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Jobzle demos at Betaspring
Catapulter demos at Betaspring
DiaVibe demos at Betaspring
Nine Rhode Island startups presented to investors and others at a crowded demo day for the Providence startup accelerator Betaspring last Thursday.
But besides the nine companies, and the Betaspring summer program itself, which is now completing its second year, there are other factors drawing VCs and angel investors to Providence.
“I have seen some very interesting technology coming out of Brown,” said angel investor Joe Caruso, who was there last Thursday. “Perhaps (it’s) an underrated school when it comes to entrepreneurship.”
Flybridge General Partner Chip Hazard, who made the trip down Thursday, agreed. Brown, he said, has a “very high quality computer science department and strong entrepreneurial spirit.”
It was no surprise to see Lee Hower at Betaspring. The angel investor and VC is still working with Providence-based Point Judith Capital, while launching his own firm, Nextview Ventures, in Boston. He said the tech industry in New England needs to forget its state borders.
“As an investor I tend to include Providence into a broader tech hub of Greater Boston…If you took a map and drew a 50-mile radius around Boston you’d hit places like Providence, R.I., Portsmouth, N.H., Worcester, M.A., etc.,” he said. “Fifty miles is the distance between San Jose and San Francisco.”
Katie Rae, who’s running the Project 11 incubator program with angel investor Reed Sturtevant, said she thinks Boston has access to small centers of innovation further down the Northeast Corridor. Yale University and Carnegie Mellon University also spin out good startups, she said. “I think there are a lot of overlooked spots close to Boston,” she said. “Because there are fewer teams than in Boston they get better attention and nurturing from their professors. However, they need better access to the broader ecosystem of mentors (and) startups in their space, which will yield greater access to capital.”
Kepha Partners General Partner Eric Hjerpe has a special connection; A Brown graduate, he tries to get down to events and programs in Providence as much as possible, he said. “They need any support (they can get), because Rhode Island doesn’t have the entrepreneurship ecosystem Massachusetts has...yet!”
Here’s a rundown of the companies at Betaspring and their pitches:
Catapulter: Door-to-door ground-transportation map search, designed to offer information on more transportation services than Google Maps does.
Raising: $250,000 to hire marketing people and test paid marketing campaigns
Watch the video pitch
DataBraid: Weaving a killer for SAS, SPSS, Stata and other research software makers with freemium statistical analysis software delivered over the web.
Raising: $250,000 to hire developers
Diavibe: Looks to shake up EMLA, Painease and other painkiller products with a Class 1 pain-relieving device for injections that uses vibration.
Raising: $500,000 to create a commercial prototype
Watch the video pitch
Jobzle: Job-posting website aimed at companies and individuals looking to hire college students.
Raising: $300,000
Watch the video pitch
Manpacks: Subscription underwear, socks, t-shirts and other men’s “essentials.”
Raising: $750,000
Periscape: Scoping out a better version of Foursquare, by adding place-based dialog.
Raising: $250,000 to hire one developer, as well as business development and marketing to start guerrilla marketing campaigns in Boston and Providence.
SensibleSelf: Chasing Fitbit and Philips with sensors on keychains, bicycle wheels and vitamin bottles help insurers measure and reward healthy behaviors
Raising: $250,000
Tracelytics: Building a web operations management tool, designed to improve on MySQL query analyzers, New Relic and log aggregators.
Raising: $500,000 to hire developers and launch the product into a private alpha stage.
Watch the video pitch
Tu.nr: Consumer mobile service that turns music collections into party jukeboxes open to requests from the crowd.
Raising: $500,000 to hire engineers and business development employees toward a soft launch in November.
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