Friday, July 25, 2008

Currensee, was named Tradual

Genotrope Record: Tradual now named Currensee

Formation Date: may 2008

Funding Status: Series A

Investors: North Bridge Ventures

Founders or Execs past companies: AppIQ, Akorri

Industry: Financial Web, B2C

Offering Description: stealth mode social media website focused on international currency trading

Monday, July 21, 2008

Byledge

Genotrope Record: Byledge

Citation URL: stealth mode

Formation Date: 2008

Funding Status: Stealth, Seed

Investors: Kepha Partners

Founders or Execs past companies: Vertica Systems

Industry: Software, financial?

Offering Description: ?

Thursday, July 17, 2008

NSWG Meetup talk by @bokardo, Designing for Signup

Josh Porter, author and social design expert is giving a short talk, Designing for Sign-Up, tonight at the NSWG meetup in Newburyport. This is our regular monthly meeting at the Grog.

If you can make it, it is sure to be informative as well as a good time as always.

Boston Tech Legacy: Booklink, the beginning of the Bubble in Boston

Booklink was a browser company founded by Bill Hawkins. It could be designated as the first internet company to benefit from the internet bubble 1.0 in the Boston area. Nine people from Interleaf formed the company in 1994 and within nine months had sold to AOL for $30 million. The story goes that Microsoft was in the process of putting together an offer to purchase the company when AOL swooped in at the last minute to win the deal.

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The company was funded by a little known company CMG, (College Marketing Group) that sold textbooks via direct marketing to students. It turned out to be a very wise investment as AOL stock zoomed up thousands of percentage points and the resulting return for CMG was around $250 million.

This slug of cash became the basis for the firm CMGi an internet holding company at one time valued in the billions. The CMGi story is a case study in Bubble 1.0 but we will leave it for another day.

Another point of interest, Booklink (AOL) executives were key witnesses in the DOJ trial against Microsoft regarding the browser war between Netscape and IE.

Boston area Companies purchased by CA Companies

Whoops, I found this in my drafts. Somehow I failed to post this. So it may be a little dated, but still interesting information.

Paul Maeder of Highland Capital created a very interesting slide #14 showing the Boston Companies that have helped make CA or out of state companies grow. This slide is from a talk at the Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council’s annual meeting in February titled. How MA Gets Her Groove Back.

We obviously know how to create startup here. Seems we might need to hold on or hold out a little longer to create those $ Billion Dollar anchor companies.

Thursday, July 10, 2008

Carespace

Genotrope Record: Carespace

Formation Date: 2007

Funding Status: Seed Round

Investors: Angels ?

Founders or Execs past companies: Guardent, EMC

Industry: Consumer Web, Health Care

Offering Description: Carespace.com is the first Internet based platform that enables connections, provides utility, and organizes information for caregivers wherever they may live and whomever they are caring for.

Spring Partners

Genotrope Record: Spring Partners

Formation Date: 2007

Funding Status: Seed

Investors: Battery Ventures ?

Founders or Execs past companies: Third Screen Media

Industry: Consumer Web

Offering Description: developing a customizable productivity platform that helps individuals and their families get things done faster and more effectively.

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Boston TechCocktail 2 July 24th 6:30 PM

TechCocktail is coming back to Boston for the next TECH cocktail event this summer. You may recall, last fall the super  TECH cocktail Boston 1 which brought out a great crowd and showed off some local startups.

Make sure you RSVP as the event is filling up fast.  See you there!

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

TIE Boston Leadership Program

This is a great program sponsored by TIE Boston. The idea is to nurture emerging young leaders (ages 24 - 35) that aspire to be CEO of their own company one day. They are currently Accepting Applications for the Class of 2009! Go For it!

TIE Boston is one of the foremost organizations that fostering innovation and startup culture here in the Boston area.

Thursday, July 3, 2008

LuckyCal

Genotrope Record: LuckyCal

Citation URL:

Formation Date: 2007

Funding Status: Self Funded

Investors: Founders

Founders or Execs past companies: Ambient Devices

Industry: Consumer Web

Offering Description: LuckyCal finds LuckyCal Events, or matches, for you. LuckyCal Events can be anything from: your favorite band playing in a nearby club, last minute tickets to a game, a distant friend travelling nearby on business, or when a local friend can meet for lunch - the possibilities are endless!

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

nkdGuru

Genotrope Record: nkdGuru

Citation URL: http://www.youbethevc.com/finalists

Formation Date: July 2006

Funding Status: Seed Round

Investors: Bang Ventures

Founders or Execs past companies: Wachovia Securities

Industry: Consumer Web

Offering Description: nkdGuru [na-ked-Gu-ru] is an online academic and career oriented community that connects top talent with individuals from leading companies and graduate programs through mentorship