Monday, September 29, 2008

Local Web Companies to Watch

We keep tabs on a lot of local companies using the Compete Dashboard.

Two that have recently enjoyed major user growth spurts are Swaptree and CitySquares.

Swaptree



CitySquares



We wish them the best as they seem well on the way towards growing significant user bases.

Friday, September 26, 2008

SnapYap

Genotrope Record: SnapYap

Funding Status: Seed

Investors: ?

Founders or Execs past companies: Gamelogic

Industry: Web Consumer Video creation

Offering Description: SnapYap.com, where video calling and messaging is simple, fun, and free for everyone. SnapYap is a video communication tool that allows you to participate in live video calls, record video messages, and send and receive video emails with absolutely no downloads.


Thursday, September 11, 2008

Killer VC Pitch Deck

Furqan Nazeeri has one of the best Boston based blogs covering the subject of startups. As a serial entrepreneur, he help found Pivot Solutions an Eze Castle spinout and is currently the founder of Virid.us an online community focused on green issues at work.

His most recent post Killer VC Pitch Deck Appendix is the latest example of the practical advice he dishes on a weekly basis.

I believe he started his blog as an EIR with Softbank Capital and now continues as a startup CEO. If you haven't read Altgate do so as you will be rewarded with an entrepreneurs perspective on the startup world and a prolific amount of insight.

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Umber Systems

Genotrope Record: Umber Systems

Formation Date: 2008

Funding Status: Seed Round

Investors: ?

Founders or Execs past companies: Tatara, Eleven

Industry: Wireless

Offering Description: VC funded Stealth mode

Epernicus

Genotrope Record: Epernicus

Funding Status: Seed Round

Investors: Private

Founders or Execs past companies: Cyberkinetics, Schematic and Idiom

Industry: Health, B2B

Offering Description: Epernicus is a professional networking platform for health and life scientists. Our goal is to connect researchers with their real world scientific networks, enabling them to find the resources they need to advance their work.

Waiting for Web Innovators

Web Innovators is a great venue for aspiring Web startups to gain recognition here in theHub. David Beisel deserves a lot of credit for bringing out the community and promoting the web startup ecosystem. The next event is Monday the 15th of September.

At this point however, the events popularity makes it increasingly difficult for new companies to land one of the coveted presenter spots. We all know that picking which company will be successful is almost random and requires a portfolio approach to be successful. What that means is that there are probably many deserving start ups out there waiting their turn for Web Inno or "rejects" that do not fit the subjective profile of the organizers.

For you "refuses" out there, why not get a little exposure here on Buzz in theHub. We can promise an online audience at least ten times larger than Web Inno, and some free exposure.

If you are interested, please send us your information (see contact page for format) and we will publish it in an upcoming post.

Maybe if we get enough interest, we can start a smaller forum with a more intimate and interactive environment where startup teams can give and receive feedback on their betas.

Let us know what you think and send us your profiles when you are ready.

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Dympol

Genotrope Record: Dympol

Formation Date: 2008

Funding Status: Seed Round

Investors: Friends and Family

Founders or Execs past companies: The CMJ Network, Visiblepath, Microsoft

Industry: Consumer Web, Online Entertainment

Offering Description: DYMPOL's mission is to ‘revolutionize the economy of culture’ using technology to empower consumers to search for and purchase entertainment products at discount prices, afford brand marketers with the opportunity to harness the broad appeal of entertainment to increase the efficiency of interactive advertising campaigns, and to maximize revenues for entertainment producers.

* Seeking a CTO, company to be located at the Cambridge Innovation Center