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TechStars closed its second year running a web startup incubator in Boston last night, presenting to a roomful of potential investors the 10 startups that participated in the program this year. By the end of the night one of the 10 – Marginize Inc., a social media startup – had secured the check it was looking for.
Marginize, founded last year by Ziad Sultan while he was an associate at Longworth Venture Partners, had already received a commitment of $250,000 from Longworth and angel investors Jean Hammond and Joe Caruso. Sultan was seeking $100,000 more – and appeared to get it by about an hour into last night’s program, when Hubspot Inc. co-founder Dharmesh Shah announced on Twitter he would invest in the company.
A second TechStars company, Sparkcloud, which makes a platform for developing location-based social media applications for the iPhone, had already secured Avid Technology founder and angel investor Bill Warner as a lead investor on the $250,000 round of seed funding it is seeking. According to TechStars Boston Director Shawn Broderick, at least three other companies had strong interest from investors who were present last night.
Warner said he intends to invest in at least one, and maybe two more, of this year’s companies – part of what he called the tech economy’s “need for speed” in a talk that opened the event. Angel investors need to invest more; co-founders need to find each other more quickly; and companies need to launch more quickly, he said.
“It isn’t just a matter of being in the game,” he said in an interview after he spoke. “It’s a matter of playing the game at speed. It’s funded by money, yes, but by speed.”
So far, TechStars is moving faster. By this time last year, one of the nine companies that participated in the program had received funding. Three of last year’s TechStars Boston companies have now received seed funding, Broderick said.
The pace of investment-related events during the week of TechStars’ investor demo day also seemed frenetic, with Microsoft Corp.’s New England Research and Development (NERD) facility hosting three events in two days. Tuesday’s Angel Boot Camp drew a large crowd of startup investors to the facility, as did an Angel Capital Association meeting that occurred there earlier Wednesday.
NERD community relations manager Gus Weber said Microsoft is underwriting a year’s rent for a handful of this year’s TechStars startups that are moving into coworking space at Cambridge Innovation Center after the program. A few others will move into Polaris Ventures’ Dogpatch Labs incubator in Cambridge, and at least one is moving in with co-located startups Conduit Labs, Oneforty and Shareaholic in Central Square. Unlike last year’s program, which drew at least two companies from other parts of the country, this year’s participants were all founded in Massachusetts before joining TechStars, and they all plan to stay here for now.
Appswell
Business: crowdsourcing platform for developing mobile applications
Revenue plan: mobile app sales and partnerships
Seeking: $350,000
Loudcaster
Business: online radio service for DJs to create interactive radio stations
Revenue plan: subscription, affiliate sales and advertising
Seeking: $350,000
Marginize
Business: overlays web pages with a “metaweb” – space for visitors to comment
Revenue plan: undetermined
Seeking: $350,000
Mogotest
Business: cross-browser testing tool for developers
Revenue plan: SaaS subscription
Seeking: $325,000
Monkey Analytics
Business: social media analytics for businesses, focused on Google and Facebook
Revenue plan: freemium SaaS subscription
Seeking: not fundraising until first revenue
Socialsci
Business: online tool for researchers to identify participants and conduct scientific surveys
Revenue plan: annual subscription, e-commerce
Seeking: $250,000
Sparkcloud
Business: development platform for location-based mobile applications
Revenue plan: advertising, app store and virtual goods
Seeking: $250,000
StarStreet Sports
Business: a sports stock market that allows fans to ‘bet’ on team and player performance by buying shares
Revenue plan: virtual goods
Seeking: $500,000
TutorialTab
Business: software tool designed to let non-developers overlay websites with user instructions
Revenue plan: SaaS subscription
Seeking: $200,000
Usermojo
Business: online survey tool designed to provide insight into user behavior and quality of user experience
Revenue plan: SaaS subscription
Seeking: $300,000
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