StartUp Beat

It’s certainly no secret that TechCrunch’s Disrupt conference took place this week.  The highlight of the event was arguably the Startup Battlefield competition (apologies to Carol Bartz of Yahoo, Mike Arrington, and expletives), which was won by Soluto, a startup that makes software that helps diagnose and fix problems on individual PCs.  The runner up was UJAM, a forthcoming web-based application that purports to allow users to compose and publish their own original music.

What was striking about this competition was the diversity of the applications—from entertainment, to publishing, to more traditional PC performance apps.  Surprisingly, while the media is obsessed with mobile, none of the five finalists at Disrupt were mobile companies.  While it’s only one event, Disrupt is a very relevant event, and Startup Battlefield left a clear impression that the desktop still rules and that innovation is alive and well.  Here’s the roundup from TechCrunch: And The Winner Of TechCrunch Disrupt Is… Soluto!

Posted by startupbeat at 09:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Today’s funding roundup:

BlockChalk Draws $1 Million In Seed Financing From Schachter, Battery, And Founder Collective (via TechCrunch)

Andreessen Horowitz Makes Strategic Investment In Mobile Payments Platform Boku (via TechCrunch)

Teranetics raises $7.8 million for 10-gigabit Ethernet chips (via DealsBeat)

Posted by startupbeat at 09:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Company: Lightfleet Corporation

Website: www.lightfleet.com

Headquarters: Camas, Wash.

Year Founded: 2003

Employees: 22

Company Description: “Lightfleet’s optical fabric is a breakthrough to multiprocessor computing that overcomes the performance bottlenecks of typical interconnect architectures.”

By John Peers, CEO

Imagine for a moment that firms on Wall Street can execute trades and trading algorithms much faster, where trading even milliseconds faster can mean millions in profits; or that the military can put high-density analytics systems like facial recognition in command aircrafts to speed intelligence, decision support and response efforts; or that today’s leading Internet service providers and search engines can dramatically accelerate services while cutting power and cooling costs in half and minimizing server footprints in over-crowded data centers.

Enabling these types of strategic advantages and business opportunities is what drives our team at Lightfleet, and today this vision is closer than ever to reality.

Lightfleet was founded in 2003 by a team of scientists and engineers seeking to deliver simplified solutions in the increasingly complex world of computing.  Drawing from diverse backgrounds in optics, signal processing, neural computing, massively parallel processing, and semiconductor design, Lightfleet invented a new approach for inter-node communication that enables significant TCO advantages through rapid application throughput on lower cost platforms, lower power consumption and higher CPU utilization rates.

Representing a major paradigm shift in multiprocessor computing, Lightfleet's system utilizes a patented communications model that uses broadcast light and mirrors to enable a simultaneous all-to-all interconnect, virtually eliminating the need for cables and switches within the cluster.  The Lightfleet Direct Broadcast Optical Interconnect (DBOI) speeds the flow of data between nodes such as multiple processors inside a server, thus eliminating any bottlenecks that today’s switches and other interconnects introduce due to their hierarchical structure.  The Lightfleet DBOI enables the use of a single send-to-all protocol which results in the applications seeing increased communication performance between nodes.  Nodes can communicate to all other interested nodes at the same time, something impossible to do in a point-to-point switched interconnect.  The result is increased communication speed, more reliability, lower operational costs, lower capital costs, lower cooling costs, and lower electrical power costs.

Unlike fiber optics that contain the light and essentially use photons as a substitute for electrons in a wire, the DBOI is a free space optical interconnect that utilizes the unique properties of photons.  By taking advantage of the unique, non-interfering properties of light, the DBOI creates a switchless optical fabric.  This patented technology offers a direct broadcast API that allows nodes to effectively communicate in a Shared Memory Processing (SMP)-like fashion with all other interested nodes simultaneously.  As a result, we are able to achieve messaging throughput and application performance previously available only on much more expensive large-scale SMP systems.

DBOI also eliminates cabling complexity, so it has significantly better reliability (Bit Error Rate or BER), even under maximum loads.  Communication through broadcast light is fundamentally different than point-to-point technologies jostling for use of a data path.  Multiple broadcast light communications spatially pass through each other without interference, much like flashlight beams crossing through each another.  This is true non-blocking communication, something that cable-based communication has been unsuccessfully trying to emulate for decades.

By leveraging the properties of light, Lightfleet brings enhanced value to our customers and partners in the form of efficient, flexible, and affordable systems to meet a range of compute needs including transaction processing, data mining, visualization, simulation, and high-throughput, large-scale application processing.

This technical advantage will optimize data center efficiency and cloud computing, delivering significantly faster application performance with reduced data center footprint, power and cooling costs.  Additionally, it will open up new high-growth opportunities for OEMs and application developers.

The market is taking note of these opportunities.  The recent deployment of our first commercial alpha unit at Microsoft Research’s eXtreme Computing Group is a significant milestone, not only for Lightfleet but also for the industry as it looks at new opportunities for massively parallel, distributed computing.  The eXtreme Computing Group is exploring the potential of Lightfleet’s optical interconnect in cloud computing workloads and we look forward to working with Microsoft to develop next-generation server and data center architectures.

Also of note, Lightfleet was named as a Prime Contractor for a government contract awarded in July 2009, a designation rarely accorded an early-stage company and directly attributable to the unmatched performance of Lightfleet’s DBOI technology.

We are now ramping up manufacturing and continue to garner interest from government and financial services industries, including brokerage and investment management firms, market data firms and exchanges.

With the server market heating up, spurred in part by cloud computing trends, the drive toward data center efficiency and a recent surge in chip innovations, Lightfleet’s solution is poised to be a market disrupter as it enables new levels of performance and efficiency for both exascale data centers and mainstream enterprises.

Lightfleet - www.lightfleet.com

Posted by startupbeat at 10:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Today’s funding roundup:

Forbes Acquires Freelance News Startup True/Slant (via TechCrunch)

AOL Co-founder Steve Case Backs Online Wine Marketplace Vinfolio (via TechCrunch)

Posted by startupbeat at 11:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Over the years, hyperlocal has been tried numerous times on the web by news/media sites in particular, but no one has been able to get it quite right.  A new mobile app-based startup named DeHood seeks to tap into local communities to create what seems like a Twitter/Facebook mashup.  Local continues to be a holy grail of the online world because of the big-time potential seen in local online advertising.  We will see if Palo-Alto-based DeHood can do what so many others haven’t been able to do—perfect hyperlocal.  Here’s a good just-published overview of the company from JP Manninen of VentureBeat: There goes the neighborhood: DeHood builds hyper-local social networks

Posted by startupbeat at 01:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Today’s funding roundup:

Guardian Analytics raises $9M to protect banks from cybertheft (via VentureBeat)

Gaikai raises $10M as digital distribution hits high tide in video games (exclusive) (via GamesBeat)

Posted by startupbeat at 10:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Today’s funding roundup:

2 Months Out, 74% of Latest Y Combinator Class Funded or Profitable (via GigaOm)

Cocodot Raises $2 Million For The Stylish, Prettier, More Social Evite (via TechCrunch)

Posted by startupbeat at 11:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Mobile video specialist Movidius brings in $7.5M (via VentureBeat)

Confirmed: Tweetdeck Gets $3M (via GigaOm)

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Local online ad company ReachLocal IPO’ed yesterday, raising $54 million for investors.  JP Morgan and Bank America Merrill Lynch underwrote the offering.  $54 million is a respectable number, but nowhere near the highs seen during the tech boom of the 90s.  Paul Boutin of VentureBeat essentially calls it boring (which not a little bit of sarcasm), but boring may just be better when it comes to IPOs.  Here is Boutin’s analysis: ReachLocal IPO raises $54 million for local business-ad service

Posted by startupbeat at 11:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Today’s funding roundup:

Loggly raises $4.2M for a ‘fun’ approach to server logs (via DealsBeat/VentureBeat)

Barcode tagger Stickybits scores $1.6 M in funding (via VentureBeat)

 With Internet TV Booming, Blip.tv Raises $10.1M (via Mashable)

LibreDigital lands $8.1 million more for e-publishing service (via VentureBeat)

Posted by startupbeat at 12:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Here is an interesting note from last week—the latest Cooley report on venture funding indicates that “up” rounds of funding increased by 58 percent during Q1.  This represents a jump from 45 percent during Q4 of last year.  “Up” rounds refer to funding where the value increases from the previous round.  Here’s more on the report: (via VentureBeat) Law firm sees signs of venture recovery

Posted by startupbeat at 12:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

There was a slate of significant funding announcements today from companies representing a variety of tech sectors—a good sign in terms of recovery.

Lookout raises $11M for mobile security tech (via VentureBeat/MobileBeat)

SimpleGeo Digs Up Another $8 Million And A Group Of Former Digg Employees (via TechCrunch)

NorthScale Caches $10M in VC Funds, Gets New CEO (via GigaOm)

Titan Gaming raises $1M for game tournament platform (via VentureBeat/GamesBeat)

Cloud9 Analytics lands $8M for business tracking software (via VentureBeat/DealBeat)

Swisscom invests $1.8 million in ’social business card’ startup Poken (via TechCrunch)

Posted by startupbeat at 11:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Caroline McCarthy of Cnet reported today about a group of NYU students working on a new social networking site called Diaspora that is (very) successfully raising funds through donations—$100K in fact in a very short period of time.  Its appeal seems to be based in large part on a burgeoning Facebook backlash—no doubt driven in large part by the social media giant’s many recent privacy foibles.  As many of the most successful startups have capitalized on the mistakes of giants, a Facebook “killer” may be the next big thing.  Could Diaspora be it?  Via Cnet: Diaspora about to hit $100,000 in donations

Posted by startupbeat at 08:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Company: doddle/ Mobile Imagination, LLC

Website:www.doddleme.com

Headquarters: Jupiter, Florida

Year Founded: 2009

Founders: Jim Robertson and Richard Kwiat

Investors: N/A

Employees: 14

Company Description:

"Doddle puts the production industry in the palm of your hand."

By Jim Robertson, Founder and Principal

You might be wondering by now—what’s a doddle?  Well, by definition it means a job or task that’s easy to complete.  And that’s exactly what this new smartphone application delivers.  Imagine taking all the production guides from around the world, and putting them in the palm of your hand.  Initially designed for iPhone, the “it” phone for the production industry, doddle promises to transform the lives of production professionals—from movies and television to audio, and video production segments—by giving them the unique ability to plan, communicate with, and manage their workforce from their smartphone throughout the creative process.  It’s a doddle!

No more wasting countless hours frantically searching through antiquated and cumbersome production guides or squandering precious time schlepping to an office to fax call sheets and call disconnected equipment rental shops.  In short, doddle makes it possible to work the way you do, “On the go.”  This extraordinary app is revolutionizing the production industry, letting professionals spend less time chained to a desk and more time in the field where the magic is created.

Doddle was created by Mobile Imagination, LLC which was launched in October 2009 by myself and Richard Kwiat.  I have worked for 20 years in the production industry and dreamed up doddle during a particularly frustrating shoot.  Doddle is for anyone that touches the production industry.  It is especially great when you go and shoot on location and you don’t know anyone because it allows you to find all the resources that area has to offer...easily.  There are online production directories, but doddle goes light years beyond those to give production professionals the tools and refreshable data access to make their jobs swifter and saner, giving them more brain cells to devote to creating better art.

Basic listings on doddle are free, and premium listing opportunities are available for a nominal advertising fee. Those wishing to post a listing just need to visit www.doddleme.com and fill out a quick and easy form.  We encourage production industry professionals, vendors, talent, film commissions and anyone that works in the industry to post their listings as soon as possible so that they are included in the application’s database.

How do I doddle?

Doddle allows industry professionals to search for vendors and freelancers instantly with their growing comprehensive interactive production guide, initially throughout the U.S., and eventually, throughout the world.  Once a user has located the listing(s) of their choice, they are able to communicate and collaborate with that entity using all the technology the mobile device has to offer.  Doddle also offers a customizable “favorites” list so you can organize all the companies and crew you love to work with, and offers a “recents” section to ensure you won’t have to search all over again for listings you’ve already looked at.  Film Commission information is never too far away, because you just hit a hot button from any page to take you right to doddle’s world film office listings.

Producers can plan and manage their own creative workforce through the creation and instant distribution of their interactive “call sheets.”  Doddle call sheets can be created on your smart phone as well as our online version and they will always remain synced together, like...brangelina or bennifer... are they even still together?

Doddle call sheets can be scaled up from a two person crew to a big budget feature film and anything in between.  Of course, you don’t have to have doddle to be listed in a call sheet, or even to receive one, but you’ll want to have it to make your life much easier.  Doddle call sheets are totally interactive so you can tap on any entity and instantly learn more about them.

Now here is my favorite part—as you create a call sheet and enter a location for the day, doddle will automatically update: the weather forecast, sunrise and sunset times, UV index, winds and much more. 

Doddle also automatically offers you all the emergency info you will need around a location, including the nearest police station and a choice of 5 different hospitals.  Doddle call sheets even has its own internal note system, so you can send a note to an individual, department or the entire crew.  For example a note to the new PA might read: “Hey Jeremy, don’t forget the c-47s and make sure you bring them right to the director before she has her coffee”.

Why should I doddle?

Doddle was designed to revolutionize the production industry, saving professionals countless hours they now spend searching outdated and cumbersome production guides for available specialists and resources.  Many film commissioners across the U.S. have already commented on how the industry has long awaited something like doddle to bring continuity to the industry and make productions easier.

For an industry that uses cutting-edge technology for special effects, the process of actually organizing the crew and production is shockingly retro.  Doddle makes it possible for people behind the scenes to jump light speed into the vanguard of production.

doddle – www.doddleme.com

Posted by startupbeat at 12:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Funding news for a Monday:

Via Mashable: Syncapse Raises $3.3M for SocialTALK Social Media Management Platform

Via VentureBeat: Demdex raises $6M to build publishers’ audience data

Via TechCrunch: TechStars Graduate Localytics Raises $700K For Mobile App

This is a cool idea—BookRenter is a startup in the business of renting textbooks (both hard copy and electronic) to college students.  The high cost of textbooks has always been a thorn in the side of cash –strapped students, and I imagine BookRenter could be a godsend to many.  With the advent of e-books, I imagine that services like this can be particularly effective and profitable, since e-books ostensibly require a less inventory intense cost structure.  The company made news today by announcing that Netflix co-founder Marc Randolph has joined its board of directors.

Posted by startupbeat at 01:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Some startup funding news for the end of the week:

Via VentureBeat: Infineta raises $15M to help bandwidth-hungry businesses

Via TechCrunch: Online Marketing Services Company WordStream Raises $6 Million

Posted by startupbeat at 12:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Just when you thought there was limited innovation in chat, an interesting startup is proving you wrong.  Tinychat allows users to quickly and easily set up their own chat rooms through Facebook, and as of today, through Twitter as well.

Cool stuff—going to find out more about this company.  For now, here is more on Tinychat via TechCrunch: Tinychat Launches Twitter Chatrooms

Posted by startupbeat at 01:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Some startup funding news of note for this week so far:

Via VentureBeat: Newsy raises $2M for honest-to-God mobile video journalism

Also via VentureBeat: Security firm IronKey raises $22M for secure desktop virtualization

Posted by startupbeat at 11:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Threadsy is a startup that is trying to accomplish what no company has yet been able to do—make all of our lives easier by creating a unified web communications client.  Others have tried but failed miserably, but this company just may have found the secret sauce with deep integration with social media platforms and email.  Here’s a more in-depth treatment of the company’s offering from TechCrunch: Threadsy’s Social Stream Reader Opens To The Public

Posted by startupbeat at 11:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Based on recent activity, including the recent acquisitions of mobile ad networks AdMob (acquired by Google) and Quattro Wireless (acquired by Apple), tech giants Apple and Google have their checkbooks out and are ready to spend on innovative startups.  This is especially true for the mobile space, where the companies are becoming increasingly heated rivals (although Apple seems to be pretty far ahead so far with the iPhone and related products/services).  As Connie Guglielmo of Bloomberg/BusinessWeek points out in this excellent piece on the rivalry (Apple Steps Up Pace of Deals in Race for Startups), Apple in particular tends to seek out smaller startups that present less of a challenge on the integration front.  This growing rivalry could certainly mean big opportunity for innovative tech entrepreneurs, especially those who run lean, flexible organizations in the mobile sector.  Who knows, it may even prompt a more wide-spread buying spree among companies trying to keep up.

Posted by startupbeat at 11:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

By David Kaiser, CEO

With the surging popularity of online video viewing, Coincident TV (CTV) is a new technology that transforms online video into a unique type of browser.  It enables viewers to simultaneously watch a program while being presented with a vast menu of relevant online information, such as a given character’s Facebook page, a live Twitter feed, or a link to purchase the same type of hat another character is wearing.  The sequence and combination of possibilities is only limited by the content creator’s desires and business objectives.

I was inspired to develop CTV in 2008 while watching the news on television with my laptop beside me.  A story during the broadcast caught my attention, and I attempted to look up additional information on my computer.  However, I quickly became frustrated with the disconnected experience.  By the time I found the related story, I had completely lost my train of thought and also lost focus on the newscast.  That simple yet profound experience motivated me to build a technology that would create a truly seamless online viewing and web surfing environment.

What I developed is a form of “hypervideo” technology: a simple-to-use software suite that combines online video, social media, weblinks and commerce into one immersive experience.  At its core, CTV is a language to describe manipulating media (video, web display, web services and feeds).  We are also developing third party tools, a player, an editor, an analytics portal and a PERL library application, that enable quick, intuitive creation and playback of CTV files.  Over time, we anticipate that content publishers and software developers will embrace our language and build their own authoring tools to create better multimedia experiences.

Why are we doing this?  In a nutshell, because audiences have adopted online video viewing at astonishing rates.  According to a recent Nielsen report, there were more than 141 million unique video viewers in February 2010 and a whopping 10.3 billion videos were streamed in the same month.

With these types of numbers, it’s clear that people want both the instant gratification of using the Internet to connect and research, along with the entertainment value of video.  To date, no one has been able to take these two parts and make them into a singular ecosystem.  This is the void that CTV is filling, as well as providing rich monetization opportunities for content creators and great, unique exposure for brands.

On the topic of monetization, it’s no secret that media companies large and small are seeking long-term, profitable online content strategies.  CTV is a solution that offers unique revenue-building opportunities through flexible online experiences enhanced by interactivity with brands, commerce and content.  As an example, if you’re watching “Gossip Girl,” CTV can bring you inside the programming by enabling you to receive the same SMS texts that the show characters are receiving.  This breaks the “fourth wall” barrier between you and the show, and it creates dynamic new ways for brands to interact with consumers.

We presently offer the CTV software suite as a license—much like any other software monetization model—so content creators can truly control their experiences and easily add the hypervideo elements they wish to the programs they want.  You don’t need an engineer or even a video editor to build these hypervideos; a web producer with basic knowledge of video timelines can be trained in just a few days.  You also don’t need to re-cut or edit existing episodes or video content.  In fact, you can use any video served from any source to create CTV experiences.  With CTV, the web becomes your hard drive.

It’s truly an exciting time for us at CTV.  We had a tremendously successful private beta launch at the 2010 National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Show this April in Las Vegas.  In addition to extending our private beta, we announced a creative partnership with Ascent Media’s Blink Digital, which will enable them to harness high-quality interactive experiences using our hypervideo editor.

Another highlight of the NAB Show was filming and editing participants right in front of the Las Vegas Convention Center, quickly assembling the clips with the CTV software, then providing live links to each video from our Twitter account.  You can check them out yourself at http://twitter.com/coincident_tv. 

The response from the demos at both the convention floor and our demo suite was nothing but positive and we built strong momentum for CTV and how this technology can change the game for online video viewing.

Our successful launch was preceded with another exciting content launch involving FOX and the hit show GLEE.  Leading up to the April 13 premiere of GLEE, both CTV and FOX promoted an engaging “hypertrailer” with hallmark CTV features, including in-video links to the characters’ Facebook pages and the ability to Digg the video.  The trailer generated a large increase in Facebook traffic for GLEE, and we gleaned incredible correlative data from tracking online behaviors within the application.

At the 2010 ad:tech San Francisco, CTV had the honor of being included in the event’s closing keynote by Lori Schwartz, executive director of the Interpublic Emerging Media Lab.  Lori’s speech was titled “White Hot San Francisco Tech Companies & Why They Matter,” and CTV was recognized among an impressive list of new and upcoming companies.  We also had the opportunity to demonstrate our software solution from the “Innovation Alley” exhibition hall, once again “wowing” the tech-savvy attendees.

In the coming weeks and months, CTV will roll out additional content partnerships with major networks, brands and online communities.  Our team of 20 is literally changing the way we watch TV, and how the viewing experience can affect the conversation between fans, brands, and content owners.  Video content is no longer only about who can develop the sharpest, most stunning picture quality or earth-shattering sound system.  These are all noble pursuits, however what the CTV team and I get excited about each day is making a disruptive leap from a passive experience to an interactive “hyper” one. 

Soon, people will talk as casually about interactive, hypervideo online experiences as they do downloading an MP3.  When that day comes, we’ll know we’ve done our job.

Coincident TV - www.coincident.tv

Posted by startupbeat at 10:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)