Vator Splash Oakland 2015 Finalist - ShowKit

Mitos Suson · May 22, 2015 · Short URL: https://vator.tv/n/3da4

Check out Anthony Kelani's presentation on stage and the judges' feedback

Check out CEO and Co-Founder of Showkit Anthony Kelani's, presentation on stage and the judges feedback during the Vator Splash Oakland 2015 competition. ShowKit is the next generation of mobile customer support and engagement. They’ve developed a platform and mobile sdk that enables customer care agents to tap, swipe, draw and view the screen of a mobile user in real-time while communicating with them via video/audio chat right inside the app.

Among the judges were Erik Moore (Base Ventures), Paige Craig (Angel Investor), Maha Ibrahim (Canaan Partners), Noah Doyle (Javelin Venture Partners), Mike Walsh (Structure Capital), Tianxiang Zhuo (Karlin Ventures), Dave Samuel (Freestyle VC) and Adam Smith (Bowery Capital).

Thank you KPMG, Kapor Center, Wendel Rosen, Javelin, Rackspace, The Port Workspaces, Alaska, Gensler, Parelius, and Bread & Butter for sponsoring!

Mitos Suson

I produce Vator Events and enjoy the challenge. I am learning and growing a lot, being involved with Vator and loving every moment of it!

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Related Companies, Investors, and Entrepreneurs

Base Ventures

Angel group/VC

Joined Vator on December 4, 2013

Base Ventrues, founded by Erik Moore, is a seed-stage fund investing in technology companies. Current portfolio includes InDinero, Virool, Dekko, Tracks.by/Hipset, Priceonomics, MightyText, and others. Successful exits include Socialcam (acquired by Autodesk), and Appstores (acquired by InMobi).

Structure Capital

Angel group/VC

Joined Vator on September 13, 2013

We help passionate teams build great companies by investing seed-stage capital, time, experience and relationships. Building a valuable company is hard—we've done it—we can help you do it too. We love helping entrepreneurs reach their dreams.

Freestyle Capital

Angel group/VC

Joined Vator on January 14, 2014

Freestyle Capital is a seed stage investor and mentor for Internet software startups. We’re the ones you come to when you want more than just a check. Our community of veteran entrepreneurs offers real-world experience and business finesse without stuffy investor baggage or hidden agendas. We’re candid, we’re real, and we’re ready to help you change the world. (You might even have fun while you’re at it.)

Javelin Venture Partners

Angel group/VC

Joined Vator on January 23, 2014

Invests in early-stage tech companies with incredible potential, managed by teams of energetic, trustworthy and capable leaders. Key focus areas include digital media, Internet commerce, mobile and healthcare IT. Javelin looks for advanced bleeding-edge innovations, where the addressable market size is substantial and strong competitive advantages exist. A typical investment is between $1 to $4 million, with reserves for follow-on investments. In addition, Javelin also considers smaller seed investments for unique companies just getting started. Located in downtown San Francisco, while invests throughout the world. Javelin is a very active investor with a long-term outlook and the objective of creating substantial value.

Karlin Ventures

Angel group/VC

Joined Vator on July 25, 2014

Karlin Ventures is an early-stage venture capital fund based in Los Angeles. They are value-add partners helping entrepreneurs who take contrarian approaches to create impactful solutions to big, interesting problems. Karlin Ventures is an affiliate of Karlin Asset Management, a private investment firm managing over $1.4 billion of unleveraged equity capital.

Bowery Capital

Angel group/VC

Joined Vator on September 17, 2013

“Bowery Capital is an early-stage venture capital fund investing in business software. Bowery Capital is focused on helping its founders build the next generation of B2B market leaders.” And for a longer version: “Bowery Capital focuses exclusively on supporting startups that disrupt and upgrade legacy marketing and IT products and services across all organizations. As more and more internet natives drive purchasing decisions, Bowery Capital believes that roughly $357B will change hands over the next 10 years as old products are replaced with new. The firm believes that the key ingredient to early success is MRR and ARR growth, and as such provides various sales tools that portfolio companies can leverage to develop a strong early customer base. This combination of a focused thesis and value-added support are the cornerstones of Bowery Capital's investment approach.

ShowKit

Startup/Business

Joined Vator on July 30, 2013

ShowKit is the next generation of mobile customer support and engagement. We’ve developed a platform and mobile sdk that enables customer care agents to tap, swipe, draw and view the screen of a mobile user in real-time while communicating with them via video/audio chat right inside the app. ShowKit’s goal is to reduce resolution times and repeat calls for technical defects, and increase customer loyalty and conversions by providing a more efficient and effective mobile support experience.

Problem

The world is going mobile and apps have become a great way to perform different tasks until you run into a problem and need to speak to a live person. In most apps today your only options to connect with a live person are to leave the app and call an 800 number or send an email. Companies are spending millions of dollars on their mobile initiative yet still rely on outdated and ineffective channels to support and engage their mobile customers. According to analysts from Greenfield Online, Datamonitor/Ovum and Genesys, enterprises in the U.S. lose an estimated $83 billion each year due to defections and abandoned purchases as a direct result of a poor experience.

Market Opportunity

The total mobile app market is huge, $77 billion by 2017. Mobile use is rapidly becoming integrated into every business sector in every industry, which means these mobile users will need support.

ShowKit provides technology for real-time interaction in any mobile app ranging from shopping to entertainment to productivity. Offering ShowKit as an platform and sdk allows for wide adoption and keeps us flexible and cost effective.

Our initial target markets will be telecommunications, concierge and the mobile workforce. Customer support in these markets are traditionally high-touch, and they are feeling the biggest pain and are some of the biggest losers when it comes to supporting their mobile customers. We also have received the most interest and traction with enterprises in these markets.

Why invest now?

We’re an experienced team of mobile, real-time video and VoIP experts. With limited funding and a small team we’ve executed on building a great product and have attracted some of the largest companies in the world. We were finalists at TechCrunch Disrupt NY, which has given us a lot of exposure. We currently have paying customers ranging from startups to enterprise, and almost $500k in sales. We’ve done all of this with under $500k in total funding.

Canaan Partners

Angel group/VC

Joined Vator on August 13, 2013

Canaan Partners invests in entrepreneurs and works alongside them to turn visionary ideas into valuable companies. Since 1987, the firm has catalyzed the growth of disruptive technology startups and healthcare companies revolutionizing the practice of medicine. With $3.4 billion under management and more than 95 acquisitions and 55 IPOs to date, Canaan has funded companies such as Acme Packet, Associated Content (acquired by Yahoo), CommerceOne, DoubleClick (acquired by Google), ID Analytics (acquired by LifeLock), Match.com (acquired by IAC), SandForce (acquired by LSI), SuccessFactors (acquired by SAP) and Virsto Software (acquired by VMware). Current technology investments include Blurb, Kabam, Lending Club, Performance Marketing Brands, SOASTA, Tremor Video and Zoosk in the U.S.; BharatMatrimony, Loylty Rewardz and UnitedLex in India; and PrimeSense and LiveU in Israel. Canaan maintains a presence in the global innovation hubs of Silicon Valley, New York City, India and Israel. For more information visit www.canaan.com orwww.facebook.com/canaanpartners. Follow us on Twitter @canaanpartners.