The Starting Gate

Startup Spotlight: clearCi

 
Making their moves: clearCi Director of Sales Michael Clews and CEO Joe Levy take a break at clearCI's Fort Lauderdale headquarters. Below, the clearCi team talks strategy. Photos by the Miami Herald's Joe Rimkus. 

clearCi

Headquarters: Fort Lauderdale

Concept: clearCi helps companies collect, analyze and manage intelligence so they can effectively compete in today’s digital era. clearCi supports companies in 70 countries. Its patent-pending SaaS application works as an automated Competitive Intelligence (CI) informant to collect data about competitors and distribute it to decision makers across the enterprise.     

Story: Joe Levy and Tomer Sofinzon analyzed many industries to find a market ripe for disruption. They realized competitive intelligence, as an organized function, was missing a dominant player, and they saw tremendous growth potential. They partnered with developers Kfir Sasson and Ron Oz, experienced in CI, to create a technology solution that could turn data into actionable intelligence. After a year of R&D, clearCi launched its software in 2011, and Levy teamed up with former Meltwater colleague Michael Clews to begin marketing and selling the product to mid- and large-sized global enterprises.

Launched: March 2011

Management team: Joe Levy (founder/CEO), Tomer Sofinzon (founder/corporate development), Kfir Sasson (founder/CTO), Michael Clews (founder/director of sales)

Number of employees: 15

Financing: About $500,000 from self funding, friends & family. Currently exploring a Series A round.

Recent milestones reached: Now serves more than 70 customers, adding 50 in 2012 alone. By the end of 2012, clearCi won four awards at UP-START Cloud Awards competition in San Francisco. It also expanded its marketing and sales team in October 2012 to seven full time employees.

Biggest startup challenge: Creating national market awareness about a technology many people are not familiar with using to support strategy and improved decision making.

Next step: clearCi is expanding sales operations in Fort Lauderdale and ramping up product development at its Israeli R&D center.

Strategy: Aside from expanding its product features and capabilities, clearCi plans to continue educating the market about enterprise intelligence and innovative CI techniques and leveraging relationships to grow clearCi’s user base.

 

This is a regular feature in Business Monday and on Starting Gate. See other Startup Spotlights under the Srartup Spotlight category on this blog. To have your company considered for inclusion, email ndahlberg@miamiherald.com   

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/05/19/3405280/startup-spotlight-clearci.html#storylink=cpy

Startup Spotlight: GradSave.com

GradSave.com

Concept: A college savings registry that makes it easy for friends and family to give directly to a child’s college savings plan in lieu of less meaningful gifts, such as trinkets — think of it as the “Kickstarter for college savings.”

Story: The rising cost of college is one of the biggest financial issues plaguing American families today, and student debt has surpassed credit card debt. GradSave was inspired after Marcos Cordero (pictured here) realized there was no easy way to give directly to his goddaughter’s college savings plan, and so he co-founded the company with Irma Grondin, his goddaughter’s mom, to make college savings easy. GradSave aims to be the de-facto standard for responsible gifts at birthday, milestones, baby showers and other holidays.     

Launched: early 2012

Management team: Cordero, formerly a management consultant for Fortune 500 clients, is CEO. His team includes Sergio Mendoza, CTO, Erik Nestorovic, who manages development, and Eddie Pradel, who manages customer relations.

Financing: $1.2 million from private angels and a venture capital investment from Idea Fund Partners in North Carolina.

Milestones: In December, GradSave acquired the No. 1 college savings information site, savingforcollege.com. In January, a Living Social deal went viral with 10,000-plus sales.

Biggest startup challenge: “Getting engagement and building a thriving community with our customers — we have proven we can acquire customers, now we need to get them loving GradSave,” said Cordero.

Next step: Increase gift dollars per customer — the goal is to help families reach their first $1,000 of college savings via GradSave. One way is through its $1,000 Birthday Challenge, in which GradSave adds $100 when $1,000 is raised.

Advice for next steps: “The best way for GradSave to build a community of loyal customers is to provide clear value to the customer and to make it easy for them to recognize that value. We want our customers singing our praises to their friends and family,” said Lister Delgado, of Idea Fund Partners who was initially attracted to GradSave by the strength of its CEO and the company’s leadership position in a fast-growing market. Delgado suggested GradSave should continue educating and providing tools for customers to make better saving and investing decisions and communicating its value proposition clearly.

Nancy Dahlberg

Startup Spotlight highlights companies started within the past five years that have hit key milestones. To have your company considered for inclusion, email businessmonday@miamiherald.com

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/05/12/3394120/startup-spotlight-gradsavecom.html#storylink=cpy

itMD selected for 3-year entrepreneurship program

Miami-based itMD was selected to join the inaugural class of a three-year Entrepreneurship Program designed to accelerate the growth of consumer health companies. The program is a partnership of GE’s healthymagination fund  and health-tech startup incubator StartUp Health.

More than 400 companies from 22 countries applied in January. The 13 companies selected this week represent a broad spectrum of health innovation from the United States, Ireland and Israel focusing on aging, health sensors, patient engagement, mobile health, care coordination, big data, analytics and diagnostics and other areas of innovation. GE said in its press release.

itMD, founded by a group of physicians, is a cloud-based medical image sharing company that enables the on-demand exchange of medical imaging information from anywhere to anyone. Users on the itMD Network can easily send, share and access medical imaging information online with just a web-browser or mobile device. The itMD team recently presented presented at the Florida Venture Forum’s annual conference and was a winner at FIU’s AVCC in December.

The Entrepreneurship Program, launched this week at StartUp Health’s Healthcare Transformer Summit, will offer exposure to VCs and will partner the startups up with GE executives who will help them access the GE network, according to a TechCrunch report. GE and the StartUp Health Innovation Fund will take a 2-10 percent equity stake in the selected companies.

A second Florida company, Sarasota-based IntelligentM with a solution for clinical hand hygiene monitoring in healthcare settings, was also selected. Read about all 13 companies here.

 

News: Miami-based deal-sourcing platform PE-Nexus acquired

PE-Nexus, a Miami-based company that provides an online deal-sourcing platform for the mergers and acquisitions industry, has been at the center of a major deal of its own: The publicly traded IntraLinks Holdings has purchased PE-Nexus.

IntraLinks, based in New York, is the global leader in secure content management, and its software services are used by 2 million business professionals at more than 800 Fortune 1000 companies. As part of the same transaction, announced by the companies on Thursday, IntraLinks also purchased a second deal-sourcing platform, London-based MergerID. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Anthony Hill, founder and CEO of PE-Nexus, will be director in charge of the combined platform, and his three co-founders — Matthew Wells, Kevin Doyle and Igor Royzis — will also be continuing with IntraLinks. The PE-Nexus and MergerID platforms will now be integrated, and the Miami office will spearhead the combined global product. “We will have the largest deal-sourcing network and the most global,” said Hill. “We couldn’t be more thrilled. We’re very happy we will be able to stay here and build out our presence in Miami.”

Matthew Porzio, vice president of product marketing and strategy at IntraLinks, said the resulting combination is “one of the great stories in the M&A world.” IntraLinks’ clients were asking for a deal-sourcing platform and the company was going to build one, but PE-Nexus already offered strong leadership, great technology and critical mass, he said. MergerID brings it global, with offices in London and Hong Kong. Together, PE-Nexus and MergerID are actively serving 5,000 firms and there are 4,000 deals on their systems now, Porzio said.

PE-Nexus, launched in 2010 by investment banking professionals, is an online network that matches private investors with potential deals. Hill said more than 2,000 investment banks, private equity firms and family offices have been using PE-Nexus’ platform.

"PE-Nexus and MergerID represent a natural evolution in how deals get done within the context of today’s lightning-fast, global M&A environment," Hill explained. "Our networks’ intelligent matching algorithms automate the process of finding the right investors and/or buyers for private companies and vice versa, leading to better and faster outcomes for everyone involved.”

 

Catching the Buzz: Caffeine Spaces Opens and Group of Groups forming

By Bill Bathurst

Mark Laymon’s dream over the last three years has been to open a clubhouse for entrepreneurs -- a place to share ideas, build business relationships and meet with like-minded innovators. Thursday night with the opening of the Caffeine Spaces  Co-working Center at the Research Park at FAU, this dream has been realized.

Most people don’t realize how hard Mark has worked to make this happen, said Ryan Teixeira at the opening; Mark was talking “co-working” well before it was the hot buzzword it is now. Laymon and Teixeira are the founders of Newtech Community,  a popular and successful  tech networking group that has been meeting in the Boca Raton area for years. Laymon also serves on the staff of the Enterprise Development Corp. (EDC) in an economic development role. (Teixeira and Laymon pictured here).

Attending the opening were local innovators such as Nicholas Mohnacky and Chris Callahan from Surfr App, a hot new in-beta ios app for surfers to log surf sessions, Andrew Danciu, co-founder of Trackablebusinesscards.com and many more. Sponsors of the Grand opening included Robin Delisser of Empower Resources and Jeff Brown of honeytreeholdings.com.

Also Meeting at the EDC is the “Group of Groups”

In the technology world there are meet-up groups, peer groups and user groups and now in South Florida, group leaders are forming a “Group of Groups.”  Spearheaded by Jay Moskowitz, a South Florida serial entrepreneur, and moderated by Dale Gregory of Cherrystone Management, this Group of Groups meets at the EDC at FAU, developing plans to help facilitate growth and vibrancy in South Florida’s tech and entrepreneurial ecosystem.

 “The goal is to help bring together the leaders and influencers from the major technology groups in South Florida, so that we can build connections throughout the region and strengthen our high tech corridor,” says Moskowitz. “If more group leaders would like to join we would love to have them.” Currently there are leaders of over 32 groups represented.

Last Tuesday night’s meeting included members of the steering committee, including Mark Wyllie, CEO of Flagship Communications Group and executive director of Internet Coast, Linda Gove, executive director of the South Florida Technology Alliance, Michael Gregson of the Life Science Technology Hub, Irene Revelas of Startup Delray, and  Laura Whalen of Voispot. Andrej Kostresevic of New Frontier Nomads and Miami Startup Digest joined by teleconference.

Bill Bathurst (pictured here) is the founder of  TheReef.biz, an online platform matching innovative high-growth entrepreneurs to private investors, advisors and service & funding providers in order to create thriving and successful entrepreneurial ecosystems. Contact him at Bill@thereef.biz 

Editor's addendum: Brian Breslin and Andrej Kostresevic report that this Wednesday for the first time -- in an effort to bridge the geographical divide -- a bus will pick up entrepreneurs at Caffeine Spaces in Boca to drive them to The LAB Miami (with a stop in Hollywood) for the Refresh Miami event on "Hardware Hacking and Robotics." The cost is free, thanks to a generous donation, but register here. Tickets are going fast.

 

Boca startup TrackableBusinessCards names ambassador, is selling its product

Local South Florida-based startup TrackableBusinessCards announced Tuesday that Steven Burda has been named ambassador spokesperson to the company.

 Burda, who is one of the most connected people on LinkedIn, will head up a public awareness campaign  for TrackableBusinessCards, said Andrew Danciu, who co-founded the Boca Raton company with Nick Guerra.  Burda has previously worked at Boeing, Sunguard Data Systems, Lockheed Martin and Citigroup. Currently his Linkedin connections are around 50,000 and he has nearly  300,000 Twitter followers.

TrackableBusinessCards, which will be working at the Technology Business Incubator at the Research Park at Florida Atlantic University, provides  specialized business cards that link to things you can sell on the mobile web. When a company employee gives you his or her business card, you can use your smartphone to scan the card’s barcode to buy special promotions, the company said. The cards provide the ability to track who drove that sale so commissions can be paid. Additionally the cards provide a link to a member's online destinations like Linkedin, Twitter and Facebook.

Danciu  said the company, now a team of four that launched last year,  is already selling its cards. It prints from eight locations around the country, and uses 3dCart, a Margate-based  shopping cart company, to handle back-end affiliate tracking.

Senzari announces launch of Wahwah in Apple App Stores

Senzari on Friday announced the launch of Wahwah, a new mobile music experience allowing users to enjoy music with friends while participating in their favorite activities, regardless of location.

 Now available in the Apple App Store in Brazil, Spain and the United States, Wahwah combines the personalized music recommendations of Senzari’s original music service with the added co-listening
experience of the Berlin-based Wahwah.fm, acquired late last year by Senzari, said the company, which released the news at SXSW in Austin.

 “Technologically speaking, we have concentrated on optimizing the experience for a real-time,
personalized and mobile co-listening experience; which is very different than just building a music player,” said Demian Bellumio, COO of Senzari, in a press release. “We try to leverage every sensor of the phone, from the GPS to the accelerometer, to ensure that we can understand the context of the user. This allows us to deliver the perfect song, and do it as close to real-time and as efficiently as possible."

In Austin, Senzari is sponsoring the music at SXSW A Celebration of American Startups at the ACL Live on Saturday night. Download the Wahwah app for listening access here::  www.wahwah.co. It is also sponsoring the Wahwah Beer Run on Monday.

Senzari, with operations in Miami, is applying the latest techniques in machine learning and big data technologies to generate a real-time semantic graph that can provide contextual recommendations across different media types.

 

 

News: MapYourStartup goes with the .co, announces U.S. expansion

Miami-based MapYourStartup.co announced on Wednesday its national expansion, which will allow any U.S. company to map businesses and events. MapYourStartup.co is dedicated to mapping the entrepreneurial ecosystem in an effort to unite entrepreneurs around their passion for all things startup, said CEO Norberto "Tito" Gil.

Utilities on the site include the ability to search for vital resources such as accelerators and co-working spaces, discover and research local investors  and learn about events in your own backyard, said Gil (pictured at right), who is partnering on the venture with Rokk3r Labs.  It’s all part of the mission to connect entrepreneurs to the resources they need to be successful, while showcasing vibrant startup activity across the U.S., he said. All of the information that’s been indexed on MapYourStartup.co has been self-registered by the startup community.

As part of this national expansion, the MYS team rebranded to a .CO, joining the ranks of local organizations like SuperConf and HackDay Foundation and viral upstarts such as Vine.  “.CO has created and globalized a true “startup club” of sorts, the be-all association of entrepreneurial ventures. It is only natural that we would want to be a part of that,” Gil said. The team had previously announced a partnership with the University of Florida, as well as Florida International University, and an expansion in Gainesville.  

 What’s ahead? “In the coming weeks, we’ll be finalizing our API and Map Embeddability feature. Local communities will be able to utilize these tools to showcase their local activity in their own unique way. The first example of this will be our very own, as we aim to complete MadeInMiami.co,” Gil said.

MapYourStartup.co is looking for what it calls market champions, or local entrepreneurs to champion the utility in their local community by creating an atmosphere of collaboration and collectivity. To get involved, contact champions@mapyourstartup.com. For more information:  www.MapYourStartup.co

 

Share your startup news with me at ndahlberg@miamiherald.com and follow me on Twitter @ndahlberg

News: 71lbs surpasses 300 customers, closes seed round -- and it's hiring

71lbs.com, a Fort Lauderdale-based startup that helps businesses save money on shipping,  has closed its seed round of $500,000 with investors including  The Pritzker Group, OCA Ventures, Idea Fund Partners, Excelerate Labs (now TechStars Chicago) and Tamiami Angel Fund I, said Jose Li, founder and CEO.

  After 15 years in the shipping, logistics and e-commerce industry,  Li saw the differences between how large shippers operate, with their million-dollar budgets, tools and resources, and how small business lack the knowledge, information or tools to handle their shipping and logistics in an efficient manner. Li, 41, who moved to South Florida three years ago, had worked both sides of the table, first as a shipper with Jamba Juice in San Francisco and then as a carrier, running the e-commerce practice for FedEx in Tennessee.

Many small businesses are unaware of refunds they are entitled to or don’t have the time or resources to track down the refunds if one of their packages is late, even by 60 seconds. “We believe in democratizing shipping,” Li said.

Launched in 2012, 71lbs offers  a "set-and-forget, then collect" system that allows companies to automatically collect on the $2 billion a year in unclaimed FedEx and UPS late shipping refunds, Li said.   “We provide tens of thousands of dollars every month in refunds to our 300-plus customers.”  71lbs developed a platform that tracks deliveries, automatically files claims when shipments are late and makes sure the refunds are credited to the clients' accounts. There are no upfront or subscription fees; If a refund is credited, 71lbs is paid half, typical of other cost-recovery services.

To rapidly expand its reach, the company has launched partnerships with  Etsy.com, BigCommerce.com, US Messenger and other companies that service thousands of small and medium sized businesses and is actively pursuing others, Li said.

   Li spent last summer in the prestigious accelerator Excelerate Labs, now  TechStars Chicago (accompanying photo shows Li pitching at Excelerate's DemoDay). Although some mentors and potential investors suggested he stay in Chicago, he wanted to move back to South Florida to build the company here.

 With the venture-backed funding, 71lbs intends to scale its customer acquisition program and grow its team of four. Additional shipping technology products are in the pipeline, Li said.   71lbs was recently featured in Entrepreneur, and it is already hiring. The company is advertising for a software engineer and plans to hire a salesperson and a marketing expert.

 

 

Iacobucci's VirtualWorks grows management team to roll out first products

VirtualWorks Group, a pioneer in content virtualization solutions for tackling data sprawl, announced the addition of three software industry veterans to new senior executive positions: Jeffrey Krantz has joined as chief technology officer; Andy Stergiades as vice president, products group; and Charlie Clements as vice president, worldwide sales and marketing.

All three executives were key players during the formative years of Citrix Systems, which was co-founded by VirtualWorks CEO and Chairman Edward Iacobucci. In addition, the company has added five senior software developers since the beginning of the year, the company said. The new team is focused on rolling out the company’s first products built on the ViaWorks™ platform, content virtualization software that makes all of a company’s data instantly available, no matter the format, structure, application or location.

Founded in 2009 by Iacobucci, VirtualWorks is based in Boca Raton and has regional offices in Norway and Sweden.