Splash SF Sept 2012 Finalist - Conga

Kristin Karaoglu · October 19, 2012 · Short URL: https://vator.tv/n/2b0c

Check out Conga's presentation at Splash SF Sept 2012

Splash SF finalist Conga discovers the social relevance between people - whom you should know, within a group, at an event, or wherever you are. Its science applies sophisticated machine learning algorithms to understand the underlying factors behind your professional relationships

Watch founder and CEO Crick Waters present.

Even though success is not defined by how much money a company has raised, past Vator winners, such as ThumbtackGetableGrovo, Astrid, Udemy, and Geeklist have gone on to raise millions of dollars collectively from venerable VCs, soon after presenting.

Want to apply to get on stage at the next Splash competition? It's being held in NY on Dec. 5. Join the Splash competition here.

Here's some other testimonials: 

"The process of inviting everyone one we knew to vote for us, even before the event, was a fantastic way to build support for our company. Then presenting at Vator Splash was a blast. The short presentation style ensured the audience was engaged and the follow-up questions from the judges were on-point and constructive. At Vator Splash, I made great connections with a number of investors and had a number of follow-up meetings. We were able to raise our last round entirely from investors who discovered us from the publicity we generated from Vator Splash," said Jon Paris, CEO and founder of Astrid.

"Working with Vator, and Bambi, is a pleasure. She's really passionate about uniting great ideas with the right people. We actually tied for first in last years Vator Splash SF and as a direct result raised $150,000 from an investor who saw us pitch. TEEC Angels approached us right at the event and invested soon thereafter. Reuben Katz, CEO and founder of Geeklist.

"Vator has acted as a launchpad for my startup in terms of awareness and exposure. As a winner of a Vator competition, my startup enjoyed early traction and buzz. Vator has kept my business relevant in the minds of investors, entrepreneurs and potential employees. I've made many invaluable connections to the investor and entrepreneur community." Tim Hyer, founder and CEO, Getable

"DogVacay.com won Vator Splash LA in June 2012. The competition allowed us an opportunity to meet and pitch against some of the great Los Angeles startups and further foster our entrepreneurial community. There was such a positive energy with so many great minds providing insightful feedback throughout the night. Two paws up, Vator!"  Aaron Hirschhorn, founder & Top Dog, Dog Vacay 

"Events like Vator Splash are critical for startups to generate awareness. We were a top 10 finalist for Splash LA. It provided us with an amazing opportunity to network and gain exposure to a whole community of investors and VCs. Soon after, we raised $3M as a result of the momentum/exposure from the event and the platform in general," Peter Vogel, founder and CEO, Plink.

Join the Splash competition here.

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Kristin Karaoglu

Woman of many skills: Database System Engineer; SplashX event producer; Author of Startup Teams

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Conga

Startup/Business

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Brief description:

Conga discovers the social relevance between people - whom you should know, within a group, at an event, or wherever you are.

Brief highlights:

Our science applies sophisticated machine learning algorithms to understand the underlying factors behind your professional relationships 

The problem or opportunity:

The value of social networks is stalling.  They have become saturated with "the people we may know." 

“New insight, experiences, and capabilities…come from “the edges of our social networks.” (John Hagel et al., For Ways to Use "Pull" to Increase Your Success, HBR 4/22/2009)

"People we should know," is a hard - yet important - problem.  Conga's science is able to accurately predict and recommend new relationships.

Conga does Social Discovery and People recommendation as a Service.  Companies from large to small are finding the need to make recommendations between people. From global technology forums to local social application services, the people matching/recommendation function has become a ubiquitous need. Conga is the platform that meets this need with science.

By focusing on the recommendation science and making the recommendation results available through our API, we give developers access to better technology more quickly and at lower cost than they can achieve on their own.

Competitive advantage

Social relevance is typically relegated to a "people you may know" algorithm in such social networking sites as LinkedIn and Facebook.  Other companies in the social discovery space rely on fact matching such as "you both like Lady Gaga and follow Barack Obama" as their basis for social recommendation.

Conga uses applied science by identifying a pool of ~100,000 factors that characterize the motivations behind your social connections and train the Conga social relevance engine. No input more than the linking social networking sites is required of the user. 

Conga is the first platform solution to the problem of predicting social relevance.

Our team includes serial entrepreneurs (founder, Ribbit), stellar CTO (chief architect for Platform as a Service at Sun Microsystems), and PhD entrepreneur neuroscientist as chief scientist.  

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Ryan Kennedy

Joined Vator on

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Todd Fast

Joined Vator on

Senior technical leader and entrepreneur. Co-founder of Conga, Inc. Previously, Chief Architect for Platform as a Service (PaaS) at Sun Microsystems, and CTO and founder of zembly.com.
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Vivienne Ming

Joined Vator on

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Crick Waters

Joined Vator on

Tall enough that most people get a Crick in the neck talking to me at a stand-up party. Starter, creator, builder. Competitive masters swimmer. Husband and father of two. Ribbit co-founder.