It's under 30°F outside, the coldest conditions yet for a Vator Splash event, but that shouldn't stop the last Vator Splash finalists of 2010 from elatedly showing off their startups.
In the next hour, the first five of the top 10 finalists will take the stage to deliver their pitches (in under three minutes) to over 200 people in attendance. All 10 companies were chosen mainly based on peer voting held in the Vator Splash competition, where nearly 70 companies participated and over 1,000 votes were cast. Here's a brief rundown of the top 10 startups and what they're here to offer.
Finalists are listed in order of appearance at Vator Splash. All finalists are headquarted in New York unless otherwise stated.
AskTheDoctor is a Q&A site focused on healthcare questions. Users of the free service can ask real doctors any health-related questions. Main categories on the site include Diet & Fitness, Parenting & Pregnancy, and Sex & Beauty, and there is also a full drug directory. The Toronto, Canada-based startup was created by Dr. Suneel Sharman along with entrepreneur Prakash Chand.
AwesomeTouch is a developer of large-format multitouch displays, like those built by Nextwindow. "Think 50-inch smartphone on a wall or window." Simple enough. The Lexington, Kentucky-based startup, headed by CEO Nick Such and COO Brian Raney, says the market for this technology will grow 5x by 2013 and will reach $9 billion by 2015.
Sportaneous, a clever portmanteau of "sport" and "spontaneous," is a site that helps people find pick-up sports games in their area. Through both an iPhone app and website, users can search for specific games that fit their schedule or skill level. Focusing first on New York City and San Diego, Sportaneous is currently aiming to reach 500,000 users before looking into various revenue models, including subscription fees from private facilities, premium membership options and location-based ads.
StyleCaster is a media company focused on fashion and beauty styles for women. Founded in 2008, the startup first raised a Series A round of $4 million last year. With a focus on content, shopping and community, StyleCaster wants to be the number one hub for women's fashion needs.
SkillSlate connects people with local service providers. The startup believes that current venues for service providers, like Google and Craigslist, fall short of what a Web service of this kind could do. Service providers like movers, handymen, and dog walkers create an online business presence on SkillSlate, where potential customers search for them.
Grovo is an online training platform that uses video courses to teach people how to use popular Web sites. Targeting businesses, individuals, educators and non-profits, Grovo ignores no relevant niche of the Internet, with videos that, for example, teach users how to promote on Facebook, bid on eBay, search for jobs on LinkedIn, and monitor Web traffic with Google Analytics.
Winito helps people manage their athletic life. The startup says it helps anyone who needs help tracking personal fitness, training for a marathon, participating in a Friday night poker club, bonding with colleagues in a corporate soccer league, or competing in a premier football program.
Hedgeable wants to help more people participate in popular hedge funds by bringing investment opportunities to investors with as little as $100,000. The startup sees a big market in the 33 million American households with between $100,000 and $1 million in liquid assets. Investors are charged a flat management fee for building a portfolio on Hedgeable.
TigerTrade helps firms manage and grow their businesses in developing countries, particularly in southeast Asia. On the TigerTrade site, which just went live in the past week, buyers, suppliers and service providers can connect with each other through an international business network fleshed out with product information and market data for developing countries.
Event Now makes finding service providers for events and parties easy. Searching through vendor categories like venues (bars, halls), food (bakeries, restaurants) and entertainment (artists, fireworks), consumers can quickly find local professionals for upcoming events. Founded in 2009, Event Now already has a multi-faceted business model that includes subscriptions, advertising and business-to-business marketing campaigns.
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Startup/Business
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TigerTrade is a business-to-business website that helps firms connect, manage, and grow their business in developing world markets.
Through the TigerTrade website, developing country firms can build profiles, showcase their products, and connect with international buyers. International firms can explore developing world markets on-line, search for partners, and build business relationships to increase distribution and sales.
TigerTrade also provides information, tools, resources, and services needed for international trade and business development.
TigerTrade is launching in the US and Indonesia in November 2010, focusing on the apparel, textiles, footwear, furnishings, and home accessories industries.
Through the TigerTrade website, companies can:
Startup/Business
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Have you ever had trouble finding a mover, handyman, dog walker, or any other service provider? If you search on Google, you’ll end up with a lot of big (expensive) companies. If you go to Craigslist, you’ll find plenty of inexpensive service providers, but you won’t know who’s good and who isn’t. SkillSlate is going to change that. By allowing service providers to easily create an online business presence, and by aggregating thousands of providers in each vertical, we leverage the collective power of individuals to rank highly in search, bringing more exposure and business to the ‘little guy.’
SkillSlate helps consumers find the best individual service providers by allowing them to search and refineme thousands of business profile pages complete with pictures, prices and reviews. These one-person businesses often provide great service at highly competitive prices, but, until SkillSlate, have been hard to find online.
Example service provider profile: http://www.skillslate.com/stevehall
Startup/Business
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Hedgeable is a technology enhanced investment management firm.
Hedgeable is radically transforming the investment industry by bringing institutional quality investment management down market to the American retail investor. Investors build a diversified, customized investment portfolio, choosing from up to 10 proprietary strategies managed by Hedgeable, and view live analytics on their accounts on the Hedgeable.com Web 2.0 platform. On Hedgeable's technology platform, clients can also add/withdraw funds, change their allocation, and contact support. View a live demo here.
Unlike a hedge fund or mutual fund, Hedgeable has no lockups, marketing fees, redemption fees, or sales charges, simply a flat management fee that includes all expenses. Hedgeable offers both Retirement (401k, IRA, Rollover IRA) and non retirement (Taxable, Trust, etc.) account options.
Startup/Business
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Sportaneous makes it easy for busy people to play sports by harnessing location-based technology to facilitate pick-up sports games at any time. Through the Sportaneous mobile app and website, a person can quickly view all sports games that have been proposed in his surrounding neighborhoods. The user can choose to join whichever game best fits his schedule, location, and skill level. Alternatively, a Sportaneous user may spontaneously propose a game himself (for example, a beginner soccer game in Central Park three hours from now), which allows all Sportaneous users in the Manhattan area to join the game until the maximum number of players has been reached.
Startup/Business
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Ask The Doctor is a digital health platform accessible to any patient with an internet connection.
Recently, Ask The Doctor became an official partner of the National Institute of Health (NIH), publishers of PubMed. The question and answer data collected provides insight into how patients communicate their health concerns and has helped identify unmet medical needs internationally.
In 2016, Ask The Doctor reached the 5 million question milestone and continues to be the most trusted resource for personalized medical information and advice, servicing patients from nearly every country around the world.
Users can ask a doctor their medical questions to doctors in over 35+ specialties.
Startup/Business
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EventNow that takes away the hassle for consumers looking to hire local professionals for an upcoming party or event, by getting event vendors to compete for local projects so consumers don’t spend days finding the best local vendors in their area. Consumers save lots of time and money and Vendors grow their business with great ROI which is much needed in their industry.
Startup/Business
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Grovo is the leading online platform that trains users on top Internet tools and cloud services with 60-second, personalized videos.
Featuring 3,500+ video lessons covering 100+ Internet tools and cloud services – and 15 lessons added daily - Grovo is the fastest and easiest way to become a better Internet user. With coverage, tools and training ideal for consumers, businesses, educators, and governments, users in 150 countries are using Grovo to work smarter and sharpen their Internet skills.
For organizations and enterprises Grovo’s lightweight training dashboard, Grovo for Teams, enables employee training on the Internet tools, sites, and trends they need to stay ahead.
Founded in 2010, Grovo is a privately-held online education company headquartered in New York City.
Startup/Business
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Winito is the easiest way to organize and track your athletic life!
Whether you are tracking your personal fitness, training for a marathon, participating in a Friday night poker club, bonding with colleagues in a corporate soccer league, or competing in a premier football program, Winito has the tools to manage your activities with ease.
The underlying problems of all these activities are how to track your progress and how to compare yourself to others. Winito's ranking & fitness algorithms answer all of these questions, while helping you to stay organized and have fun with like minded people.
Startup/Business
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StyleCaster Media Group is a disruptive digital media company that empowers both style enthusiasts and the brands that want to reach them. StyleCaster combines the art of traditional media with the science of new media to create premium content, engaging experiences and integrated advertising solutions for all its online destinations.
Startup/Business
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BuildingLayer is a collaborative map of the indoor world. We enable organizations to more effectively navigate spaces, track inventory, manage facilities, and visualize other indoor data layers. We're making "lost" obsolete.
BuildingLayer is a...
Betaspring 2011 Alumni (top 15 startup accelerator)
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CEO at APAX Software. Founder at Awesome Inc. MS in Economics, BS in Computer Science from University of KY. I also coach soccer. I love building a culture that attracts smart, creative people.
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CEO at BuildingLayer. Past at GE/Toyota/KSTC. Used to race solar-powered cars. Got into Stanford MBA, but chose startup path. I love assembling teams of smart people to solve hard problems.
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