We do it once a year. And every year, it’s one of the big highlights of the day.
I’m talking about the “Startup Xpo,” a showcase of some of the most intriguing young companies around Boston. It’s all part of XSITE, our fifth annual innovation conference happening this Wednesday, June 19, at Babson College. The overall theme this year is “Boston’s Tech Revival.”
The idea behind the Xpo is to give our audience of mainstream business leaders a glimpse of the depth and diversity of young startups bubbling up in the local ecosystem. These companies are all seed-stage, bootstrapped, or pre-VC round; they’re not household names, but they might be someday. Other than that, the main criterion is that I found them personally interesting.
They are a mix of consumer, enterprise, and science focused. A mix of software and hardware, Internet and mobile, healthtech and robotics.
Our emcee is Meredith McPherron, the director of the Rock Center for Entrepreneurship at Harvard Business School. Meredith helped revamp the HBS business plan contest this year (now called the New Venture Competition), and she’s got her eye on all things entrepreneurial.
Without further ado, here are the 10 Xpo startups:
—SnotBot, represented by Andrew Bennett of Olin College. OK, this isn’t really a company yet, but I like the project (and the name). It’s a multicopter flying robot that collects mucous samples from whales.
—Price Intelligently (Patrick Campbell). Software for doing scientific pricing of products. In other words, what should you be charging for that software or gizmo?
—Kibits (Matt Cutler). This company started out as a micro-social network, but it has moved into collaborative software for businesses. Stay tuned for more.
—ThriveHive (Max Faingezicht). This is marketing software and services for small businesses. Yes, it’s a noisy sector, but the company seems to be quietly onto something.
—Cloze (Dan Foody). Solving the classic inbox problem for e-mail, social, and mobile. Enough said.
—CareSolver (Shana Hoffman). If you’ve ever worried about coordinating healthcare for an aging parent or relative, you might want to check out what this company is doing.
—Flume (Eric Kelsic). This team is working on Web tools for opening up the collaborative study of the human genome on a global scale.
—Wanderu (Polina Raygorodskaya). This Web startup wants to be the Kayak of buses and trains (intercity ground transportation). Many have tried; few will win.
—Crunchbutton (Judd Rosenblatt). This company provides one-click food delivery via smartphones and Web.
—Leaf (Aron Schwarzkopf). This company has developed tablet-based technology for payments, business intelligence, and customer loyalty programs for retail, restaurants, and other businesses.
So there you have it. Ten speakers. Ten companies/projects. Let’s do this.
XSITE is this Wednesday, and a few tickets are still available (check out the startup and student rates). See you all soon.
