ATDC/TAG CapVenture 2011 Notes

Tonight I had the chance to attend the CapVenture 2011 program put on by the ATDC and TAG. The panel, startup presenters, and fireside chat participants did a great job.

YouFinity

• Gift giving site around preferences and tastes
• Gift recs based on site, age, gender, preferences
• Example: favorite clothing colors in size and see a selection of matching items (comes from the Amazon.com Product API)
• Not event or item based (e.g. no wish lists)
• Revenue model: affiliate commissions, greeting card sales, ads, partnerships
• Goal of 2.5 – 5 million users in five years
• Raising $500k for ongoing customer acquisition and feature enhancements

NextInput

• Gives devices the power to feel
• Focused on touch tech market opportunity
• Applications in automative, consumer electronics, and medical devices
• Benefits: lower cost, more durable, and more efficient
• Works in more environments like with gloves and fingernails
• Revenue model is OEM (approx $1 per device)
• Raising $1M

Blue Mammoth Games

• Casual action MMO for your browser
• Virtual characters in a shared world
• Founded in May of 2009
• Raised $300k
• Opportunity: 115 million play casual games and MMOs bring in $8 billion/year
• Dungeon Blitz – game built for casual gamer that rewards playing smaller chunks of the game
• Launched 3/25 and over 16,000 users
• Raising $700k
• Want to expand to console and tablet as well as more games
• http://www.dungeonblitz.com

CodeGuard

• Time machine for websites that automatically backs up the site on a regular basis
• Serves the 50M SMB companies on shared hosting platforms
• 95% of market is underserved
• SaaS recurring revenue at $10/mo/site
• Expanding development and marketing

GetOneRewards

• Digital version of customer loyalty cards for retailers
• Install an iPad at register and customers put their phone number in on the spot
• Product gives more insight into loyal customers
• Ability to more effectively segment customers
• Focus in on bringing repeat loyal customers to clients
• Email marketing and Facebook integration
• Target: Counter service restaurants and salons
• Started in April 2010
• 61 locations and 30,000 users
• Raising $250k

PinDrop Security

• Bringing trust back to the phone
• Won GRA/TAG 2011 business launch 2011
• Phone fraud is easy to do via caller ID spoofing
• Technology that shows every phone calls leaves a unique fingerprint based on the phone
• Anti-Fraud Call Analyzer – deployed on site at a bank
• Financial institutions, law enforcement, and time and attendance opps
• Caller ID verification market: $540 million in 2011
• Raised $255k
• Raising $500k angel round

Tom Noonan – Fireside Chat Notes

• Sold his condo in Boston and used his wife’s 401k to help fund ISS
• Had 35 credit cards with different variations of his name to help fund ISS
• “It’s hard to be an entrepreneur if you can’t sell”
• Mentors include John Imlay and Sam Nunn
• Sam helped get ISS in the center of the world policy debates about internet law
• “Boards are under-emphasized in early stage companies”
• “Board can’t have any friends (don’t recruit existing friends but rather find outsiders with good chemistry)”
• 50% of the connected network’s energy is waster
• $4 trillion a year total on electricity
• 112 term sheets in four weeks for JouleX
• 26 early stage investments not counting TechOperators
• People send signals of coachability
• “I find selfless people that are motivated — I’ll fund them all day long”
• ISS management team had great chemistry but weren’t friends
• 99% of the ISS success credit was to management team and employees
• Couldn’t raise VC money until they signed three big customers

The ATDC/TAG event was well done and it was great to see these new startups present.