It can be worthwhile to look beyond one’s surrounding geography to discover new ideas.
Eleven new graduates and two alumni of the Atlanta, GA-based Flashpoint accelerator hosted a demo day this week in New York. Flashpoint has come to town before, giving its teams a chance to connect with the local investor and innovation scene.
But why should New York care about a baker’s dozen startups visiting from Atlanta? David Teten, partner with ff Venture Capital, touched on that subject at the start of the demo day. Citing research he published in 2010 on best practices and origination by private equity and venture capital funds, Teten said the obvious cities brimming with startups do not have a monopoly on bankable ideas.
“One of the findings from that study was that VCs get better returns when they invest outside of the geographic tech hubs of New York, San Francisco, and Boston,” he said. Teten is also founder of the Harvard Business School Alumni Angels of Greater New York. Investors do well, he said, by paying attention to innovators who choose not live in those congested areas. He said ff Venture invests in startups across country including in Atlanta, Pittsburgh, and Seattle.
So here is a look at the Flashpoint startups that demoed from the latest batch:
Aloe — Relationship management app for busy fathers.
CareHR — A recruiting network for caregivers that also lets families manage the individuals who provide in-home senior care.
Emory Innovations — An effort at Emory University to build on its drug development efforts and novel ideas in healthcare.
QuinSeg Labs — Software that monitors accounts at companies and other organizations to prevent noncompliant corporate credit card purchases (i.e. items bought for personal and private use.)
RCT.co — Sends electronic receipts and coupons from merchants to consumers’ accounts after they make credit or debit card purchases, without using e-mail or installing an app.
SayRoom — Captures audio recordings of customer reactions and public opinions on products, places, and other things for brands and other entities to hear.
SecondNature — Service to help transcription agencies manage virtual workers and let them collaborate.
Skroot — Helps business-to-business marketers choose the appropriate messages to send to targeted audiences.
SwipeLoyalty — A way for brands, such as restaurants, manufacturers, and retailers, to offer rewards to individual customers, but at a large scale.
Wonderkey — An app that lets parents communicate reliably with each other through their kids, to make sure a guardian will be present for shared events such as sleepovers or trips to the movies.
Work++ — Software that assists human resources managers with doing their job, such as handling hiring and firing.
Alums N4MD and Vehcon also talked about their experiences since graduating. Vehcon aggregates and analyzes big data on vehicles collected through drivers’ smartphones for use by auto insurers and service companies.
James Harris, CEO of N4MD, said social marketers and retailers in particular use his company’s service to curate online content for publishing on social media. That includes posting on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, and LinkedIn. N4MD helps companies gather material quickly for sharing on social networks. Harris said since graduating from Flashpoint, N4MD has worked with such companies as Home Depot and Nissan. “No matter how large or small, every company feels they have to feed the social beast,” he said.
