Startups

Startups and Investors Bet on the Drone Economy #makerbusiness

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 20:03:08 GMT

Source: www.adafruit.com --- Wednesday, June 19, 2013
Startups and Investors Bet on the Drone Economy @ Entrepreneur.com . Entrepreneurs and investors are betting on a future full of flying robots that can be programmed to do anything from survey crops or wildlife to delivering vaccines to remote villages in Africa. It may sound a little like something out of an episode of The Jetsons, but the reality is the Federal Aviation Administration is required to implement regulations to integrate commercial drones into the national airspace by 2015, meaning flying robots are going to become a lot more common in the U.S. But entrepreneurs aren’t waiting for the FAA deadline before building their Startups. The moment is too ripe with opportunity to not jump in the commercial drone business now, those in the burgeoning space say. “It’s just one of those moments,” said Chris Anderson, co-founder and chief executive of 3D Robotics, which makes unmanned automated vehicles (UAVS). “It’s the economy at scale. Those technologies that used to be incredibly expensive are now very cheap and getting better and faster than any other technology in history.” ...

Social Startups: Nexgate Protects Social Media Messaging from Within and Without

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 15:46:25 GMT

Source: socialmediatoday.com --- Wednesday, June 19, 2013
“The reality today is you need technology to automate enforcement of social media guidelines and policies,” said Nexgate co-founder and CEO Devin Redmond. “Put guardrails on the roadside and let people go as long as the safeguards are in place.” ...

Turner Picks Five Media Startups for Summer Accelerator Program

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 13:00:00 GMT

Source: adage.com --- Wednesday, June 19, 2013
While some traditional media companies try to keep upstarts like Aereo from shaking up their business models, Turner Broadcasting is trying to join in on the disruption. Last year the owner of CNN, TBS and TNT introduced a startup accelerator called Media Camp to cozy up with companies trying to shape the new media landscape. Now it has selected five Startups for its second 12-week summer program in San Francisco: ChannelMeter, Cinemacraft, Meograph, Plumzi and Tomorrowish. “As you might expect, companies of our size and maturity often don’t move as fast as we’d like," said Balaji Gopinath, VP-emerging technology at Turner Broadcasting. "Here’s a way for us to spread out the innovation across the startup ecosystem and work collaboratively to define what entertainment might look like in the years to come.” The summer program aims to get participating early-stage outfits up to speed on the media industry. Each startup is assigned two executives as mentors from Turner or parent company Time Warner, and other media industry higher-ups -- not only Time Warner employees -- will drop in for dinners to meet with the Startups. Continue reading at AdAge.com ...

Startups Find Growth in Relaxation Beverages

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 10:00:07 GMT

Source: blog.surepayroll.com --- Wednesday, June 19, 2013
Are you the type of person who has to stop for a cup of coffee every morning on the way to work? Do you rely on energy drinks to get you to the end of your day? If so, you are just like tens of millions of people in the United States. However, it appears that there may be a shift away from these beverages in the near future. More so today than ever before, relaxation beverages are becoming a hit. Despite t he fact that the energy drink market is still growing in popularity at a fast rate, relaxation beverages are catching up in a hurry. What is a relaxation beverage? In short, these drinks are meant to promote relaxation and a better night’s sleep. As you can see, this is the opposite of energy drinks that are going to “get you wired” and help you stay awake and alert no matter the time of the day. According to a recent Forbes.com piece – 11 Hottest Industries For Start-Ups – this market is taking a huge leap. For example, many startup companies, all of which face a low barrier of entry (at least for the time being), have seen rapid growth. While this may be true, IBIS noted that success is not a sure thing for newcomers: “ Startups companies will need to attract the attention of potential buyers and win national contracts in order to monetize their success.” Here are some interesting stats from the Forbes.com piece: Annual Revenue Growth (2011-2016): 24.8% Annual Enterprise Growth (2011-2016): 10.2% Capital Intensity: Low 2011 P ...

Entrepreneurs Set To Fill Dubai's In5 Innovation Hub as UAE Tech Startups Continue to Attract ...

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 08:58:44 GMT

Source: www.me-newswire.com --- Wednesday, June 19, 2013
The In5 innovation hub, the UAE's newest hot spot for tech entrepreneurs and start-ups, is witnessing a significant uptake in applications from budding ICT entrepreneurs. The news follows findings of a report from Sindibad Business entitled Investment in Internet and Technology Startups in the Arab World which states that UAE tech Startups attracted an overall estimate of $74 Million from 2010 to 2012, the highest in the region. In5, which aims to supporting the development of the ICT start-up ecosystem in Dubai, was launched last month by Dubai Internet City (DIC), the Middle East and North's Africa's largest ICT community. As part of DIC's commitment to the development of the UAE's ICT industry, in5 will be participating in the Arabnet Digital Summit, the largest regional event for web and mobile businesses. ... ...

Fireside Chat w/ Gary Swart, CEO of oDesk - Startups Uncensored #38

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 08:47:22 GMT

Source: www.socaltech.com --- Wednesday, June 19, 2013
Wednesday, June 19, 2013 -- Fireside Chat w/ Gary Swart, CEO of oDesk - Startups Uncensored #38. his month's Startups Uncensored will be a fireside chat with oDesk CEO, Gary Swart hosted by Docstoc CEO, Jason Nazar. Gary Swart is the CEO of oDesk, the worlds largest online workplacewhich has more than 2.5 million registered contractors, and on which 9 million hours were worked in Q3 2012 alone. Gary is a thought leader in entrepreneurship; how best to hire and manage teams; and the future of work, including online work. See http://www.eventbrite.com/event/6394527203... (more) ...

Startups Blow It— Turn Down $100 Million; Microsoft Says They've Disrupted A Global Cybercrime Ri...

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 08:01:13 GMT

Source: www.domaining.com --- Wednesday, June 19, 2013
The Frager factor : Plus... You want your press release in the newspaper or on your local TV news. You may not know it, but the reporters you’re contacting want your story. However, there are a handful of things you’re doing right now that are driving all your contacts... Owen Frager These Startups May Have Blown It By Turning Down $100 Million... ...

Startups have till this Friday to apply to exhibit for free. Ireland is also off...

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 06:07:46 GMT

Source: www.facebook.com --- Tuesday, June 18, 2013
Startups have till this Friday to apply to exhibit for free. Ireland is also offering a program targeted at non-EU Startups Dublin Web Summit 2013 heads your way this October sgentrepreneurs.com The Dublin Web Summit 2013 is launching an opportunity for some of the hottest Startups in the world to exhibit for free. Last year almost 200 of the world’s top Startups including Vine, Wrapp and SmartThings attracted attention from 300 investors from Andreessen Horowitz, KPCB, Accel, Index, Atomic... ...

Yummy! 6 Popular Online Food Delivery Startups in India

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 03:03:28 GMT

Source: www.techinasia.com --- Tuesday, June 18, 2013
Online food delivery service is a growing industry in India as we’ve seen quite a few players making their mark in that space. Here we look at six popular online food delivery Startups that are helping India enjoy tastier lives at home: 1. FoodPanda Launched in March last year, Rocket Internet’s FoodPanda has rapidly become one of the major players in India to look out for. The startup now serves customers in 12 cities in India with 2,000 restaurant choices . Being a typical Rocket Internet portfolio company, FoodPanda recently raised a whopping $20 million to conquer the online food delivery service in eight Asian countries. Alexa ranking: FoodPanda India sits at 1,041st locally, with 12,323th position globally. 2. JustEat UK-based JustEat made its first move to the Indian market in 2011 by acquiring a majority stake in local startup HungryZone. Now JustEat delivers food from over 2,500 restaurants in India’s three cities of Mumbai, Bangalore, and Delhi-NCR. The company also handles online table bookings. JustEat comes prepared with a buckload of money too. Last year the startup raised $64 million in series C funding . JustEat partners with local lifestyle search engine Burrp for its online food ordering feature. Alexa ranking: JustEat is locally positioned at 2,617th. Its global ranking is 26,565th . 3. TastyKhana Started as early as 2007, TastyKhana now connects users to 3,000 restaurants located in seven cities in India. The ...

Startups Hyperfocus on iOS 7, Send Android To Back Burner.

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 23:22:51 GMT

Source: uncrunched.com --- Tuesday, June 18, 2013
Last week’s announcement of iOS 7 really shook things up in silicon valley. And it may not be what you think. Yes, people are excited to get to work on it. But app developers aren’t just putting a fresh face on their existing products. They’re rethinking their apps from the ground up, say a bunch of Startups I’ve spoken with. They’re looking at this as a whole new platform, as they should, and they know that first movers have all the advantages. Most people I’m talking to agree with Marco Arment , who says “iOS 7 is different. It isn’t just a new skin: it introduces entirely new navigational and structural standards far beyond the extent of any previous UI changes.” So how are Startups responding to the news? They’re “tearing up their Q3 product roadmap” and “starting from scratch,” say a few of the Startups I spoke to. “There are subtle but profound changes” says one. Daniel Raffel, Snapguide CEO (a CrunchFund company), says Android likely took a big hit with the announcement of iOS 7. Leading up to WWDC there had never been a better time for developers to invest big in Android. Now that investment is on hold, he says, as teams repriortize resources to develop for the iOS 7 launch. Another CEO I spoke to off the record today said that he’s leaving his Android client engineers on task (they’ve released both iOS and Android apps), but all UI/UX designers and engineers are focusing 100% on iOS 7. And another startup founder: “Andro ...

Hooman Radfar: Too many startups obsessed with media coverage

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 21:19:56 GMT

Source: www.bizjournals.com --- Tuesday, June 18, 2013
AddThis founder Hooman Radfar did an interesting Q&A with Tech Cocktail this week, covering a lot of ground in 600 or so words. It's definitely worth a read. What struck me most — besides his exhortation to not "be any platform's bitch," a reference to Facebook-dependence — was his take on the Startup-Media Industrial Complex. "I can’t count the number of companies I talk to that are obsessed with getting on TechCrunch and making sure the reporters love them," Radfar told Tech Cocktail.… ...

Mexico's Tech Startups Look To Overcome Barriers To Growth

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 19:52:00 GMT

Source: news.wbfo.org --- Tuesday, June 18, 2013
In the past decade, Mexico's tech industry has flourished, growing three times faster than the global average. Most of that growth has been fueled by demand from the United States. But as Mexico's Startups strive to make it in foreign markets, they say they need more engineers and ways to finance their growth. Softtek , Mexico's biggest technology services company, spans four continents and provides software support to a client base that includes Fortune 500 companies. ...

Follett launches $50 million fund for education startups

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 19:46:05 GMT

Source: www.bizjournals.com --- Tuesday, June 18, 2013
Educational materials publisher Follett Corp. is partnering with Atrium Capital to launch a $50 million venture capital fund to support early-stage education and technology companies. River Grove-based Follett, which also runs college bookstores, said the Follett Knowledge Fund aims to identify and invest in early-stage technologies that will make educational materials more accessible and affordable to students and educators. The company said the fund also will complement and extends its portfolio… ...

Ta Da! 6 Digital Media Startups Out Of London

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 19:24:36 GMT

Source: www.mediapost.com --- Tuesday, June 18, 2013
Over the past year, England's almost century-old media powerhouse the BBC has been searching for the most innovative digital media Startups based in London through its year-old accelerator program BBC Labs. And on Monday night, at an event in the offices of Wayra, BBC Labs announced its second class of six London-based digital media Startups that will enter into the accelerator program. The companies range from a startup making a branded captcha, to a new freelancer portfolio site, to video image recognition software. ...

The Right Way for Startups to Use Bitcoin

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 19:00:30 GMT

Source: tech.co --- Tuesday, June 18, 2013
So you’re thinking about using digital currency Bitcoin as part of your business? The virtual currency founded in 2009 is still too new to benefit most Startups, but it is popular enough to attract attention from regulators. So some companies could pioneer a new niche to profit from its potential to ease international payments and online sales. There is a huge opportunity to design an economy of businesses that accepts payments for goods and services using the virtual coin, which is not controlled by any government and is accepted worldwide, said Patrick Murck, general counsel of the Bitcoin Foundation , which acts as a hub for Bitcoin users. However, there is little need for more Bitcoin infrastructure businesses, such as currency exchanges that transfer Bitcoins into dollars, Murck explained. “Bitcoin is still an experimental thing, and you should only put into it the time and money you can afford to lose,” Murck said candidly. The companies best suited for Bitcoin payments are digital content providers, mobile application providers, social gaming companies, and companies that make international payments, Murck said. The reason for this is because one Bitcoin can be divided into fractions much smaller than a penny, allowing users to make small purchases on apps and games without transaction fees, he explained. Companies that accept international payments can also benefit from Bitcoin use because the digital currency eliminates ...

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Tue, 18 Jun 2013 17:56:39 GMT

Source: justtweetit.com --- Tuesday, June 18, 2013
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Investors lack quantum-computing startups to fund, so they’re turning to these guys

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 17:00:10 GMT

Source: gigaom.com --- Tuesday, June 18, 2013
Serguei Kouzmine, managing partner at the newly formed Quantum Wave Fund , would like very much to fund a startup pushing a commercial-grade quantum computer. But it’s too early to do that. Quantum computing promises to think about questions probabilistically, taking into consideration humongous data sets and spitting out answers much faster than traditional computing methods. Rather than process information in binary zeroes and ones, a quantum computer can accept any number between zero and one, or both. “What people sort of always miss is that it’s pretty similar to how humans think, except that it’s absolutely perfect,” said Kouzmine, who worked on nuclear reactors as a physicist in the Soviet Union. The problem is that a commercial-grade quantum computer doesn’t exist yet. D-Wave, the closest thing, has a few known commercial customers, but Kouzmine and other people don’t think it qualifies as a true quantum computer. And so Kouzmine and his partners are going after research and products that approach the quantum way. “What I am trying to push people to think about (is a) quantum calculator first. You have to start somewhere much simpler first,” Kouzmine said. Such a device is still now in lab tests and can only be used for finding the prime factors of a few numbers, Kouzmine said. But there are indeed Startups that have made strides in physics, materials science and other areas that could help bring about quantum computing d ...

Yogurt Billionaire Calls Out 'Cool' Startups

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 14:39:47 GMT

Source: www.huffingtonpost.com --- Tuesday, June 18, 2013
Technology Startups are all the rage right now. Just ask President Barack Obama… Pakistani tech entrepreneur Faizan is a perfect example of why we need #ImmigrationReform . Watch the video: http://t.co/k8fPT7c7h8 — Barack Obama (@BarackObama) May 16, 2013 …or New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg… When I started my own technology company in 1981, no one called it a start-up. They just called me crazy: http://t.co/0zhyfmOscP — Mike Bloomberg (@MikeBloomberg) June 16, 2013 Heck, even Rick Perry likes them. Heading over to an ETF event "Tech Success 2009." Bringing high tech investment and jobs to Texas. I'll post an op-ed on this tomorrow. — Rick Perry (@GovernorPerry) March 5, 2009 But as cities and states around the country seek to create their own versions of Silicon Valley , they could be overlooking another important investment opportunity—small manufacturers. At least, that’s what Chobani CEO Hamdi Ulukaya argued in his interview with USA Today. “Starting an app business or a social-media business…is cool,” Ulukaya said. “But what we really have to focus on is people who make things.” Small manufacturers, he explained, are the companies that truly “make a difference in their community and create a lot of jobs.” Ulukaya’s own success story illustrates the potential of small manufacturers to contribute to economic growth and improve the job market. The Turkish immigrant launched Chobani in 2007, after purchasing an old Kraft yogur ...

IBM Mentor Day – Applications are now open for innovative technology startups

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 14:13:24 GMT

Source: yourstory.in --- Tuesday, June 18, 2013
The role of the corporate industry is often understated in the startup space, but any healthy startup ecosystem requires good participation from them. India’s startup ecosystem grows healthier with every passing day and IBM looks to keep it that way. We at YourStory.in are proud to announce our partnership with IBM’s Global Entrepreneur program which is designed to help Startups build business around the smarter planet market opportunity and to provide support and resources in the areas which the Startups need the most. As a part of this, we urge entrepreneurs to apply for the program. The benefits for an entrepreneur by taking part in the IBM Global Entrepreneurship program are numerous. For starters, access the IBM smartcloud enterprise and tutorials to use its numerous products are free. Along with the promotion and branding that you and your venture get by associating with the program, IBM will also assign a manager to you when you are accepted in IBM Global Entrepreneur, who will provide one-to-one guidance through all stages of your project development. Another important part of the engagement for an entrepreneur are the private mentor days. Along with public ecosystem events, IBM will conduct private mentor days for entrepreneurs to give them the benefit of coaching and feedback from industry experts, IBM leaders, and successful entrepreneurs in their community. The first Mentor Day which will be held in Bangalore is on th ...

San Francisco Partners with ‘Sharing’ Startups to Save Lives During Disaster

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 13:25:06 GMT

Source: elitestv.com --- Tuesday, June 18, 2013
Technology is changing the way people respond to emergencies. When Hurricane Sandy resulted in dead and backed-up phone lines, people turned to social media to call for help, reassure the stranded... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]] ...