Posts Tagged ‘venture capital’

Wireless Seed Stage Forum Key Connector for First-Class Startups and Informed Investors

Friday, December 10th, 2010

wssf_logo-squareAustin, 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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Qualcomm’s Seed Investment Competition to Award More Than $750,000 in Prize Funding

Thursday, December 2nd, 2010

Qualcomm Ventures is promoting QPrize™, a global competition for entrepreneurs and start-ups that are seeking their first “Seed” round of funding. We are looking for entrepreneurs who have innovative technology based business ideas that need a little capital to get them off the ground.

We are hosting six (6) regional competitions and selecting eight (8) finalists from within each region. The winners from each region will receive $100,000 USD in convertible note funding and invited to compete in our Grand Prize final for an additional $150,000.

How does QPrize™ benefit entrepreneurs?

Last year, Qualcomm Ventures hosted four (4) regional QPrize competitions and funded them with $550,000 (USD) in convertible note seed capital. All four winners went on to secure Series A investments from institutional investors.

How can you participate in this competition?

Any entrepreneur or start-up company that has NOT raised institutional funding and secured less than $2M in angel or “friends & family” financing is eligible to participate.

Submissions Deadline:

December 14th, 2010

Learn more about QPrize: http://www.qualcomm.com/videos/qprize-2010

Submit your business plan and additional information about QPrize can be found at www.QPrize.com

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Fourth Annual Wireless Seed Stage Forum to Connect Startups and Investors

Tuesday, November 23rd, 2010

wssf_logo-squareThe fourth annual Wireless Seed Stage Forum looks to continue its position as the premier stage for wireless startups to pitch to leading venture capitalists, angels and strategic investors. The Austin Technology Incubator’s Wireless Incubator, in partnership with the Central Texas Angel Network, is proud to host this year’s Forum, December 1, 2010, at the Long Center for the Performing Arts in Austin, Texas.

The Forum will match promising early stage wireless and mobile startups with vetted angel, venture capital, corporate and public investors. The WSSF is seeking early stage companies in the wireless industry or leveraging wireless technologies in other markets.

In the Forum’s first three years, nearly 50 percent of participating companies have gone on to receive funding, representing various sectors of the wireless industry. Companies have successfully presented from several sectors, including biomedical, smart grid, healthcare, mobile gaming, location-based advertising, wireless infrastructure, wireless hardware and others.

Recently, five WSSF alumni announced significant funding events

  • Edioma, a company that brings web-based language instruction to mobile devices, closed a $650,000 VC series-A funding round this summer, led by Cottonwood Technology Fund and Austin-based Daylight Partners (class of 2007).
  • Calxeda, the ARM-based, low power server company and ATI-graduate, announced a $48 million investment led by Battery Ventures, which included Flybridge Capital Partners, Highland Capital Partners, and three strategic investors (class of 2008).
  • GameSalad, maker of the do-it-yourself iPhone game development platform and an ATI-member company, closed a DFJ Mercury led $1.2 million VC Series-A round this summer (class of 2008).
  • Tabbed Out, maker of the web-based application that lets you pay your tab from your smart phone, closed a $750,000 seed round in late 2009 and recently announced a $2M Series A from NEA (class of 2009).
  • Spacetime Studios, the 3D mobile MMO gaming company – and winner of the “Best Pitch” at the 2009 WSSF, recently announced an undisclosed amount of Series-A funds from Insight Ventures.

The Wireless Seed Stage Forum is specifically seeking to fill the funding gap between $100,000 and $2 million in required funding. If you are a start-up that is currently raising a seed round, or is preparing for a Series A round in the next 6 – 12 months, and has the below items, you could be a strong candidate:

  • Has a pre-production or demonstrable product
  • Seeks less than $2 million in a first round of external funding
  • Is recently established (less than 2 years old) and has a small headcount (less than 10 full time employees)

For more information, please visit http://seedstageforum.com.

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Austin-American Statesman puts spotlight on CEVS

Monday, September 20th, 2010

Omar L. Gallaga of the Austin American Statesman penned a great piece in Monday’s paper, highlighting the ATI-and-Austin-Energy-led Clean Energy Venture Summit as one key face of the solidifying clean-energy market.

Perhaps it’s because “clean energy” is one of those terms that evokes visions of windmill-laden fields and highly efficient (but geeky) short-distance vehicles. A “clean-energy summit” doesn’t exactly sound like a place where millions of dollars are at stake and where entrepreneurs will be making their best pitches to hard-nosed venture capital firms.

But the maturation of clean energy as an industry, especially in the Austin area, is clear at the Clean Energy Venture Summit…read the rest of the article here.

Gallaga featured Mike Bates, CEO of Austin-based smart-grid software developer Incenergy, LLC, who will be competing in this year’s summit, and rounded out the article with a spotlight on a CEVS 2010 judge, Rudy Garza. Garza is founder and managing general partner of Austin-based G-51 Capital Management, which invests primarily in early-stage technology ventures and is ramping up its stake in the clean-tech market.

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Smooth-Stone, an Austin Technology Incubator Company, Lands $48 Million Investment Round

Monday, August 16th, 2010

Austin, TX, August 16, 2010 – The Austin Technology Incubator (ATI), a not-for-profit arm of The University of Texas at Austin, congratulates member company Smooth-Stone on its $48 million investment round, announced today, from Battery Ventures, Flybridge Capital Partners, Highland Capital Partners, ARM, Advance Technology Investment Company (ATIC) and Texas Instruments. ATI also announces Smooth-Stone’s graduation from ATI membership.

Power consumption matters more than ever. Smooth-Stone will bring the low-power virtues of mobile phone technology to servers and data centers. Its semiconductors and software will provide a solution for companies where energy consumption by servers has become a constraining and expensive issue by increasing the density of computer resources while significantly conserving energy, cooling and space in the data center. “Our goal is to completely remove power consumption as an issue for the data center. Imagine that change for companies with a large presence on the Internet,” said Smooth-Stone CEO Barry Evans. “We want to make sure space and power are not constraining these companies’ potentials.”

Smooth-Stone received support from ATI in numerous ways – strategic advice, pitch development, go-to-market analyses, connections to advisors and mentors, access to industry and investor events. “Partnering with ATI was crucial to Smooth-Stone establishing the foundation we needed from the very start to be set up to take this company to market over the long haul, and to secure this significant funding today,” added Evans. “In particular, ATI was invaluable in guiding us through the process to secure our critical $1 million seed funding from the Texas Emerging Technology Fund, which truly provided the runway and confidence to begin implementing our bold vision.”

Smooth-Stone joined ATI in mid 2008 as essentially a one-man operation. “When we began working with Barry, it was evident that he and Smooth-Stone had tremendous potential,” said Bart Bohn, ATI’s IT Incubator Director. “This funding announcement is strong validation that Smooth-Stone has developed something disruptive and compelling. It has been our privilege to support Barry as he built the team, and they in turn built a world-class startup.”

In conjunction with the funding announcement, ATI is also announcing Smooth-Stone’s graduation from the Incubator. “With an industry leading team, top-tier investment syndicate, strong product progress and rapidly deepening customer engagement, Smooth-Stone is poised for a rocket ship ride,” added Bohn. “The mix between strategic and VC investors will serve them well as Smooth-Stone makes its aggressive play for the low power server market. Our ATI community is thrilled to indoctrinate another successful alumnus.”

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 over 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 www.ati.utexas.edu.

About Smooth-Stone

Founded in January 2008, Smooth-Stone brings unseen performance density to the data center on a very attractive power foot print by leveraging ultra-low power processors as used on mobile phones, as a foundation for its revolutionary technology. Smooth-Stone will make it possible for data center managers to increase the density of their computer resources while significantly reduce need for power, space and cooling. At the same time, Smooth-Stone technology will contribute to the reduction of the CO2 footprint of the data center in a significant way. More about Smooth-Stone can be found at www.smooth-stone.com.

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Venture Investing Down by 63%

Friday, February 5th, 2010

Isaac Barchas, director of ATI, was quoted in Austin Business Journal’s article on Venture funding on Friday, January 29 talking about the decline in venture capital investing.

The region’s relatively small size enables a few deals to skew such results, which don’t account for alternative sources of capital. The $250 million funding of HomeAway Inc. in late 2008, for example, may have inflated Austin’s numbers for that year and set the stage for last year’s steep decline.

“In general, venture capital is an important indicator,” Barchas said, “but there are other sources of funding, such as the [Texas Emerging Technology Fund] and angel investors.”

Last year, local angel investing did increase from the year before and the state’s Emerging Technology Fund continued to dole out capital as it typically does, but when combined those sources of capital collectively poured about $14 million into local companies last year.

The sharp decrease in venture capital occurred a year after Austin Ventures, Central Texas’ dominant investment firm, closed on a nearly $900 million fund. Thirty-one percent of the firm’s 2009 investments were in Austin-area companies compared with 56 percent during 2008 and 62 percent during 2007.

Read more…

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Texas Wireless Summit 2009

Wednesday, August 19th, 2009

The seventh annual Texas Wireless Summit will take place on November 5, 2009 at the AT&T Conference Center on the University of Texas campus, hosted by the Austin Wireless Alliance (AWA), the Austin Technology Incubator, and the University of Texas’ Wireless Networking and Communication Group (WNCG). 

The Texas Wireless Summit (TWS) will focus on the robust expansion of wireless data networks into new industries, exploring the imminent growth of both wireless technology and the capabilities of industries, such as smart grid, healthcare, and telematics, which rely on it. 

The day long Summit will include panel discussions between members of the wireless community who will address questions about which wireless technologies make the most sense for which applications; how wireless solutions can be pervasive and yet not compromise security and privacy; and how individuals and businesses can deploy and manage wireless devices within their homes, offices, cars and cities.  

An afternoon showcase from the University of Texas at Austin will highlight research from faculty and students in the Wireless Networking and Communications Group.  Presenters will demonstrate their ideas, sharing groundbreaking innovations with those who have relevant insight and interest. 

If you’re interested in attending or sponsoring this fabulous industry and networking event, please contact Laura Benold,  or visit our website: www.twsummit.com.

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