Austin, TX (PRWEB) December 7, 2010 – Nineteen leading wireless startups gathered in Austin Dec. 1st to flex their innovative muscles for more than 40 venture capitalists and angel investors at the fourth annual Wireless Seed Stage Forum. The Austin Technology Incubator’s Wireless Incubator, in partnership with the Central Texas Angel Network, hosted the Forum at Austin’s Long Center for the Performing Arts.
In WSSF’s first three years, nearly 50 percent of participating startups have gone on to receive funding. Looking to continue its position as the premier stage for wireless startups to connect with investors, WSSF selected five of the 19 participating companies to give a 10-minute pitch and field five minutes of questions on their venture.
Joining the likes of Calxeda, Tabbed Out, Edioma, Spacetime Studios and GameSalad, who have each closed series-A funding from leading venture capital firms, the following five presented to the Forum crowd.
- Famigo – (Winner of WSSF 2010 Best Pitch) The mobile social gaming platform for families.
- SocialSmack – Socially-filtered consumer ratings and reviews platform powered by game technology, and a unique engagement model for brands to join the conversation.
- Waldo Health – Developing disruptive technology for use in home-based care and management of chronic illness.
- Nitero – Provides the next generation of multi-gigabit Wi-Fi in an industry-leading, low-power and low-cost package.
- Audiotoniq – Builds more affordable, easier to use and easier to acquire hearing aids and complementary smartphone applications so everyone with hearing loss can have a better life.
As in years past, participating companies represented various sectors of the wireless industry, including biomedical, mobile gaming, location-based advertising, wireless infrastructure, wireless hardware and others. “In addition to our five stellar pitches, the fourteen demo companies to round out the floor at this year’s summit represented the full breadth of Austin’s compelling wireless startup scene,” said Bart Bohn, director of ATI-Wireless Incubator and host of WSSF.
Below are the remaining 14 companies who demonstrated at this year’s Forum.
8th Evolution
Anatasol
Argia
BestBuzz
GetYa Learn On
Hurricane Party
Innovate Wireless Health
justtext.me
LifeProof Cases
MogoTXT
SMSRGENCY
SurfaceInk
Wellala
Wibole
More than renewing its vow to showcase sheer entrepreneurial talent and the future leaders of the wireless industry, this year’s Forum also played host to a refined class of investors, better positioned to give more than just money.
“From the beginning, it’s been a goal of ours to help investors deepen their understanding of and engagement in the wireless space,” said Bohn. “As evidenced by the insightful Q&A sessions and in-depth one-on-one engagement at the demo tables throughout the afternoon, our work has paid off. Many of our participating entrepreneurs told us this was the best pitching event they’d been to, precisely because the large number of high quality investors.”
The Forum is the ATI-Wireless Incubator’s second event in two weeks this fall, coming just in the wake of the eighth annual Texas Wireless Summit. The Nov. 16th keynote- and panel-driven Summit put under one Austin roof some of the wireless industry’s most compelling thought leaders and hottest startups.
About the Austin Technology Incubator
The Austin Technology Incubator is a nonprofit unit of The University of Texas at Austin that harnesses business, government and academic resources to provide strategic counsel, operational guidance and infrastructure support to its member companies to help them transition from early stage ventures to successful technology businesses. Since its founding in 1989, ATI has worked with more than 200 companies, helping them raise close to $750 million in investor capital. ATI is a key program of the IC2 Institute at The University of Texas at Austin. For more information, visit http://www.ati.utexas.edu.
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