The first 32 Demo Companies at the CED Tech Venture Conference pitched investors Tuesday at the event in downtown Raleigh, seeking an aggregate of $24,350,000 in financing to expand and grow their startups. And more pitches were made for more cash on Wednesday.
More than 450 investors, industry executives and entrepreneurs attended the event, CED’s 29th annual showcase event for Triangle startups, according to event organizers, and a bigger crowd turned out at Wednesday’s final sessions.
The CED Tech Venture Conference gives early- and growth-stage startup companies the opportunity to showcase their technologies and pitch investors. Each company received two minutes on stage to present their company and business model to investors and a booth in the Conference’s “Demo Room.”
The firms ranged from idea, like Parking Initiative, the recent winner of the first-annual NC Datapalooza, held last week in Raleigh, to Validic, which just closed a significant round of investment led by Mark Cuban.
Here’s your update from the first day of the CED Tech Venture Conference 2013, in order of their appearance on stage, pitching to investors. (WRALTechWire will have second-day coverage later.)
- Adzerk
This Durham-based startup is a SaaS ad publisher that earlier in the year received notoriety on Reddit. The company is not currently raising money, though is always open to hearing from investors, said founder and CEO James Avery.
The company previously raised $1.2 million in multiple rounds, employs 12 people locally, and has increased total ad impressions from 2.5 billion in December 2012 to 18.6 billion in July 2013, said Avery.
Adzerk is also generating additional revenue, increasing revenues during this time by 300 percent, said Avery, and “is approaching a run rate of close to $2 million.”
- Arcametrics Systems, Inc.
“Arcametrics is solving a huge probem that is costing businesses billions of dollars,” said Paolo DiVincenzo, CEO of Arcametrics Systems.
They launched their product in June, and the company is already revenue positive, said DiVencenzo. The product helps advertisers reach a better market segment of potential consumers by studying more than 2,000 online and offline attributes for a given customer.
“On average, our targeting delivers three times the results,” said DiVencenzo, “for the same cost.” One test delivered results that were 47 times better than their client’s previous advertising efforts.
The company was $17,000 in the black in July, said DiVencenzo, and has signed more than 11 clients.
- Tuee
This Startup Factory alumn received follow-on funding from the group to the tune of $40,000, adding an undisclosed amount of angel funding soon after.
The company, headed by co-founder and CEO Vikram Rao, has extended their client list to include restaurants like Mellow Mushroom and more than 20 other popular Triangle venues.
The company is building a robust email client, said Rao, which will give their clients a highly-personalized outreach mechanism to compliment their guest management system.
Tuee currently provides restaurants with tablet devices loaded with Tuee software, said Rao, giving restaurant managers an opportunity to receive real-time feedback and make adjustments on the fly.
Chris Evans, a local technology entrepreneur and proponent of the Aakash Tablet, recently dropped off a tablet to the company, said Rao, which is investigating the platform as a delivery mechanism and could save the startup and its clients a significant amount of money.
- NeuroSpire
“Neuromarketing allows us to look at people’s actual brain activity,” Jake Stauch, co-founder and CEO, “and shows that it is a more accurate predictor of consumer decisions.”
But neuromarketing hasn’t been fully adopted in advertising, said Stauch, mostly because it has historically been as expensive as $75,000 and up to two weeks to study the results.
NeuroSpire has developed technology that lowers the cost to $5,000, said Stauch, and in the past year, generated more than $65,000 in revenue.
The company is raising $500,000, said Stauch, in order to ramp up their sales process, deploy marketing across multiple channels, and iterate on their current product line.
- Offline Media
“Within 10 miles of your house, there are hundreds of unique experiences,” said David Shaner, co-founder and CEO of Offline Media.
The company creates experiences for its users by working with local businesses and vendors to offer group deals and leverage the Offline Media marketing channel.
The company is experiencing growth, and with $250,000 already invested in the venture, their platform is receiving 60,000 hits per month with a budget of zero for marketing, said Shaner.
The company plans to raise an additional seed round, and is targeting $400,000 from angel investors or syndicates.
- Klever
Klever is operating on a $350,000 investment from friends and family. The initial seed investment, said founder and CEO Phil Verghis, enabled the company to develop and launch its beta project and initiate conversations with companies like Oracle and Salesforce.
The beta platform launched on July 2, 2013, said Verghis, and a customer testimonial at the end of the month read “I’ve learned more in three weeks with Klever than I did in two years on my own.”
It’s a promising qualitative mark for the young company, which is meeting with investors but unsure if it will take investment. It depends on how the partnership conversations with Salesforce turn out, said Verghis.
- Leasalytics
More than 44 million Americans rent or lease property, said Rob Whitley, co-founder and CEO of Leasalytics, and the majority of this property is managed by leasing agents and property management companies.
The two leading property management companies have acquired a combined 33 startups, said Whitley, giving exit potential to Leasalytics, which helps property managers understand the metrics and close ratios of their leasing agents.
The proprietary software also enables companies to optimize how leasing agents are deployed, and ultimately can help eliminate close to $500 million in lost revenue, said Whitley.
The company is currently raising $200,000 as a seed round.
- Dibs Rewards
Brad Halferty, the entrepreneur who launched and grew Twongo, a daily-deals service, is back to work with small businesses and eliminate the negatives that small businesses experience with daily deal offers.
His new company, Dibs Rewards, “helps merchants so they never have to use another daily deal,” said Halferty. Unlike daily deal sites, said Halferty, Dibs clients will gain access to the full Dibs marketing list, and pay a subscription fee rather than share revenue generated from completing a deal.
In an estimated $20 billion market, Halferty plans to raise $250,000 to execute on his “first-mover strategy.” The private beta has launched, and a dozen customers are currently using the platform, said Halferty.
- DigaForce
“Marketers are shooting in the dark on social,” said founder and CEO Anthony Pompliano, “and have no clue who these people are.”
DigaForce enables social marketers to understand who its target customers are in order to better serve advertising that matches their purchasing behavior and interests, said Pompliano. This process is called “identity stitching,” said a company statement, and delivers more accurate measurements at a lower price point.
The company is currently working with ESPN, said Pompliano, and is receiving great feedback from current clients.
- OneMorePallet.com
Imagine that you’re the general manager of a small manufacturing company that ships a pallet of product a day, but you’re paying for a truck that could hold six.
There’s waste in the current system, said founder and CEO Bill Cunningham of OneMorePallet.com, which is why the company developed a platform to connect small businesses that ship pallets of materials with trucks that could fit at least one more pallet.
The marketplace allows small businesses to bid for available pallet spots on trucks that will be picking up or delivering materials nearby, and represents a huge potential cost savings for small manufacturers, said Cunningham.
The company is currently raising $500,000 and plans to use the funds to enhance their sales and marketing efforts.
- echoBase, Inc.
This Wake Forest-based company has built a platform that can take a desktop application and automatically re-write it to perform its functions on other platforms, like mobile phones, tablets, or in the future, Google Glass.
This solves a basic problem in IT, said Rod Miller, co-founder and CEO of echoBase. The company has deployed their product in the healthcare market, and is currently raising $5 million in funding from venture capitalists or through angel networks.
The company has previously raised $3 million in total funding.
- Finder411
97 percent of local search activity is done online, said Tonia Zampieri, co-founder and CMO of Finder411.
Given that national brands dominate the PPC adversiting and SEO advertising on Google, said Zampieri and her co-founder Steve Doyle, and that small businesses don’t have the time or resources to compete in this domain, the Finder411 platform will give them the social media results that small businesses need.
The company offers three tiers of pricing for small businesses, verified customer reviews and customer engagement tools.
The company will be raising $250,000 in the next six months, said the founding team.
- Pluribus Systems
Pluribus Systems was founded in 2011 and seeks to revolutionize electronic and mobile payments.
The company, which provides single-use credit card numbers to make secure online transactions, said founder and CEO David Foster, “is the first digital wallet to actually do something.”
The company is seeking $500,000 to pursue partnerships with banking institutions, said Foster.
- FlexReceipts
This Orlando, Fl.-based company is seeking office space in the Triangle and plans to raise $1 million in capital through venture groups or angel syndicates.
FlexReceipts provides brick and mortar businesses to provide enhanced digital receipts to their customers.
GNC is in the process of rolling the technology out to its 3,300 stores nationwide, said FlexReceipts founder and CEO Tomas Diaz.
The company is currently in the due diligence process with RTP Capital, said Diaz.
- HoudiniEsq
More than 5,000 law firms use the HoudiniEsq platform each day, said company founder and CEO Frank Rivera, and they’re accessing important data across a variety of devices.
The technology is simple, said Rivera, because it provides lawyers access to their data across a wide variety of devices, and provides it in real time.
The company is cash-flow positive, said Rivera, and is on track to exceed $1 million in revenue in 2013, according to recent projections.
- BoostSuite
Aaron Houghton and Daniel Smith, co-founders of BoostSuite, are about to hit their 10,000th customer.
On average, the startup’s clients are receiving an increase of 700 unique visitors each month at an average cost of $19 per month, said Smith. Compared to Google AdWords budgets, which could cost as much as $2,000, the decision is a no-brainer for small businesses.
The company has experienced revenue growth in each quarter of 2013, said Smith, and is currently seeking $500,000 in funding by the end of 2013.
Houghton is the co-founder of iContact, which was acquired by Vocus for $162 million
- WedPics
The company, founded as DejaMi, pivoted in August 2012 to serve a specific niche market: weddings.
It’s a large industry, said company founder and CEO Justin Miller, worth $100 billion annually, and WedPics is targeting the $10 billion slice earmarked for wedding photography.
The company is experiencing rapid growth, said Miller, serving more than 3,000 weddings each weekend and users uploading more than 1 million photos each week. This represents 8 percent of the US wedding market.
WedPics is currently raising their Series A, targeting $3 million to scale their business, said Miller.
- FoodLogic
The company has developed a platform for sharing food safety information, said president Andrew W. Kennedy. The company, whose parent company is privately-held Clarkston Consulting, is not currently raising money, but does want “to save the cheeseburger.”
- INRFOOD
“The US is the most food abundant nation in the world,” said Keval Mehta, CEO of INRFOOD, “and yet is one of the most nutrient deprived.”
“How do you trust that the food that you’re providing to your family is safe, healthy and nutritious,” asked Mehta.
Upon scanning the barcode of more than 300,000 products, the INRFOOD application will analyze the ingredients and notify you of any potential allergens or health concerns that are personalized to your health profile, said Mehta.
The application also boasts a feature, MyPlate, which allows individual users real-time feedback that could help modify individual behavior, said Mehta, “the holy grail in the healthcare field.”
“I left the field of medicine,” said Mehta, because the tendency is to provide reactive care. “I wanted to do something more about it,” said Mehta.
The company, bootstrapped for the last two years, has received grant funding from NC IDEA and won the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Healthcare Innovations competition. The company is currently seeking an undisclosed amount of funding.
- Keona Health
Keona Health is in the process of converting their trial clients, including UNC-Chapel Hill and Tulane University, into permanent paying ones.
Using the Keona Health technology, an average 20-person medical practice could save as much as $800,000 annually by reducing the staff time on the phone systems.
The company, led by CEO Oakkar Oakkar, recently closed a $550,000 seed round and plans to start fundraising for a Series A round worth close to $2.5 million in the next six months.
- Validic
More than 250 healthcare mobile applications enter the Apple Store each month, said Ryan Beckland, co-founder of Validic.
This poses a huge problem for healthcare providers, said Beckland, because companies aren’t prepared to custom-build integrations for each application.
Validic solves this problem, said Beckland, by providing a single API integration that covers more than 75 of the most popular mobile applications. The company continues to expand that marketplace, said Beckland, and there’s huge potential for growth.
The company recently received investment from Mark Cuban, so is not currently raising additional funding. The company is, however, looking for partners and potential healthcare IT applications to place into their marketplace.
- Arcato Laboratories
“I want you to remember when you had braces,” said founder Bob Jordan, “and it hurt.” There’s very little that you could have done to alleviate that pain, said Jordan, which is why Arcato developed OraWax, a dental wax with benzocaine, a pain reliever.
The company is currently in term sheet discussions with the Piedmont Angel Network, and undergoing discussions with three other angel syndicates, and is in the process of raising $2 million.
- Novocor Medical Systems, Inc.
“Cardiac arrest kills thousands,” said Tony Voiers, founder and CEO, yet there is a medical technology that could help save lives.
Novocor has licensed technology out of NC State University that enables emergency medical service technicians to induce therapeutic hypothermia through the use of HypoCare.
HypoCare can be easily stored in ambulances, fire trucks, helicopters, and other emergency vehicles, said Voiers.
The company is seeking $1.5 million in funding in order to get FDA approval. The company closed $1 million of their target goal on August 28, and is now seeking an additional $500,000 to complete their Series A round.
- Physcient
Physcient develops medical device products that speed patient recovery. The handheld device developed by the company, DifferentialDissector™, said Hugh Crenshaw, CEO of Physcient, enables physicians to deliver care quicker, safer and more effectively than alternatives.
“It’s a new class of instrument,” said Crenshaw, “the underlying technology is simple and protectable.”
The company, founded in March 2007, has previously raised $2.25 million from a variety of sources, and anticipates a Series B of approximately $3.5 million in the next 12-14 months. The company is seeking approximately $400,000 in order to close their Series A round and bring their products to market.
- The Parking Initiative
Last week, the Parking Initiative, led by Ian Henshaw, won the first-annual NC Datapalooza, an open-source competition supported by HQRaleigh’s Jason Widen, NC State University, and a variety of other partners.
The result of the open-source incubator is The Parking Initiative, which seeks to use public data to inform drivers about available parking spaces in downtown metro areas.
The company plans to remain lean, and bootstrap their development as they continue to grow to serve metros like Raleigh, Richmond and Atlanta.
- AddShoppers
The Charlotte-based company recently closed $750,000 in seed funding to help more than 10,000 retailers get better results from advertising.
“If it can’t be measured, it can’t be managed,” said company founder Chad Ledford, which is why the company developed the platform.
With a planned $2.5 million Series A in the future, the Charlotte-based company continues to experience 15-20 percent month-over-month growth, said Ledford.
- Groundfloor
Brian Dally, who helped built Republic Wireless within Bandwidth.com, is on to another startup, and seeking to disrupt yet another archaic industry: finance.
In particular, Dally seeks to raise an initial seed round of $150,000 to demonstrate proof of concept and an additional round of $450,000 to bring the product to market.
The disruptive technology opens real estate investment to any interested party under existing securities law, and enables any investor to fund transactions and build their own portfolios of properties.
- PopUp
PopUp is a mobile application that lets people leave and discover notes at specific locations.
“It’s like virtual sticky notes,” said Dov Cohn, co-founder and CEO, recanting a testimonial from a user.
PopUp started in late 2012, launched through The Startup Factory, and received $200,000 in angel funding in May 2013. With three co-founders, PopUp
500 new users (CoA $1.38), 60% open rate, 2,800 popups delivered.
“We’ll be going out in Q4 this year and raising our first equity round,” said Cohn.
- Royalty Exchange
Royalty Exchange creates a marketplace where those who own royalty rights – musicians, authors, and intellectual property holders – can sell to investors.
It’s an innovative strategy that gives royalty holders the opportunity to receive an up-front lump sum payment from investors and allow those investors to benefit from the long-term gains.
The company recently closed a $2 million Series A from venture capitalists, and is not currently pursuing funding.
- TerraHub
A RENCI spinoff, TerraHub provides a common platform to enable better real estate development for large manufacturing plants or energy facilities through a better understanding of graphic and map data.
The company, led by founder Jefferson Heard, is currently raising a $750,000 seed round with the goal of establishing 5 percent market share in 2014. Each client represents a potential $75 million project over a 15 year time span, said Heard.
- Spreedly
The company, headed by CEO Justin Benson, is focused on proving online payments. It seeks to help consumers retain control of their credit card information, ensure the flexibility of choice in credit, and optimize transactions, said Benson. Think of it as a “credit card vault in the cloud,” said Benson.
The company closed a $500,000 seed round in May, and as a result has experienced a 30 percent growth in revenue month-over-month, said Benson, processing more than 100,000 credit card transactions.
- Sustainable Industrial Solutions
Sustainable Industrial Solutions – or SIS – implements energy efficiency solutions for large manufacturing facilities.
Think Wal-Mart, and all of its suppliers. The company is coming off of partnership discussions with the Fortune 100 company, said SIS co-founder and CIO Mason Weems, who will be piloting the SIS technology at manufacturing centers in North Carolina.
RJ Reynolds, one of the world’s largest tobacco producers, is also interested in deploying the company’s technology, piloting the solution at the Santa Fe Natural Tobacco plant in Santa Fe, NM.
SIS has previously raised $300,000 in seed funding, and is currently seeking between $2.5 and $5 million in venture funding in order to scale operations.
