Pega Plantão. Mato Grosso do Sul tem um Campo Grande para startups. Como não fazer o trocadilho do título depois de ouvir comentários de algumas pessoas e de ver o texto do Daniel Belalian (co-fundador e designer de experiência do usuário na ideias.me)? Ele apontou uma série de fatores que vem dando novas perspectivas aos empreendedores e inovadores da região. Para quem quer estar por dentro, recomendo a leitura. Segue o texto que ele enviou pra gente divulgar. Imagens e texto abaixo: Daniel Belalian, em StartupMS. Já acompanhei de perto o cenário de startups em São Paulo e Porto Alegre e me surpreendi com o cenário disruptivo que vi em Campo Grande, Mato Grosso do Sul, na última quinta-feira (1). O auditório doPortal Educação se transformou em um coliseu e reuniu gladiadores corajosos para confrontar seus modelos de negócios em busca de feedback qualificado de um TIME A+ de consultores. O ano de 2012 ainda reserva muitas surpresas como a Incubadora Tecnológica de Campo Grande, a Lei Municipal de Inovação e a parceria com a Anjos do Brasil.
Google+ SiliconReef recebe aporte do Criatec. Ontem os envolvidos comemoraram em Recife mais um aporte do Criatec, fundo de capital semente montado com recursos que incluem o BNDES e o Banco do Nordeste. A startup felizarda foi a SiliconReef, que foi incubada no CESAR, venceu o Desafio Brasil 2009 e passou por due dilligence após ser finalista de uma competição do fundo norte-americano DFJ. A startup, especialista em energy harvesting, já tem protótipo de um microchip que acumula sinais eletrônicos do ambiente, os transforma em energia e os armazena para posterior carregamento de pequenos aparelhos – como telefones portáteis. Conversei com Tiago Lins (na foto), um dos fundadores e responsáveis pela Silicon Reef, que nos explicou o momento da startup e o que muda com o aporte: “As conversas vinham acontecendo há um tempo e tomamos a decisão após o Carnaval.
Google+ Empreendedor aposta no mercado de dados e convida startups para uso gratuito dos seus “adwords para email marketing” Após ter criado algumas startups de sucesso na área de Tecnologia, Segurança e Mídia Digital, o empreendedor Gabriel Menegatti está constituindo uma nova startup chamada de “s1mbi0se technology ventures , com uma diversidade de produtos cujo foco principal é a coleta, processamento e inteligência de dados digitais sobre o perfil, comportamento, interesses, intenções e ações dos e-consumidores (pessoas online). Ele já chegou a apresentar um desses produtos (o PagoPago) durante o TechCrunch Disrupt, mas hoje está promovendo o OpenMail, uma plataforma diferenciada que ele quer oferecer gratuitamente para as startups que nos lêem.
Gabriel inova com tecnologia desde os 8 anos de idade (por exemplo familiar, pois o pai dele já teve uma série de empresas, ainda tem algumas), quando criou um serviço de criação de sites (depois vendido para um portal). Depois ele chegou a criar também a FSD Mercosul, vendida cinco anos depois para a F-Secure. Startups podem usar gratuitamente Google+
Navegg, player of choice de segmentação de audiência, lança auto-serviço para plano gratuito. Quem envia novidades é o Adriano Brandão, um dos fundadores da Navegg , a startup de segmentação de audiência online que foi comprada pelo Buscapé no início do ano passado. “Desde nossa entrada no Buscapé as coisas mudaram bastante, claro. Creio que o ponto principal tem a ver com as diversas sinergias que existem entre a Navegg e as demais empresas do grupo. Isso tem alavancado muitos negócios e oportunidades. Se no começo de nossa operação o principal ativo da Navegg era seu mecanismo de profiling, hoje sem dúvida o maior valor da empresa é o alcance que nossa tecnologia tem na rede. Analisamos a navegação de mais de 70 milhões de internautas, a maioria na América Latina. Somos o “player of choice” no mercado de dados de internautas LatAm.
Se seu site ou rede quer vender publicidade segmentada nessa região, tem que falar com a Navegg”, cita o empreendedor. E a grande novidade é: um dos planos é 100% gratuito e sem limite de tempo nem de tráfego. A cara da web brasileira Google+ Peixe Urbano compra o Groupalia em 6 países da América Latina. Segue notícia quentinha da startup que parece “nadar de braçada” no mar de ofertas da web brasileira e, quiçá, latina. O Peixe Urbano, site que revolucionou o comércio eletrônico local na América Latina ao introduzir o conceito de compras coletivas em março de 2010, anuncia a aquisição das operações do Groupalia em 6 países da região: Brasil, Argentina, México, Chile, Colômbia e Peru.
O Groupalia está entre os principais players do segmento em cada um desses países e entre os sites mais visitados da América Latina. Com esta aquisição, o Peixe Urbano se consolida como a maior empresa latino-americana no âmbito do Local Commerce, ajudando cada vez mais consumidores a explorem as suas cidades e cada vez mais estabelecimentos locais a desenvolverem seus negócios. O momento é muito positivo para a empresa. No inicio de 2012, o Peixe Urbano anunciou a terceira rodada de investimentos, liderada pela Morgan Stanley Investment Management e pela T.
Rowe Price Associates. Sobre o Peixe Urbano Google+ iPad. It’s sort of funny that the only major thing those in the rumor business got wrong was the name of the new iPad. It’s not the previously presumed “iPad 3″, nor is it the “iPad HD”. It’s just the iPad. And that’s what it will be from now on. This was surprising because our expectations were set for a new name.
But it really shouldn’t be all that surprising. My iMac is not the “iMac 11″. My MacBook Air is not the “MacBook Air 4″. Apple can pull this off because they have so few products and they’re in complete control of all of them. Enough about the name. Apple has sold 315 million “Post-PC” devices (read: iOS devices) in total. Right now, the iPhone is king of the Post-PC world. Cook then put up his stunning graph. “Apples to oranges! What’s more likely — 5 years from now, your primary home computing device is a PC? There’s strong push-back to this idea because people generally don’t like change. “We set out not just to create a new product, but a new category,” Cook said of the iPad. Triptrotting Raises $1M To Combat Clueless Tourism. Triptrotting, a startup that connects travelers with hosts, has raised $1 million in a Series A round of funding.
The company’s website promises that users will be “not just another clueless tourist.” The idea is that when you’re traveling to new places, it’s almost always better if you have a local friend, so Triptrotting tries to connect travelers with locals at their destination. If you’re a host, that can involve letting someone stay with you, or it can be more limited, like taking them on a tour or just meeting them for a meal. Co-founder Shana Zheng (who has in fact played Triptrotting host to TechCrunch office manager Greg Barto) says one of the most important parts of the service is its matching algorithm, which was developed in consultation with former eHarmony chief scientist Galen Buckwalter.
Even though hosting is more about cultural exchange, not moneymaking, hosts can ask to be paid tips for specific services, like picking someone up at the airport. Mobile Ad Network Millennial Media Will List On The New York Stock Exchange. Mobile ad network Millennial Media will be listing its offering on the New York Stock Exchange, according to a new S-1 filing. The network, which filed its original S-1 in early January, aims to raise as much as $75 million in the offering. The company plans to list on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “MM.” According to more recent stats from the filing, Millennial serves ads to 200 million unique users worldwide, including approximately 100 million unique users in the United States alone.
More than 30,000 apps are enabled by developers to receive ads delivered by Millennial. From 2009 to 2010, Millennial’s revenue increased 195% from $16.2 million to $47.8 million, and the company took a net loss of $7.6 million, and $7.1 million, in those years, respectively. From 2010 to 2011, revenue increased 117% from $47.8 million to $103.7 million. Now With 1.5M Lessons, ShowMe Launches v2.0 To Bring Khan Academy To The Masses.
Over the last year or so, we’ve seen an auspicious rise in the number of startups looking to tackle those seemingly intractable problems in both K-12 and higher education. One of these startups, the New York City-based ShowMe, found some early financial validation from an impressive set of investors, raising $800K last August from the likes of Lerer Ventures, SV Angel, betaworks, Learn Capital, and angel investor Naval Ravikant. Those familiar with Khan Academy — the startup that offers an impressive web library of videos on everything from arithmetic and physics to finance and history to let students learn at their own pace — will likely find it easy to understand ShowMe’s appeal. The startup is taking a bottom-up approach to the Khan Academy model.
While Sal Khan (the founder and head teacher of Khan Academy) has proven to be an incredibly skilled instructor, procuring the equipment, software, and resources that have allowed Khan Academy to thrive is difficult to say the least. HomeSnap Is Not A Boring Real Estate App. Sawbuck Realty, an online real estate broker, has just launched a new app called HomeSnap which lets you discover information about any home nationwide just by taking a photo of it. Using a combination of mobile phone sensors to determine location and orientation as well as MLS and public records data, HomeSnap can tell you everything about a home, including how many square feet it has, number of bedrooms/bathrooms, estimated price and more.
And it can do so even if the house is not on the market. More importantly, the app is actually fun to use. The company is also announcing the close of an additional $2 million angel round today, which adds to its previous $2 million round from 2009. Sawbuck CEO Guy Wolcott tells us that the company currently has MLS data for 13 of the largest metro areas across the U.S. (think NY, DC, LA, Chicago, Boston, etc.) but plans to aggressively add more markets throughout the year. But what makes the app notable is the user interface. NewsiT Raises $500K To Gamify Crowd Journalism. Crowdsourced news platform NewsiT.net just announced that it has raised $500,000 in seed funding. And, timed to match the beginning of South by Southwest, it’s also launching its iPhone app.
The company was founded by longtime journalist Melinda Wittstock, who has worked for the Times of London, BBC Television, the Guardian, the Observer, ABC News, National Public Radio, and MSNBC/CNBC. Wittstock says she wanted to reinvent the newsgathering and publishing model after attending “too many conferences with a lot of moaning and not a lot of solutions.” This is hardly the first experiment with crowdsourced journalism. (Here’s a story that combines two examples — last fall, Spot.us, which uses crowdfunding to support investigative journalism, was acquired by American Public Media’s Public Insight Network, which helps newsrooms collect crowdsourced data.)
So the startup doesn’t expect any of its members to create a complete news report on their own. Investors include Sandra D. Newvem Wants To Help AWS Customers Spend Less Money On The Cloud. Stealthy startup Newvem is debuting today with new SaaS based service for Amazon/AWS customers that aims to help businesses spend less money and gain more value from Amazon’s cloud infrastructure. Basically, the free app is built for Business Managers, IT Managers and Dev Ops to “get to know” their clouds, so they can better see what resources are being used and not used.
Cloud spending can be expensive and Newvem wants to help users pinpoint where to optimize their resource usage and budget consumption. Integrated with AWS, Newvem tracks down-to-the-minute resource usage, learns the behavior of every resource, and identifies service level variations and life-cycle events. In the futuure, Newvem will continuously and automatically gather numerous streams of cloud operational data, analyze and learn the usage patterns, automatically detecting potential problems, pinpointing anomalies, and identifying trends in cloud deployment. Foundry Group Leads New Round In Oblong Industries To Push Computing Into “The Minority Report” Age. Oblong Industries just announced a Series B funding round led by The Foundry Group. Together with Morgan Stanley Alternative Investment Partners and Energy Technology Ventures (a GE-NRG Energy-ConocoPhillips venture) Oblong Industries is looking to further the development of its groundbreaking computing systems.
That’s not hyperbole either. MG spent some time with the company last summer and walked away very impressed. The Foundry Group, already an Oblong investor, led the new funding round with the two new partners. “We founded Oblong because we want to make computers better, smarter, and easier to use. The new funding will be used partially to help with product development and commercialization. Oblong Industries’ Chief Science Officer is the man who advised the filmmakers behind Steven Spielberg’s 2002 film Minority Report. Here’s the video MG shot last summer. After 2+ Years Of Serving Apps, Windows Mobile Marketplace Will Die On May 9. What a long, strange trip it’s been. As Microsoft throws their considerable weight behind the Windows Phone platform, they’re running out of love for their still-kicking Windows Mobile OS, and today they’ve driven another nail into its coffin. According to a new email being circulated to users as I write this, the Windows Mobile 6.x Marketplace will officially shut down on May 9.
The move to kill the Windows Mobile Marketplace (not the newer Windows Phone Marketplace, to be clear) has been in the works for a while now — it began back in June 2011, when Microsoft announced that Windows Mobile users would no longer be able to download apps from the Marketplace website. Fortunately, apps could still be downloaded directly to a user’s device though that functionality will soon go dark. Microsoft advises WinMo users (all 9 of you, really) to make sure to snag whatever updates you can, because you’ll be out of luck before long.
Of course, Windows Mobile isn’t completely dead and buried yet. With Over 1.5M Users, SavingStar Grabs $9M To Become The Groupon Of Groceries. Digital couponing startup SavingStar has been on a roll. The company launched in beta in August 2010 behind $2.3 million in financing from Flybridge Capital Partners, First Round Capital, and Founder Collective, with participation from angel investors like Ron Conway. The investment led to a name change (SaveWave to SavingStar), which was followed up with an official launch in April of last year, backed by a $7 million Series B round from its existing investors, before adding Buddy Media Founder and CEO Michael Lazerow to its Board of Directors in June. Then, in December, SavingStar crossed another milestone, announcing that it had surpassed 1 million active users in exactly 230 days, an achievement which its founders were quick to note it accomplished faster than bigs like Groupon, Twitter (over 2 years), or Foursquare (just over a year).
It now has over 1.5 million active users. Why? For more on SavingStar, check ‘em out at home here. No Filter Required: Instagram Reportedly Raising $40M At $500M Valuation. P2P Dropbox Competitor Space Monkey Wins Launch, Has Already Raised $750K. Virtualization Startup Virtustream Raises $15M From Intel Capital And Others. L.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Ftechcrunch. Khosla Ventures Leads $2M Round In Mobile E-Signature Service SignNow. Education Elements Raises $6M To Help Schools Accelerate Learning With Technology. Conheça o Fashionera Place, o Primeiro Shopping Online Brasileiro Focado em Moda. Dollar Shave Club Launches Razor Subscription Service, With Kleiner Funding. With $1.2M Of Seed Funding, A SoMoLo App For Augmented Reality Fans: Wallit. Crosswa.lk, The App Discovery Service Better Than iTunes Genius, Is Now An App. Rentcycle Becomes Getable; Launches In-Store Management Platform For Rental Shops.
SmartSync Releases New Version Of The App That Turns You Into A God. China reduz meta de crescimento econômico para 7,5% em 2012. Fashion Outpost Nasty Gal Raises $9M From Index Ventures, With $28M In Revenue. Three Free Healthcare Apps That Empower Patients. More Mobile Ad Consolidation: Carrier SingTel Buys Amobee For $321 Million.