of design in startups.”

Michael Seibel, Steve Huffman, Dalton Caldwell and Andrew Mason will join the accelerator as part-time partners. Seibel cofounded Socialcam which went through the Winter 2012 YC class and quickly became the most popular application on Facebook with 54.7 million users. It was acquired by Autodesk in 2012 for $60 million. Huffman cofounded popular travel app Hipmunk and Reddit, which both went through Y Combinator.

Not all the new partners are YC alums. Caldwell cofounded App.net and Imeem and Mason cofounded Groupon and held the position of CEO before the board ousted him in February. Harj Taggar, who is currently a full time partner, is becoming a part-time partner so he can travel and then work on new startup.

Y Combinator now has ten full partners and eight part-time partners.

The accelerator program is known as the most prestigious in the world, a “startup machine” that churns out “billion-dollar ideas.” It was founded in 2005 and provides a three month bootcamp, seed funding, and mentorship which culminates in a demo day where the entrepreneurs pitch to a room filled with wealthy and influential investors.

YC has fostered some of today’s most well-known startups like Reddit and AirBnB and achieved some impressive exits. Its summer 2012 class was the biggest yet with 84 startups, but this number caused a “bottleneck” that led the partners to dramatically decrease the size of the next class.

“The reason we accepted fewer applications was that in summer 2012 we grew too fast,” Graham said in a blog post. “We had 66 companies in winter 2012, and that was fine, but for some reason more things than usual broke when we jumped from 66 to 84.”

I covered the summer 2012 demo day and spoke with many of the founders who said the main drawback to the large size was less access to the partners. Part of the value of participating in YC is being able to learn with, brainstorm, and collaborate with experienced and successful mentors who can help guide the entrepreneurs and products towards eventual success. Decreasing the class size helps open up this pipeline, as does adding more partners.

The business software behemoth is more than doubling its commitment to the SAP HANA Real Time Fund, going from $155 million to $405 million, to support innovation surrounding real-time applications and big data.

The SAP HANA fund launched in 2012 and primarily makes investments in early stage venture capital funds and startups building off SAP’s technology. HANA, which stands for High-Performance Analytic Appliance, is SAP’s next generation in-memory database. It can store up to 500 terabytes of data and execute at high speeds.

Big data technology is hot right now as large corporations and enterprises look for better ways to store, process, and analyze their data. SAP’s head of database and technology product marketing Amit Sinha told VentureBeat in an interview last year that “innovation in data management has stagnated” and there is a $2 trillion market opportunity for HANA and related database management technologies. HANA is SAP’s answer to the big data trend.

In an effort to stimulate innovation, SAP began the SAP Startup Focus program which is like an accelerator program for enterprise and IT companies that are working on predictive analytics products. Innovation can be tough in large companies and initiatives like Startup Focus and the Real Time Fund are intended to keep SAP ahead of the curve, or at least keeping pace with it. The company has actively been acquiring startups to this end as well.

The increased size of the fund is a reflection of the strong interest of entrepreneurs and VCs in participating in the SAP ecosystem. Elizabeth “Beezer” Clarkson, COO and Managing Director at SAP Ventures, said it is also indicative of a changing venture capital landscape.

“We believe we have a new model for corporate venture the start-up ecosystem is embracing,” she said. “The additional funding allows us to broaden the scope of what the SAP HANA Fund invests in to include all SAP platform technologies, for example, cloud, mobile or analytic technologies as well as HANA.  We will also be able to extend our investment horizon for the SAP HANA Real Time Fund from 3-5 years to 7-10 years. Further, we will hire a business development staff and develop programs and partnership opportunities with the SAP ecosystem that deliver additional business value, like helping companies to grow internationally and exchange insights with industry experts.”

So far the fund has made investments in three startups — Gild, a recruiting solution that helps organizations find developers skilled in big data, FeedZai, a Portuguese startup that provided real-time fraud detection and prevention, and a third unnamed Israeli company. SAP HANA RTF (enough abbreviations for you?) has also committed funds to ten early stage venture capital funds including SV Angel, August Capital, and Data Collective in the Bay Area, and Point Nine and Magma in Berlin and Tel Aviv, respectively.

The fund is managed by SAP Ventures, which also manages a $353 million direct growth fund that invests in growth-stage IT companies. Over the past 15 years, SAP Ventures has invested in more than one hundred companies round the world including LinkedIn, Box, Violin Memory, and Lithium.

Photo Credit: SAP’s president Sanjay Poonen on stage at CloudBeat/Michael O’Connell

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Big Data and Predictive/Real-time Analytics startups: Are you looking to jumpstart development & accelerate market traction? Sign up for the SAP Startup Focus program to receive technology, support, resources and community to help you develop new applications on SAP HANA, a cutting edge database platform. Get started here, and enter promo code “VB2013″ on the form.

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In a blog post today, the Twitter founder announced closing a funding round led by Spark Capital with participation from SV Angel. An elite group of individual investors also contributed, including Jack Dorsey, Bono, Reid Hoffman, Steven Johnson, Evan Williams, Al Gore, Greg Yaitanes, and Roya Mahboob.

Not much is known about Stone’s startup beyond the fact that it is called Jelly, involves mobile technology, and has something to do with promoting social good.

“As mobile devices have taken an increasingly central role in our lives, humanity has grown more connected than ever — herein lies massive opportunity,” Stone wrote. This financing will support advancing Jelly beyond the prototyping stage through hiring and product development of “what we think of as the natural next step for our connected society.”

Jelly has hired former Twitter engineering manager Ben Finkel as CTO and the man behind Twitter music, Kevin Thau.

News leaked that Stone was working on a new startup in March 2013. He and Twitter cofounder Ev Williams left Twitter and founded the Obvious Corporation, which launched in 2011 as a startup incubator and investment vehicle. In August 2012, Obvious announced a new publishing platform called Medium that encouraged medium-length, thoughtful content and was intended as a “better place to read and write about things that matter.” Williams said this would be his main focus. Now with Jelly, Stone has his own pet project and there is speculation about whether this means Stone is leaving Medium/Obvious.

Until we know more about Jelly, we must be content with details about jellyfish themselves. Perusing Jelly’s blog yields interesting information, like the fact that jellyfish brains are decentralized and “more ‘we’ than ‘me’” and a group of jellies is called a bloom.

Marqeta blurs the lines between online and offline commerce with its “pay in advance” approach. Consumers make their purchases online through the platform, and Marqeta sends them a free card to swipe when picking up their purchase. Retailers use the platform to offer perks like gifting, loyalty, promotions, cash back offers, charitable donations, and so on. Customers earn rewards as they use their card and Marqeta keeps tracks of all that information in one place. This system saves consumers money and offers retailers a channel for loyalty and marketing campaigns.

“Consumers are challenged with managing multitudes of offers, gift cards, and reward programs along with a lack of meaningful incentive to provide repeat business,” said Jason Gardner, the founder and CEO of Marqeta in an interview. “Retailers struggle to crack the code to easily capture customer loyalty and often need POS installation to run a rewards program, and enterprises are often unable to readily participate in relevant transactions within the payments stream, limiting their opportunities to optimize revenue. Marqeta makes the successful ‘pay-in-advance for your coffee’ Starbucks card model possible for everyone.”

The system works without any new software of hardware at the point-of-sale and requires no cashier training. Through the API and platform, merchants can customize their campaigns with different product uses and features. It is available at nine million locations on the Discover network.

Marqeta also announced today that its +M platform will drive Facebook’s gifting product Cards. Cards are like regular gift cards but work at a range of retailers like Jamba Juice, Olive Garden, Sephora, and Target. The cards can be reloaded and the balance checked from Facebook.

“Gifting is a very unique form of e-commerce, and we thought there was a lot more innovation that could be going on there,” said Gifts creator Lee Linden in a recent interview with VentureBeat.

Marqeta claimed in a statement issued this morning that the gift card space is worth $115 billion, but that merchants face significant challenges maintaining consumer relationships once the gift cards are issued. By requiring users to register on Marqeta, retailers can convert their loyalty campaigns into a “true marketing and engagement engine.”

This funding will go towards forming new national partnerships, “aggressively” expand its footprint, and contribute to product development. Existing investors Greylock IL and Granite Ventures participated in this round, along with new investor Commerce Ventures. Marqeta was founded in 2010 and has raised $22 million to date. The company has 37 employees and is based in Emeryville, Calif.

JOOR is an online marketplace for wholesale fashion buying. The company is on track to do more than $350 million in transactions in 2013, which is more than three times the amount from 2012. More than 580 brands and designers and 30,000 buyers use the platform including many of the biggest names in fashion. JOOR recently opened up an office in Milan and is opening one soon in Sydney.

This is a prime example of a company applying technology to an industry that is predominantly offline, and succeeding. Founder Mona Bijoor said that most transactions in fashion wholesale happen at trade shows, market appointments, and with handwritten orders. JOOR’s business platform puts the sales process online so retailers and brands can connect in a more efficient way.

“This is a highly fragmented market where retailers can only source products from places they actually go and there is limited data available about the inventory,” she said in an interview. “If online sales of clothing makes sense for the consumer world, why shouldn’t it make sense for wholesale? Our job is to make retailers and brands better, smarter, and faster.”

Bijoor spent most of her career working in fashion with brands like Chanel, Elie Tahari, Cynthia Rowley, and in the buying departments of global retailers. She experienced the pain points on both sides and saw an opportunity to “pioneer wholesale evolution.”

The platform’s core technology connects brands and retailers. Brands create a profile page with marketing materials and retailers put up pages with information about their clients and inventory. Search capabilities are available on both sides using filters like price, trend, region, product etc… and the system finds relevant matches.

Buyers have access to real-time analytics about orders, notes, fulfillment, shipping and billing, as well as lead generation tools. Retailers can look at best selling items, discover new brands, and build and place orders on the platform.

The global fashion industry generates over a $1.5 trillion dollars a year and is growing. Most of the discussion surrounding about fashion tech focuses on consumers, but consumers are at one end of a very long and complicated supply chain that JOOR is  trying to make “less archaic.” This is more important than ever as “fast-fashion” has caused consumers to expect rapid turnover.

Joor’s clients include fashion heavyweights Diane Von Furstenberg, Phillip Lim, Alexander McQueen, Rag & Bone, and Thakoon. Right now the platform is only available for women’s apparel and menswear but Bijoor said she is exploring opportunities in footwear and accessories. Competitors include NuOrder, Balluun, Brandboom, but none have the high profile clientele that JOOR does (although NuOrder raised money from Rachel Zoe).

JOOR is based in New York with offices in LA and Milan and has raised $5.5 million to date from Battery Ventures, Lerer Ventures, Great Oaks VC, Landis Capital, and Forerunner Ventures.

Photo Credit: electric stove/Flickr

Vend’s technology integrates with existing systems like printers, cash drawers, and barcode scanners. It collects data and stores it in the cloud, and it’s accessible on Macs, PCs, and iPads. Business can manage their inventory, monitor and track sales, and look at real-time reporting.

Traditional POS systems are not connected to the Internet, difficult to manage, and expensive. A host of startups have cropped up over the past few years building on developments in mobile technology, cloud computing, and the growth of digital payments to give the POS industry an overhaul.

The most well-known of these startups is Square which pioneered a small piece of hardware known as a dongle that is plugged into an iPhone or iPad to accept credit cards payments. The dongle is accompanied by a suite of software called Square Register that includes checkout customization features, management tools, and data analytics. PayPal and a host of clones such as iZettle and Payleven have similar solutions.

Vend is like Square (or PayPal or iZettle or Payleven) without the dongle.

Vend’s funding news comes on the heels of announcements by Square and PayPal yesterday that could sound the death knell for cash registers. PayPal announced that it would offer free credit, debit, check, and PayPal processing to U.S. businesses that adopt its PayPal Here solution, and Square released a new piece of hardware called the Square Stand that provides a more “elegant” alternative to the cash register.

However, businesses that already have POS hardware may not want to throw them out and start fresh, which is why Vend’s solution is appealing. Vend launched in 2010 and now powers payments in 6,500 stores in 100 countries. Customers include businesses in fashion, sports, tourism, food and drink, and healthy and beauty who pay a monthly subscription fee for the software.

Vend is based in Auckland, New Zealand. Half of the funds came from new investors in New Zealand and Australia, including the Milford Active Growth Fund, and entrepreneurs Craig Winkler, Paul Bassett, and Matt Rockman. Existing Berlin-based investor Point Nine Capital also contributed. This brings Vend’s total capital raised to just under $10 million.

[Disclosure: Stained Glass Labs founder Redg Snodgrass is a consultant for VentureBeat's MobileBeat event. -Ed.]

Google Glass is a controversial device. Some say it is the future of computing, others find it creepy, and no one knows what its true impact will be.

Stained Glass Labs debuted today to support exploration and development of Glass technology. SGL is a group of entrepreneurs, mentors, and early adopters who are forming an incubator program for companies working with wearable computing. The community includes mentors from across the startup sector, including entrepreneurs, angel investors, VCs, and employees from major tech companies. SGL will accept 10 startups into the program, which involves a three-month bootcamp as well as tools, connections, and support to create Glass-based products for the mainstream.

“There is a lot of apprehension and negativity surrounding Glass, but it’s a lot like how people reacted when the iPhone first came out,” said founder Redg Snodgrass in an interview. “Any time you do something new, there is a level of discomfort with it, but Glass is pushing human evolution forward. It is a more natural fit for humanity than a smartphone because its integrated into our human environment. You can look up and engage with other people, and it’s a better way to interact with data in real life.”

By forming a supportive community around Glass, Stained Glass Labs hopes to make wearable computing more accessible to people who aren’t “dorks or doctors.” The device itself is still in the early stages. During her review, VentureBeat writer Jolie O’Dell described it as “nonintuitive and buggy” and without many apps or features. While O’Dell sees it as a distraction from reality, Snodgrass believes it will make people more attuned to it.

“There are no experts yet,” he said. “No one has the answers, and Stained Glass Labs is not like a traditional incubator where we teach you because we know all the answers. Initially its more about a community where everyone can bounce around ideas.”

The name for Stained Glass Labs was inspired by the ancient Romans. Stained glass was considered a luxury of the wealthy rather than an art form until it became popular in churches and accessible to the common people. Artists and craftsmen began experimenting with the medium, and it flourished. Stained Glass Labs hopes the same will happen with Glass.

“Many in our community have spent grandiose efforts to dismiss, denigrate, and deny the urge of promise that is wearable glass technology,” the group said in a statement. “We as a group have stepped up to say that it is inevitable humanity will integrate with technology for the betterment or detriment of society.  We have decided to push Glass to be about this “betterment.”

Startups are already working on applications and products that involve wearable computing. There are wide possibilities for the health care industry, field workers, and multiple news apps have already come out. Snodgrass, however, said that he is most interested in the social possibilities of the technology. Stained Glass Labs isn’t limited to Google and there are other wearable computing devices out there like the Memento camera and a Motorola hands-free computer, but Glass is the main focus at the moment.

Before founding Stained Glass Labs, Snodgrass cofounded Skout, “the first dating app in the App Store,” and Taploid. Cofounder Kyle Ellicott is the cofounder and president of Heavy Cloud Media Group and the creative director at TechZulu.

Photo Credit: Dylan Tweney

Apptio’s software is used by businesses to manage their IT systems and services. Its Technology Business Management (TBM) solutions monitor financial and operational data about IT and technical customer support to provide added transparency and cost-efficiency.

IT systems are complicated and expensive. Developments in computing, such as the migration to the cloud, have changed the way businesses structure their IT systems. With these shifts comes the need to gain an understanding of how the various products, services, resources, and assets are being used. Apptio gathers and analyzes data about IT system performance so businesses can make data-driven decisions and get the most out their IT investments.

Apptio has subscriptions from 29 of the Fortune 100 companies and has more than 125 global enterprise customers, including Boeing, Royal Bank of Scotland, Safeway, Target, and Xerox. This financing will support Apptio’s accelerating growth and expand its international presence. New investors Janus Capital and the Hillman Company led this round, with participation from existing investors Andreessen Horowtiz, Grelock Partners, Madrona Venture Group, Shasta Ventures, and accounts managed by T.Rowe Price Associates. The company closed its $50 million Series D last March.

“Apptio has everything we like to see in investments — a big market with a significant problem,” Ben Horowitz said to VentureBeat about the 2009 investment. “The way companies get information about modern IT is extremely broken, and they’ve built a terrific product to address that.

Apptio was founded in 2007 and is based in Bellevue, Washington.

Both cities now share investment activity from Dave McClure.

Berlin-based Versus IO was Dave McClure’s first investment in a German startup. McClure invested $100,000 in December 2012 and now Versus IO has closed its first round of $2.8 million led by Earlybird Venture Capital, as well as follow in investment from McClure.

Versus IO is a comparison engine. All the information and noise on the web can make it difficult to draw conclusions from data and make intelligent purchasing decisions. Versus IO addresses this challenge using natural language processing to generate point-by-point comparisons. Users enter two things they want to compare, such as electronic products, cities, or services, and the system culls information from around the web and presents them in a list of pros and cons.

Comparing the iPhone 5 to the Samsung Galaxy S4 shows that the Galaxy has almost twice as many pros as the iPhone, including more flexible charging capabilities and a camera with more megapixels and faster max shutter speed. If you pit Mumbai against Shanghai, you see that Mumbai has a higher average temperature and cheaper Big Macs, while Shanghai has public health care and significantly more museums and sport facilities.

When Versus IO first launched, it was solely a product comparison engine. 25 million companions are now available in 18 languages and the company said traffic has increased an average of 35% a month. This financing will support Versus IO’s expansion into other modes of comparison.

Today, this hot ticket-selling startup released Fanbase, a suite of customer analytics products that founder Andrew Dreskin said is a first of its kind. Venues and event promoters can use Fanbase to identify their top fans and offer them rewards for loyalty.

Dreskin’s claim to fame is “being the first guy to sell tickets on the Internet.” He cofounded a company called TicketWeb, which Ticketmaster bought in 2000. Around 2007, he saw that the main problems in event ticketing were still not being addressed and started building Ticketfly.

Ticketfly does not only sell tickets. Dreskin describes it as a “holistic technical solution” for events and venues. The platform provides events and venues with tools for ticketing, cross-channel marketing, and analytics that serve to streamline operations and drive sales.

“Historically, this industry had a lack of innovation,” Dreskin said during an interview at Ticketfly’s offices. “There were no integrated technical systems, nothing was connected, and there was no understanding of how tickets were bought and sold and who the customers are. We were the first to bring social ticketing and an integrated platform to this industry, and with Fanbase, we are continuing the theme of doing things first.”

The inspiration for Fanbase came from a discovery: that 7 percent of customers drove 30 percent of revenue. Ticketfly saw an opportunity to harness the power of these users by incentivizing their loyalty. The technology behind Fanbase is based on 12 different criteria that generate a ranking for each customer. Factors include how often a customer visits a venue, how much money they spend, their social media following, etc. Venues can adjust the criteria based on their preferences and reward their top users with perks like VIP access, presale tickets, merchandise, and drink tickets.

“Going to live events used to be an anonymous process, even if you went to the same venue 40 times a year,” Dreskin said. “Fanbase is about encouraging top fans to market on behalf of the venues and promoters, this has never been done before in the industry because no  other provider has access to this data. We are uniquely positioned to do this because we power all the technology for our clients. The industry is yearning for next-generation tools, and Fanbase is a great example of that.”

Fifty venues and promoters used Fanbase during beta testing and the feedback was “overwhelmingly positive.” Ninety-two percent of the clients said they would use Fanbase multiple times a week, and email sent with Fanbase offers to fans were twice as likely to be opened.

Dreskin told me to imagine that my favorite local venue offered me a VIP table for an upcoming show or gave me early access to shows that I might like. What’s not to like?

“It would be disingenuous to say that people solely buy tickets because they like a venue,” he said. “Of course the driver is the artist, but we are seeing more and more that people are developing great affinities for venues and promoters. If it’s a band they kind of like at a venue they love, they will go, and when they walk through the for, they are no longer a nameless, faceless person.”

Since launching in 2008, TicketFly has grown to 105 employees and 1,100 clients. Last year, the site sold tickets to 26,000 events and revenue growth continues to accelerate. Every 90 days, Ticketfly signs agreements to sell a million new tickets, and Dreskin projects it will do 250 million of gross transaction volume in 2013.

Ticketmaster is the startup’s main competitor, but Dreskin said it has major issues with technology and customer relations, not to mention alienating promoters by merging with event promoter Live Nation. Today’s releae is the first iteration of Fanbase and the platform will evolve over time as more people use it.

Ticketfly has raised $37 million in venture capital and is based in San Francisco.

Check out this video about Fanbase.

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UGallery announced today that it now has over 500 artists in its community and 6,000 original pieces of art in its marketplace. According to the company, these are the biggest numbers today for an all-original art focused startup and speak to a growing interest in buying art online.

A report issued in March by Deloitte and ArtTactic found that “the art world is moving online.” Over 300 online art ventures have launched in the past few years and at least 71 percent of art collectors have purchased artwork online and this number is expected to rise. Online and offline, the global art market is on the rise and the international business community is acknowledging art as a desirable area of investment.

UGallery is an online art gallery that features original, curated works of art in a range of genres, styles, sizes, and mediums. All the artists and pieces are reviewed by a team of in-house experts, and only 10 percent of artists who submit an application are accepted to ensure quality. Collectors can browse the inventory, narrowing options down with filters like price and color and give pieces a weeklong “test run” in their home. Major competitors in the space are Art.com, Artspace, and Artsy, but UGallery said it is unique because it eliminates gallery middlemen who are often limiting and expensive.

“For too long, collecting original art was limited to the physical infrastructure of the gallery and auction house,” said founder Stephen Tanenbaum in an email. “Other services like Artsy and Artspace are really just liaisons for art galleries. They aren’t revolutionizing the traditional art business model for artists or collectors. Instead, they’re giving galleries another selling channel. We, on the other hand, have created an online community that connects the two directly, without the hassle of the traditional physical gallery.”

Tanenbaum said this approach makes it easier to sell, discover and purchase original, high-quality artwork at an affordable price. The art world is fearsomely competitive and getting artwork into galleries or museums is difficult. Long before my VentureBeat days, I dabbled with art writing and worked at multiple museums. The process of getting artwork discovered and showcased is a lot like trying to become a movie star. Some people get lucky, but the industry is dominated by an elite cabal of influential people that is not easy to penetrate.

UGallery’s mission is to give artists a functional selling channel with a wide reach so they have opportunities somewhere between posting paintings on coffee shop walls and snagging an elusive gallery show. The company has had year-to-year growth averaging over 62 percent side 2008 and has sold art in over 35 countries.

The company is based in San Francisco with an office in New York.

Collegefeed is a social network along the lines of LinkedIn, but it’s geared toward students and recent graduates. The online career marketplace helps them find desirable opportunities and companies use the network to search for candidates without having to go from campus-to-campus.

Founder Sanjeev Agrawal used to be Google’s head of products. He observed college students struggling to enter the workforce and saddled by record amounts of debt. At the same time, companies like Google were struggling to fill open positions and willing to spend thousands of dollars to find the right candidate. LinkedIn and Monster.com are often not effective for students who don’t have the professional network or work experience to stand out, and on-the-ground recruiting is a time-consuming and expensive process for employers.

This is the problem Collegefeed is trying to solve.

“It is no easier to get a good start in life today than it was 20 years ago preweb, presocial, premobile,” Agrawal said in a Q&A. “Starting this week, 1-plus million new college graduates will struggle to enter the workforce. Almost 50 percent of them will fail, according to most recent research, but more and more companies understand that their future is somewhere in college right now. Think of Collegefeed as a social career platform that brings together students, employers, alums, industry insiders and college career services in one place.”

Students create short profiles with their work experience, skill sets, and interests and the system will search for matching jobs and internships. They can also enter the names of companies they like and a recommendation engine will suggest similar companies and jobs, “like Netflix does for movies.” Agrawal said this will help them discover new opportunities with companies they may not have heard of or considered before. Students can browse through custom news feeds with updates on their preferred employers. It also has networking and educational opportunities, and students can share experiences with each other.

Employers on Collegefeed benefit from access to a wider network of potential hires at a lower cost. They can push content to news feeds, sponsor contests, and get a newsfeed of their own with recommended students.

Collegefeed launched in private beta in March with Stanford, Berkeley, and Carnegie Melon. Agrawal said students have already secured interviews, jobs, internships, and financial awards with companies including YouTube, eBay, Facebook, Morgan Stanley, and Microsoft. Today, Collegefeed is open nationwide to any students and employer.

Agrawal said that over the past few years, multiple companies have popped up using social media to address challenges in recruiting and hiring, but “no-one has created a new social network that combines everything together in one place for both students and employers.” Competitors include LinkedIn, Readyforce, and AfterCollege. However, Collegefeed makes use of “push” technology and the popularity of news feeds to curate, aggregate, and present the information in digestible form to both students and employers.

The founding team of six has 10 college degrees between them and is based in Mountain View, Calif. It’s a bootstrapped company.

Loop plans to reinvent the customer-experience survey with its launch today to help businesses get customer feedback in the moment.

Loop is an iOS app that presents customers with a quick survey about their experience at a business. Loop captures the responses then and there, and founder Rajit Marwah said that this could result in up to 30 times more responses, as compared to traditional methods or user-generated sites like Yelp.

 ”Feedback and reviews are everywhere,” he said in an email. “They are at the bottom of your receipt, the check at the end of a meal, and in your inbox. Businesses want to know how they are doing so they can improve and many consumers want to share their experiences, good or bad. But when was the last time you (or anyone) bothered to fill out one of those cards or go to their feedback site? Everyone is in a hurry and just moves on.”

Marwah said that Loop’s main value is its immediacy. Surveys only contain five questions, so very little is required of the customer. It was founded by Marwah and his former Stanford classmate, Mike Liu. The two were working on a different project creating iPad menus for high-end hotels and restaurants, and he saw how challenging it was for these businesses to get feedback and reviews despite their efforts to do so. They saw the potential for mobile technology to improve upon this.

“The existing solutions are a bit intimidating,” Marwah said. “I know many people that don’t want to fill out 15 minutes surveys or write a long essay to review a place. We wanted to create a lightweight experience. Plus, companies like SurveyMonkey and Yelp are billion-dollar companies, so it told us that value can be created around this area.”

Gaining a glimpse into consumers’ minds is a hot ticket at the moment and scores of venture-backed data and social media analytics startups have cropped up to offer insight. There are also competitors like Vision Critical and Qualtrics Mindshare Technologies that also collect customer feedback through surveys. Loop is a simpler alternative to these products, but sometimes simple is better, particularly for small businesses.

Loop is “global on day one,” meaning it is available in 34 languages and in 155 countries. Archimedes Labs in Palo Alto led a seed round for the startup, which is based in San Francisco.

Photo credit: Loop

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

An equity-free accelerator program sounds almost too good to be true, but Momentum announced its program today that offers a free twelve week program to support promising mobile startups.

Momentum is an initiative out of Mobile Monday, an international community of people in the mobile industry who come together at events for networking and discussion. The founders of Mobile Monday were interested in opportunities to support mobile startups in more tangible way and founded Momentum to “give back” to the mobile community.

“Mobile is clearly top of mind for most companies, investors, shareholders, and executives as they develop strategies to innovate, increase revenue, and sustain their competitive advantage in the future,” said founder Arte Merritt in an email. “We want to contribute to moving mobile technology forward. Mobile is a huge opportunity and we are looking for innovative startups to participate in what is coming next.”

Participants in the program will work out of coworking space RocketSpace, and have access to mentors, workshops, and a dedicated team member for support. They will attend one-on-one meetings with corporate sponsors, VC pitch sessions, industry dinners, and present at a demo day. Merritt said Momentum is unique because it is vertically-focused on mobile and targets companions that are already shipping a product and have raised some funding. Third, and perhaps most importantly, Momentum is a non-profit and takes no equity.

“Our goal is to help the startups get commercial deals and develop deeper relationships within the mobile community, to truly accelerate their businesses, as opposed to teaching startup basics,” Merritt said.

Momentum operates with sponsorship from Intuit Samsung, PayPal, Rocketspace, and law firm WSGR. The plan is to offer multiple classes each year around the world. The first class has five startups:

• Fiverun brings the “Apple Store” shopping experience to any brick and mortar retailer, enabling retail associates to sell more, faster, directly from a tablet, which unifies online and offline products into a single shopping cart.
• Locomizer is an enterprise, location analytics platform that enables audience discovery for relevant targeting.
• Orbeus is a cloud-based, visual recognition engine that can make sense of faces, scenes, and objects in both images and videos.
• PocketMath is a mobile demand-side platform that optimizes ads through real-time bidding.
• Squrl is a mobile platform for discovering and watching both long and short form video content.

Photo Credit: Mobile Monday

RelayRides is a peer-to-peer car sharing marketplace where people can offer their cars for daily or weekly rentals. Wheelz adopted a similar model as well as proprietary DriveBox technology that facilitates keyless access to cars. With this acquisition, RelayRides will absorb Wheelz and its marketplace, technology, and several “key people” from the Wheelz team.

“RelayRides has been growing rapidly and we are confident that this acquisition will turbo-charge our growth,” said RelayRides director of communications Steve Webb to VentureBeat. “We are going to be better positioned to extend the benefits of peer-to-peer car sharing to more people across the U.S. This acquisition demonstrates that the peer-to-peer car sharing marketplace is maturing and consolidating. As an industry matures, consolidation follows, and the peer-to-peer car sharing industry is no exception. We are witnessing the evolution and maturation of an exciting space.”

Webb said that RelayRides and Wheelz share the goal of having a car within a 10-minute walk for at least 100 million Americans by the end of 2015. Instead of owning a car or renting one from an agency, people can turn to services like RelayRides for a more personal and affordable mode of transportation. Each car on the site has a profile with information about its features, ratings and reviews, and owner bio. All drivers are screened, and RelayRides provides insurance on the rentals, so drivers don’t have to worry about damages.

RelayRides and Wheelz are part of a trend surrounding “the rise of disownership.” Consumer attitudes and behaviors surrounding renting, borrowing, and leasing items, versus ownership, are shifting across the country. People are increasingly engaging in disownership by putting their under-used property to work. Internet startups facilitated this movement by adopting ‘shared economy’ or ‘collaborative consumption’ models that connect people with available assets to people who need them. AirBnB did this for homes, TaskRabbit for services, but the transportation space is still a dynamic and crowded area. Uber, Lyft, and Sidecar can be used instead of taxis, and RelayRides is providing an alternative to traditional rental agencies. It mainly competes with Zipcar and Getaround.

Since launching in 2012, RelayRides added tens of thousands of members into its marketplace and thousands of postings for cars. Webb said rental reassertion hours increased by 500 percent and April was the company’s best month yet in terms of revenue and new members added. By scooping up Wheelz, RelayRides will expand its marketplace.

RelayRides has raised $13 million in venture capital. In 2012, it teamed up with General Motors so that 6 million of GM’s OnStar subscribers could rent out their cars using RelayRides. Wheelz had raised a total of $15.7 million and includes Zipcar has an investor. Both companies are headquartered in San Francisco.

The financial details of the deal were not disclosed.

Photo Credit:  Darryl W. Moran Photography

During 111 days in China, participants receive mentorship, seed funding, and support figuring out the details of manufacturing, supply chain management, and distribution. HAXLR8R’s goal is to put hardware entrepreneurs as close to the production facilities as possible. Hardware has long been an outcast of startup society because of the challenges involved in manufacturing, scaling and distributing products. That is now changing thanks to crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter, technological advancements in 3-D printing and computer-aided design, and the success of companies like Pebble, Ouya, and Square.

Getting a hardware startup off the ground involves more overhead and physical logistics than software companies, and HAXLR8R smooths this process for entrepreneurs with ideas, but without the resources or expertise to execute on them without advise and support.

HAXLR8R founder Sean O’Sullivan said that in one year HAXLR8R went from being “an outlier and an oddity” as the world’s first hardware accelerator to being on the cusp of a new trend.

“Hardware accelerators are fundamentally different than software and much more important — the need is massive,” he said during an opening announcement. “Before the maker movement, we in America lost ingenuity and productivity when it comes to hardware manufacturing. We are training the next generation of inventors how to build stuff, and how to build it well and affordably. One of or two of these companies could go on to change society.”

Spark

Spark is a platform for connected hardware that makes it easier to build wifi-enabled products. Founder Zach Supalla said that many hardware manufacturers aren’t software savvy. Spark combines a tiny development board and software to embed wifi in any product, including (in theory) a connected PB&J sandwich. The Spark Cloud is like ‘Heroku for hardware’, providing startups with an infrastructure and REST API so products powered by Spark can be extended with apps and connected. Spark has raised over $253,000 on Kickstarter and has closed a round of seed financing.

Lightup

Lightup provides an electronics construction kit and accompanying digital tutor application that “empowers kids to solve challenges of future.” Founder Josh Chan said the goal is to get kids exciting about making things and to help them understand the fundamentals of technology using real components. The tutor is built on Artificial Intelligence technology so kids can ask questions and receive actual answers and see simulations, even when no-one is around to help. Lightup is geared for middle-school aged kids. Lightup is launching a Kickstarter campaign this Thursday. Kits range in price from $30 to $200 and using them, kids can build anything from lunch box alarms to TV remotes.

Blinkiverse 

Blinkiverse has developed open source building blocks to control and manipulate LED lights so anyone can create exciting, creative LED installations. BlinkyTape is intended to make working with LED lights as simple as possible, for people without technical expertise. BlinkyTape is a full-color light tape that is controlled by a custom light processor called the BlinkyBoard. There is also a software program for adding in custom animations and music. Founder Matt Mets donned an LED-wired hat during his presentation and announced that Blinkiverse launched its Kickstarter campaign this morning.  

Hex

Hex makes flying drones that are accessible and kid-friendly. This open platform aerial robot can fly on its own or be managed by a mobile app. Users can program a navigational route, as well as mount cameras and mechanical arms. Potential applications include outdoor sports filming, aerial imaging, search and rescue, as well as to check things like high voltage power lines. Hex is in the process of creating an open source community to explore the possibilities of ‘unmanned aerial vehicles’ (UAV). Later this year, Hex will conduct a crowdfunding campaign for its Hex Mini copter.

Vibease

Vibease is a smart vibrator. It combines a squishy Bluetooth enabled pink piece of hardware and mobile technology to give women “the best orgasm experience ever,” at least according to founder Dema Tio.

“Sex is part of basic human needs,” he said on stage. “We love sex so much because of orgasm. But more than half women don’t have orgasms, single women need orgasms too. We create an immersive experience for women. Vibease vibrates according to your fantasies.”

The mobile app features a “marketplace for erotica” with over 20 videos to choose from. The whole experience combines what Tio identified as the four elements of female orgasm- audio, emotion, fantasy, and clitoral stimulation. Women can select a fantasy they find appealing and control the vibrator with their smartphone. The app saves your preferences and data, so you can create your own patterns. Vibease is available for pre-order at $79.99.

Molecule Synth 

Molecule Synth is a modular construction kit for people to create their own electronic musical instruments. “It opens up the world of music to the world of invention and electronic protyping,” said founder Travis Feldman during his presentation. The device is like a traditional keyboard synthesizer that has been bren down into elements of speaker/amp, sound generator, and pitch control. Using interchangeable hexagons and iOS applications, people can manipulate those elements with “LEGO-like interchangeability” which changes the sounds. Molecule Synth has raised over $30,000 on Kickstarter and has plans for more sounds and iOS apps where users can share their compositions with each other.

Helios

Helios is ‘reinventing the bike experience’ with handlebars that contain smart headlights and blinkers. The lights are connected vi Blutooth to an iOS app that bikers can customize and control. Bikers can also turn the lights on and off from their phone, get navigational directors, and track their bike from anywhere in the world. The handlebars have GPS so riders always know their bike’s location. Helios also contains a visual speedometer hat changes color based on your speed.

“Bikers’ main concerns are security and safety,” said founder Kenny Gibbs. “600 people died on bike rides and 40,000 were injured last year. Not to mention that 1.5 million bikes were stolen. Helios solves those problems.”

Helios has partnered with major bike distributors and is launching a consumer campaign on Kickstarter this weekend. The company’s goal is to create the world’s first and best smart bike.

Yeelink

Yeelink is a platform that helps makers and enterprises create electronic connected devices and app-enabled hardware. The Chinese startup provides “appcessory” solutions to make building connected devices easier. Yeelink’s plan is to get into the home automation market and work with major Chinese manufacturers to create smart air quality sensos, home security systems etc…

Fabule

Fabule is creating “expressive devices for creatives homes.” Its first product Clyde is an LED  lamp that can be tinkered with to customize its personality and behavior. The light has bendy legs so he can be tilted or hung and looks a bit like a jellyfish. Clyde can be made to respond to touch, ambient light levels, or remote control.  Fabule is designing a suite of personalities including “Afraid of the dark” and “touchy feel,” and the controller is Arduino compatible, so people can design their own. Founder Amanda Williams said that many people want more warmth, welcome, and creativity from their smart devices and Clyde’s “delightful and quirky” personality make him a pleasant addition to any home. Fabule launched on Kickstarter this morning and is exploring distribution partnerships.

Focus

Focus is a headset that can improve your focus. It is a Bluetooth controlled “direct current stimulation” headset. The founder said neuroscience studies have found that directly stimulating the brain can improve its performance and cognitive function. Focus’ headset channels this science by sending a small electric current to your brain, exciting the neuro cortex to provide more focused concentration, and is like “coffee without the jitters.”

Intuit published an infographic today presenting the top cities for female entrepreneurs as well as some interesting statistics about the state of women-owned businesses in the U.S. The report looked at median education levels, unemployment rates, income, population and percentage of business owned by women in each city to provide an overall score for female entrepreneurship.

San Francisco ranks number one, followed by Seattle, Washington, D.C., Minneapolis, and Portland. Washington, D.C., has the highest percentage of women-owned businesses at 34.5 percent, while Austin had the lowest unemployment rate. Chicago and New York did not even make the top 10. Of 552 female business owners surveyed, 66 percent said they are most optimistic about growth and revenue for 2013 than they were in 2012.

Facebook’s chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg set off ripples of discussion with her recent book, Lean In. In the book, she said women professionals often don’t command the respect they deserve and hold themselves back from climbing the career ladder. This issue extends beyond the tech community, where there is a major shortage of women engineers. Women all over the country cite a low confidence, negative workplace culture, and a lack of mentors as other reasons, which is why Sandberg promotes women coming together in groups for discussion and support.

Studies have shown that gender and ethnic diversity in a workplace strengthens decision-making and diverse teams tend to be more innovative and efficient. Intuit also made a few suggestions along these lines, including finding and being a mentor, asserting yourself, and building a network of female entrepreneurs. Even if the environment for female entrepreneurs is evolving, there is still a long way to go.

Photo Credit: Alaina Percival/Women Who Code

Namshi features clothing, accessories, and footwear for women, men, and kids from over 550 international and local brands. Like Zappos, the sites offers free shipping and a flexible return policy. The site serves the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, and Bahrain.

According to a statement issued this morning, Namshi has experienced significant growth in the region and this financing will ramp up operations and support the move to a new, state-of-the-art warehouse and distribution center.

The Internet and e-commerce are exploding in emerging markets around the world. Rocket Internet capitalizes on this momentum by incubating and accelerating clone companies based on popular models, like Amazon, Zappos, and Groupon. Its portfolio includes Asian e-commerce portal Lazada, African online retailers Zando and Jumia, Europe-focused Zalando, and Brazil’s Dafiti.

Summit Partners is an active investor in these of companies and participated in the financing of Lazada, Zando, Jumia, and Dafiti as well as Colombian seller of consumer electronics Linio. Before this round, Namshi raised money from Investment AB Kinnevik, JP Morgan Chase, Blakeney Managament, and Holtzbrink Ventures. JP Morgan also likes startups like these and is an investor in Lazada, Dafiti and Zalando.

These deep pockets combined with Rocket Internet’s vision are a major force bringing e-commerce to the whole world. Next up, perhaps, is an e-commerce portal for Antarctica featuring the latest in extreme cold weather fashion.

Photo credit: Eugene Kaspersky/Flickr

Grotech Ventures is one of the leading venture capital firms funneling money into the region. Today, the Vienna-based firm announced the close of its eighth fund at $225 million. It brings GroTech’s total capital under management to $1.3 billion.

“We give money to people who have shown they can do a lot with a little and can make things happen,” said Grotech General Partner Don Rainey in an interview. “We are looking for responsible leaders and capable people. It is more impressive to have a guy or gal come in that is taking $20,000 and made something material happen than the guy or gal who needs a million dollars to prove anything.

Grotech makes early stage investments in “underserved” markets along the East Coast and in Colorado. The investment strategy is to put in a small amount of capital early on and continue to invest in a company over time. Areas of interest include digital media; social, mobile and cloud computing; enterprise and infrastructure software; security technologies; consumer internet and e-commerce; and energy and health care IT. Portfolio companies include LivingSocial, HelloWallet, Booker, Invincea, Personal, and recently acquired NextGen Storage.

Washington, D.C., is home to an enormous amount of talent, and traditionally the bulk of that talent goes to work for big government contractors, consulting firms, or the public sector. The notion of “entrepreneurship as a way to save America” is gaining momentum in the nation’s capital and coworking spaces, tech events, and accelerator programs are becoming more common. This excitement does not necessarily extend into to venture capital and the investor community in the region tends to be more risk-averse and conservative.

Grotech has already made twelve investments from the new fund.

Photo credit: cod_gabriel/Flickr

‘Big data’ startup LucidWorks has raised $10 million to help enterprise companies “turn multistructured data into business gold.”

LucidWorks product suite contains two development platforms that enable organizations to search, discover, and analyze their data. LucidWorks Search is built on top of Apache Lucene/Solr open-source search project and seeks to simplify and improve the process of building embedded search applications. The other product, LucidWorks Big Data, then helps businesses make sense of the data.

The company employes one-fourth of those who originally committed to the Apache Lucene/Solr project. It started as Lucid Imagination in 2008 to provide support, training, and consulting services for open-source search technologies Lucene and Solr. However, it saw greater opportunities to make open-source search more accessible and “unlock data’s ability to power competitive advantage” and set down to build LucidWorks Search and Big Data, which released in 2011 and 2012, respectively.  AT&T, Nike, Sears, Ford, Verizon, The Guardian, Elsevier, The Motley Fool, Cisco, Macy’s, Netflix and Zappos are customers. 

LucidWorks claims to be the largest supporter of open-source search in the industry. Organizations are struggling to draw business insights from mountains of unstructured (texts, emails, and so on) and structured data and a crop of well-funded big data startups are trying to provide the simplest way to crawl through petabytes of information, store a massive volume of data, and extract the most relevant information. Endeca, Autonomy, ElasticSearch and recently launched SRCH2 are other players in the space.

According to a form filed with the SEC, existing investors Shasta Ventures, Granite Ventures, and Walden International contributed to this third round of funding. It brings LucidWorks’ total capital raised to $26 million. LucidWorks is based in Redwood City and has not yet responded to request for comment.

Zoobean is a curated catalog of children’s books. Every book on the site is recommended by parents and categorized using “common sense” tags. Parents can search for books that explore specific themes, like bullying, the death of a pet, or magic as well as browse by age group, character background, or genre.

Zoobean was founded by a husband-and-wife duo who both built a carer in education. Felix Brandon Lloyd was named a Washington, D.C., Teacher of the Year for 2000-2001. He went on to build and sell a platform called Skill-Life that taught children about financial literary through online games. Jordan Lloyd Bookey is a former teacher who also directed a DC-based nonprofit supporting literacy efforts in low-income neighborhoods and is the outgoing head of Google’s K-12 Education Outreach.

This educational power couple was expecting their second children and searching for a book to teach their 3-year-old son about what it meant to be a big brother. Identifying relevant books proved to be a challenge.

“At the time we could not easily find books that told stories about new experiences and featured a brother and sister and a multiracial family,” they said in an email. “In stores, books were organized by genre, author, or very broad themes that weren’t really relevant for them. We also searched many popular shopping websites, but the information was overwhelming and impersonal.  In the end, we were frustrated and empty-handed. Parents and educators rely on remarkable books to help connect children to their worlds and we decided to create Zoobean to address a need that benefits families and helps children imagine and achieve anything.”

The books are indexed by a team of 10 curators using over 500 tags. Parents can filter the search queries down to exactly what they are looking for or browse through “Most Loved” books or those featuring the most “hearts” (the Zoobean version of a Facebook “like”). The company offers a subscription service, direct sales of featured books and affiliate sales of books in its catalog.

The founders said their mission is to become “the most trusted curator for the $25 billion dollar market for children’s books, games, and other educational products.”

To help them achieve this goal, Kapor Capital has led a seed investment of $500,000 with participation from angels. It is a big market with competitors ranging from startups like Sproutkin to large e-retailers and publishers including Amazon, Scholastic, and non-profit Common Sense Media. Zoobean is based in Washington D.C.

EarthRisk Technologies has developed a new model for predicting extreme weather events. The model identifies weather patterns based on over 82 billion calculations and 60 years of data. It then compares those patterns to current conditions and uses predictive analytics to predict the weather up to 40 days in advance.

The technology is derived from research at the University of California at San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Cofounder and CEO John Plavan said the old standard for weather prediction is built on subjective forecast models that are not accurate beyond a week.

“Hundreds of thousands of atmospheric variables are changing constantly around the globe and the old models aren’t robust enough to take these into account,” Plavan said in an exclusive interview with VentureBeat. “If there is a change to the initial conditions, the whole thing breaks down. We use statistical relationships to predict eventual outcomes and this technique is not subject to the same chaos. We are applying analytics to an industry that is begging for reinvention.”

EarthRisk has collected data from the U.S. and U.K. governments as well as observational data from thousands of scientists and researchers working in the field and the database is updated every day. EarthRisk’s engine searches for correlations and patterns of “statistical significance” and generates forecast probabilities based on this information. The approach uses the past to predict the future.

“Utilities corporations, energy traders, and energy producers are majorly impacted by big temperature changes and spend hundreds of millions of dollars trying to predict them,” Plavan said. “If they know there will be an extreme cold event a month from now, they can use that data to make an actionable decision, and these guys will do anything to gain a small edge.”

EarthRisk’s flagship product TempRisk is the first commercial application of this technology and is geared towards the research and energy trading communities. The company has been developing, refining, and testing the technology for a few years and now plans to expand the business dramatically and explore more commercialization opportunities. There could be more consumer-focused applications down the road, like the ability to check weather in a tropical location before booking a vacation.

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Points of Light is a large international nonprofit organization that mobilizes people to do volunteer work. Last year, it set up a civic accelerator program to  encourage and support entrepreneurs to tackle social issues.

“Our communities face increasingly complex social and economic problems,” said program director Ayesha Khana in an email to VentureBeat. “To truly solve these issues, we need breakthrough ideas that engage people in new and different ways and can succeed at scale. We enlist entrepreneurs and support them as they tap into the world’s largest renewable resource – people and their desire to effect change.”

The recession was a challenge for many non-profits and charitable organizations who struggled to stay afloat. At the same time, consumers are expressing a greater interest in the social and environmental impact of their actions and social entrepreneurship is on the rise. The idea that for-profit companies can positively and powerfully affect change is gaining momentum,

Just over a month ago, Google and ‘Peace Corps for Geeks’ organization Code for America formed an incubator program and two MIT grads founded Tumml, an ‘urban ventures’ accelerator program. Furthermore, the legendary Ron Conway said the tech community has a responsibility to “affect positive change in our communities (so it must be true.)

Points of Light wants to build an ecosystem of entrepreneurs, investors, and stakeholders dedicated to driving social, as well as technological advancement.

“For the greater tech community/country, we are hoping to create a ‘civic venture’ lens,” Khana said. ”We are looking to prove that organizations aspiring to make a social or environmental impact must leverage people (their time, talent, voice and/or money) as a core part of the business model if they want to truly move the needle against the most intractable issues of our time.”

Points of Light partnered with Village Capital, which has launched 17 accelerator programs in the U.S. and emerging markets. Over 300 entrepreneurs have participated in its programs and its companies have collectively raised more than $30 million in capital. Village Capital cites its mission as ‘democratizing entrepreneurship’ by connecting participants with mentors and training, as well as intensive peer review. At the end of the program, the entrepreneurs select which companies will receive investment.

Points of Light will also apply this peer-based learning and investment model. Every startup is offered $10,000 in investment and ultimately peer-selected companies in the group will receive $50,000. The 12-week program kicks off in Atlanta, Georgia. Most of the curriculum is presented virtually so entrepreneurs don’t have to take time off or leave during a critical period of company development. Every month, the entrepreneurs all come together in a different location for hands-on sessions.

The Starbucks Foundation and PricewaterhouseCoopers Charitable Foundation invested in the accelerator.

The ten companies in the second class are :

EPIC: Engaging Philanthropy, Inspiring Creatives (Chicago)

EPIC empowers creative professionals to make social change happen.

GenX & Associates (Chicago)

GenX & Associates helps communities dashboard their social, economic, and environmental data online for local decision-making.

Graph Alchemist (Portland, OR)

GraphAlchemist offers Graph as a Service (GaaS) to provide data driven solutions to complex problems

Ioby (Brooklyn, NY)

Ioby builds stronger, more sustainable neighborhoods using a cutting edge crowd-resourcing platform for leaders and innovators

Neighbor.ly (Kansas City, MO)

Neighbor.ly is the funding platform for civic projects

Practice Makes Perfect (Astoria, NY)

Practice Makes Perfect works to narrow the achievement gap in low income U.S. neighborhoods through summer enrichment programs.

Public Lab (Cambridge, MA)

Public Lab is a community that develops and applies affordable, open-source environmental monitoring tools to empower citizen scientists.

The GREEN Program

The GREEN Program transforms experiential education around the world, and empowers leaders to break into and disrupt the hottest industries of our time.

Jubilee Project (New York)

Jubilee Project makes videos for a good cause that empower, enable, and inspire the next generation of changemakers

Village Defense (Atlanta, GA)

Village Defense provides neighborhoods with a real-time communications system to keep neighbors safe and connected.

X marks the spot: Matrix closes Fund X

Matrix Partners closes its tenth fund, pooling together $450 million for investments in consumer Internet, mobile, enterprise, software and IT infrastructure startups in the US. The firm was founded way back in 1977. 50 of its portfolio companies have gone public and 75 have been acquired. The firm has offices in Silicon Valley and Boston, as well as in India and China. Notable investments include Apple, Gilt, Huddle, HubSpot, JustFab, and Zendesk.

e.Bricks stacks up $100M fund for startups

Brrazilian media corporation RBS Group has expanded its operations into startups with a new $100 million fund. The fund will be run by e.Bricks, an investment arm in the digital sector of the RBS Group, and will make between 10 and 15 investments in early stage companies per year. The fund will focus on digital media, e-commerce, and mobile technology. The portfolio currently has eight companies. The Brazilian landscape for startups and venture capital is growing fast and RBS wants to position itself at the center of this activity.

Online lender AvantCredit secures $34M in funding

AvantCredit, a Chicago-based consumer e-lender, yesterday announced the completion of a $34 million round of equity and debt funding from August Capital and Victory Park Capital. AvantCredit offers personal loans to the tune of $1,000 to $10,000. AvantCredit makes use of customer attributes such as credit, social media, and user action data, to offer low interest rates to a wide range of customers. This is its first round of funding, including a $9 million Series A equity investment. The round was led by August Capital, with participation from asset management firm, Victory Park Capital. In addition, Victory Park also issued a $25 million credit facility to the e-lender, taking the total funding to $34 million. Read more on VentureBeat.

Cloud data-protection firm PerspecSys raises $12M, plans for global sales push

PerspecSys, the Toronto-based cloud data protection company, has closed $12 million in its second round of funding. The company plans to use the capital injection to further develop global sales and marketing efforts and continue product development. The company supports a variety of popular cloud-based applications, such as Salesforce.com and Oracle CRM On Demand, while using validated encryption solutions from companies like Voltage Security, McAfee, SafeNet, Symantec, and RSA. This round of funding was co-led by new investors Paladin Capital Group and Ascent Venture Partners. They were joined by return backer Intel Capital and other institutional investors. Total investment in PerspecSys now totals over $20 million. Read more on VentureBeat.

SendUs launches with $17M to help brands harness user videos

SendUs launched out of stealth mode with $17 million in funding from private investors today. The company provides a video submission and management platform so brands can use video content created by fans to their own advantage. Brands put out a call for content and consumers can submit their own videos for review and possible publishing. The Los Angeles company works with brands like FremantleMedia (creators of American Idol), Singapore Airlines, Peugeot, Nextel International, Sierra Club, and the Susan G. Komen foundation. Read more on VentureBeat.

With $3.2M in funding, Dekko unveils a clever tech to insert animations into the real world

Dekko is launching an “operating system for the real world,” which is a fancy way of saying a new augmented-reality system. Dekko inserts animated images such as cartoon characters into the real world, where they can interact with it. The company is announcing this technology for the first time today. San Francisco-based Dekko is also announcing that it has raised $3.2 million from Bessemer Venture Partners, Echo Ventures, and others. Read more on VentureBeat.

Los Angeles startup Yekra nets $3M for its digital movie distribution platform

Digital entertainment distribution startup Yekra has raised $3 million in new funding to give studios a way to distribute DRM-protected content without it being burdensome, the company announced today. Los Angeles-based Yekra’s goal is to help distribute movies online with the full blessing of Hollywood. Movies will have copyright protections but still be available to be viewed through the web, smartphones, tablets, and connected TVs.The new funding was led by Las Vegas angel investor Maurice Gallagher, with participation by Bray Capital, Shay O’Brien, and Michael Rogers. Read more on VentureBeat.

Beyond Verbal secures $2.8M, detects human emotions and character through voice recognition

Beyond Verbal Communications, an Israel-based startup that’s just pulled in a $2.8 million seed round of funding, uses what it calls Emotions Analytics to determine someone’s emotions and character traits in real-time as they speak. Beyond Verbal licenses its technology for use in consumer applications. The first mobile application using its API will launch in the near future, and Beyond Verbal is building a web tool that allows people to use the platform to analyze voices. The company launched in May 2013. The funding was led by angel investor Kenges Rakishev, and new VC Genesis Angels. Read more on VentureBeat.

MadeiraCloud nabs $1.5M from Sequoia for AWS-based visual cloud management

Amazon Web Services visualization startup MadeiraCloud has raised $1.5 million from Sequoia Capital its first round of funding with the promise of helping developers better understand how their applications fit into the cloud. MadeiraCloud offers a relatively painless drag-and-drop tool for designing, provisioning, monitoring, and managing an application stack and cloud resources inside AWS. The company launched its public beta in June 2012 and claims to service small startups all the way up to teams within large enterprises. It now oversees management of more than $25 million worth of AWS resources. Read more on VentureBeat.

Workspace solutions platform LiquidSpace raises $1.3M in follow-on funds

LiquidSpace, the two-pronged workspace solutions platform, announced today that it has raised $1.3 million in follow-on investment to the $6 million raised in the company’s second round of funding that closed earlier this year. The San Francisco-based company serves two sets of customers: modern professionals who use the platform to book office or meeting spaces instantly, and companies who employ LiquidSpace to manage their workforce’s workspace needs. It boasts over 2,000 workspaces and meeting rooms in over 250 U.S. cities. The follow-on investment comes from two strategic partners: Steelcase and CBRE Group. Both have global experience in workplace strategy and commercial real estate. Read more on VentureBeat.

RingDNA releases mobile call tracking app to ‘make sales reps smarter’ 

RingDNA released a voice communications platform today that provides sales reps with relevant, contextual data when they need it to make the most of their sales calls. The company also announced raising a $1.9 million seed round. This iPhone app integrates with Salesforce, Twilio, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and company news feeds. When a call comes in, RingDNA delivers CRM data, social media activity, and behavioral marketing information to eliminate “blind spots” and give reps “actionable business opportunities” in real time. The funding came from angel investors. Read more on VentureBeat.

Plated serves up $1.4M from investors

We’d all love to whip up a delicious home cooked meal on-the-fly, but then a lack of time, inspiration, and motivation get in the way. Plated eliminates excuses by making home-cooking as easy as possible. Each week, the startup posts a selection of chef-designed meals. You choose the meals you want and order online. Plated delivers all the ingredients to your door with everything portioned out and all you have to do is put it together. Pricing is on an a la carte or monthly subscription basis. According to a report in TechCrunch, Plated has raised a $1.4 million seed round led by ff Venture Capital along with TechStars and angel investors.

Photo Credit: Debby Wong / Shutterstock.com

I visited Microsoft’s office in San Francisco yesterday to meet with some of these startups and learn more about the program and its progress.

(Also, so I could tell my Bubby I met some nice Israelis.)

Hanan Lavy is the accelerator director in Israel. He measures the program’s success based on how many startups get funding within a year, the average amount raised, and how many members of the current class refer startups to the next class. By these standards, Microsoft’s program is doing well. The second class graduated two weeks ago and 10 of the 13 companies have already raised funds. The average raise of the first class is around $900,000 and the number of applications has tripled.

“This was a new model for Microsoft to operate an accelerator fully owned and run by Microsoft,” he said. “We make sure the companies have a big vision, the entrepreneurs can execute, that a strong tech person is part of the core team, and that the participants are coachable and open-minded. Many startups get involved with what they think is a pain point, but it isn’t really.”

The program lasts for four months where the startups get out and talk to customers, iterate and develop the product, interact with mentors, and hone their pitch. At the end of it all, they come to the U.S. for marketing, fundraising, and publicity. While Israel has an active startup scene, a strong presence in the U.S. market is still important for growth.

Kitchenbug

Kitchenbug wants to tell the true story behind food. The startup uses natural language processing to analyze recipes and generate full nutritional data, as well as helpful clues to understanding what that data means.

Understanding the health impact of a dish is not as simple as checking calorie, fat and sugar content. A number of other factors are at play and people without extensive knowledge of nutrition may not be aware of the consequences of certain meals. Kitchenbug addresses this issue by attaching green or red icons to each dish that say things like “not very heart healthy” or “good for feeling full” or “bad choice for weight loss.” That way, instead of parsing through various dishes and nutrition resources, you can instantly know if a recipe is right for you.

The founders have known each other for 25 years and live close together in Israel. COO Dror Daliot said that they used to be “chin-up champions” who were fit, slim, and strong, and then “life happened.”

“I love my daughters but they are terrible for my diet,” he said during a demo. “Pancake mornings and evening pizzas are not the healthiest.  At a BBQ, I looked at my friends and our crumbling frames and said ‘guys, we have to do something about this.’ We decided to develop technology that takes any online recipe from any website and instantly provides dietary information you need.”

60 percent of the Western world is overweight and 25 percent is obese, with weight-related diseases and allergies on the rise. According to Daliot, recipes are the second biggest search category on the web with 2 billion searches a month, and almost 50 percent of Americans search for info about health food. The Kitchenbug founders are not alone in their efforts to prepare healthy, home-cooked meals.

Kitchenbug has a bookmarking button that collect recipes into an online recipe box. Clicking into an ingredient will yield a description and serving sizes can be easily adapted. The app is social so people can share recipes, follow others, and discover new recipes. The company launched a WordPress plugin in January for food bloggers and over 2,500 recipes have been published so far, receiving 40 million views in 100 days. In the pipeline for Kitchenbug are icons and filters for ideological, allergy, and religious constraints. The data is based on nutritional information from the USDA database, as well as food manufacturers and brands, Wikipedia, and FDA regulations.

The team has raised $650,000 to date.

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