Two San Diego Startups Launching at Demo Fall 2010

Startup technology CEOs from such far-flung locales as Singapore, Cairo, Lisbon, and Lund, Sweden, have gathered at the Hyatt Regency in Santa Clara, CA, today to pitch their companies at Demo Fall 2010, the annual technology conference.

While the schedule includes some prominent Silicon Valley CEOs as speakers (Twitter co-founder and Square CEO Jack Dorsey on Square’s mobile payment technology, for example) the main event is really the succession of 10-minute presentations by more than 60 companies. Two startups from the greater San Diego area are among those presentations, which begin this morning and continue through tomorrow afternoon. They are:

—Independa, founded in April, 2009, by Kian Saneii, a former general manager of Websense Wireless, is focused on the 46 million Americans providing care for an older-than 50 family member who is living on their own. Independa’s integrated system includes an in-home wireless tablet named Angela and wireless sensors that help family caregivers monitor their loved ones. The company says its software as a service for family caregivers reduces costs and increases their peace of mind while also enabling their elderly loved ones to maintain their independence. The system provides real-time information, customized analytics, and alerts for missed medications, prolonged inactivity, and other critical events. Independa says it is seeking additional funding from angel investors, and is preparing to close a Series A round of $6 million to $10 million.

—Bump.com, founded in August, 2009, by Mitch Thrower, who co-founded The Active Network in San Diego, and was strategist for the Competitor Group, is a platform media and race event company that specializes in the endurance sport sector (not to be confused with Bu.mp, the Mountain View, CA-based mobile app company Wade profiled this week). Bump.com, which has developed automated license plate recognition technology capable of reading five license plates per second, is providing social media technology that enables users to send voice, text, and e-mail messages to motorists, based on their license plate numbers. Once a message has been sent to a license plate through the Bump.com service, it is stored in Bump.com’s database until the owner of the plate registers with Bump.com—a process known as “claiming” a license plate. The company anticipates the technology will be used by fast food companies to profile the purchasing habits of drive-through customers, and by professional sports teams to market to fans who attend their events. The company, which raised $1 million in Series A capital in June, is currently raising another $6 million in a Series B round.

Author: Bruce V. Bigelow

In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here. Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.