Editor’s Note: This post was originally published on Seattle 2.0, and imported to GeekWire as part of our acquisition of Seattle 2.0 and its archival content. For more background, see this post.
By Andy Sack
OnNovember 9th, the TechStars class of 2010 presented at the Triple Door toover 250 people — primarily investors. In my opinion, the event — andthe whole program was a huge success.
Inthis post, I want to provide you with an overview of the 10 companiesthat presented and also give you a list of some of the coverage of theevent.
It’simportant for me to thank you. The success of the program would nothave been possible without the support of Seattle Tech Community. Community member’s involvement as mentors, speakers, beta testers, and investorsetc. played a significant hand in the progress these companies madeover the last three months.
Thank you for enriching the startup community in Seattle!
Demo Day Press Coverage
- TechCrunch
- TechFlash
- David Cohen
- Christopher Griffin, of Microsoft BizSpark
- Xconomy
- And for some a funny view of creative pitching you can check out the interpretive dance video
The companies in TechStars in Seattle 2010
Below are the companies that participated in TechStars Seattle 2010.
Highlighter.com -Highlight, comment, and share on blogs, ebooks and PDFs on any deviceand manage your highlights. Highlighter allows publishers to enabledeeper engagement with specific pieces of content, giving theiraudiences the ability to engage with them on specific words, sentencesor images by simply highlighting. You can see Highlighter in action on David Cohen’s post about the upcoming Open Angel Forum.
Deal Co-op -Deal Co-op is a self-service daily deal marketing service for localorganizations, publishers, and more. The company aims to be the bestwhite label solution for affiliate groups. The service is alreadygenerating revenue with partners such as Green Lake Moms (in Seattle) and Broke Ass Stewart (in San Francisco).
The Shared Web - The Shared Web is a “better way to discover and share the web.” The service feels a little bit like a web based version of Flipboard -it’s a highly personalized reading experience. But The Shared Web isaiming to not only display interesting content in a beautiful layout,but also to “democratize the curation of content just as bloggingdemocratized the authoring of it.” The founders of The Shared Webexplained that they hope to be the best place to both discover and sharewhat matters to you the most.
Cabin Fever Toys -Cabin Fever Toys is setting out to tackle the problem of childhoodobesity in the United States. The company showed off their designs forportable toy animals designed to be played with outdoors by kids. Thesetoys measure, encourage and reward outdoor exercise and are coupled withan online experience to help reinforce desired behaviors with gamemechanics. We’re seeing an invasion of “active” video games, but theseare to be played indoors and are tied to a screen. Cabin Fever Toys ishoping that they can capitalize on this trend but with more of a mobileoutdoor experience, using Webkinz-like toys to encourage kids to get outthere and exercise.
Kinizi -Kinizi is aiming to be the place to go when you’re looking for low costapartment rentals. They’re essentially applying the daily deal model toapartment search, and enabling landlords to quickly fill vacanciesusing short term special offers.
RewardsForce - RewardsForce
Thinkfuse -Thinkfuse is building smart tools for team collaboration, and hasstarted out by creating an easier and more effective way for teams tomanage and share weekly status reports called This Week Last Week.
World Blender - World Blender is creating social location-based first person shooter games such as GPS Assassin.World Blender envisions a world where your game experience and strategychanges depending on where you and your friends are in the real world.
GoMiles -GoMiles wants to help travelers unlock the value of their frequentflier miles. GoMiles is reporting that they’re already tracking over 150million miles for their users. GoMiles also wants to help customers notonly track miles but get the most out of them, helping them understandthe best ways to protect, earn more, or redeem reward miles.
Giant Thinkwell - Giant Thinkwell is an imaginative social gaming platform featuring celebrity-based games. Their first game is called Raising Uncle Jesse, where players hilariously give birth to a baby John Stamos, and then raise him over time.
What’s next?
All the companies arein the process of raising seed capital. A number of them have receivedcommitments already! They’re collectively looking to build on themomentum created at DemoDay. Help them get their rounds done. In sodoing, you’ll be helping the startup scene in Seattle.
We will continue to host events for the tech/start up community in the Easy –
Next year’s class: (yes, we’re already planning!)
· Spread the word about TechStars! Applications open in March. Until then, there are networking events at the Easy, Open coffee at Louisa’s, videos and the TechStars blog.
Thanks again to everyone who helped make this program so successful in the first year!
