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Startups, Some Surprises at Sept. NYC Tech Meetup
Last night's Meetup at the IAC building in NYC's Chelsea neighborhood allowed several startups to showcase their work with a surprise or two along the way. Above, Gavi Narra of RetroPhone shows off the rotary dialier app for the iPhone. (More photos here.)
- Listens To You presented their unique take on online advertising. Consumers registered with their Web site can choose what type of advertising they want to see. Once the service is out of beta, the company hopes to make money by serving as an ad certifier.
- Lefora showed off their free forum creation and hosting service which easily allows content to be imported from blogs and other Web sites RSS feeds. Interestingly, the presentation was made by the organizer of the Silicon Valley Tech Meetup Vinnie Lauria. The NY Tech Meetup has only rarely allowed presenters from outside of NYC.
- Edopter, which just launched, talked about social trendcasting and how users interacting on the site can earn points to trade in for products that they're interested in.
- Mobile Tek Labs took organizer Scott Heiferman by surprise. This mobile dentistry service, which uses a Cerec 3D machine to produce crowns in about an hour, instead of the usual two weeks, relies on no technology produced in the NY area but plans to create a web interface for dentists to send information about needed crowns to.
- NYC Seed, about which we've written before, elaborated on their plans to fund early-stage NYC tech startups. They plan to provide up to $200,000 dollars in funding to ten to 15 companies over the next 18 months. Following an audience question, they reiterated that at least two founders have to be from NYC; no post office box addresses allowed for applicants. UPDATE: Video of the presentation here (nextNY).
- Angelsoft debuted its new software platform for connecting angel investors using its technology with startups. You'll find our coverage of the new platform here. COO Ryan Jonnsen added that only 17% of startups using the platform get to the presentation meeting stage with angel investors.
- iRetroPhone gave everybody a good laugh last night by highlighting their old-fashioned rotary dialing app for the iPhone, but the last laugh turned out to be theirs. The $2.99 app has been downloaded 15,000 times already.
- Boxxee showed off its social media center which allows friends to share all forms of media that they have on their Macs (a PC version is coming soon). The company's presentation was better at the NY Video 2.0 Meetup at NYC''s Webster Hall due to difficulties displaying the software's capabilities on IAC's video wall.
Meetup's Heiferman ended the evening having attendees pass their phones to their neighbors and showing a video encouraging attendees to disconnect and meet people in real life.
More coverage and details here: http://mediaflect.blogspot.com/2008/09/refreshing-laughter-at-ny-tech-meetup.html
... COO Ryan Jonnsen also noted that with "only" 9,000 or so applications since the company's founding, and some 400 angel groups on five continents, the investment ratio is "through the roof." ...
... NYC Seed's Owen Davis got big applause from the audience of perhaps 600 at the IAC building when he said their investments, up to $200,000, were focussed on companies that have a true presence in New York, not just a P.O. Box ...
Posted by: Dorian Benkoil | September 03, 2008 at 10:24 AM
Hi, thanks for the coverage. The NY Tech Meetup is an outstanding forum. For those who want to check out the site, use the code newtech
Anyone with feedback, comments, criticism or encouragement (or offers for technology help) can email me at david at listenstoyou dot com
David Rostan
Co-Founder and President
ListensToYou, LLC
Posted by: David Rostan | September 03, 2008 at 08:37 PM