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YC Companies Summer 2014

Y Combinator Companies Summer 2014

Here they are:

Aptible

Location: San Francisco, CA

CrunchBase: aptible

Twitter: aptible

Hacker News: n/a

Status: live

Market:

Aptible is a secure, private cloud deployment platform built to automate HIPAA compliance for organizations in the medical and healthcare industries. Aptible manages the entire secure backend for hosting and app delivery: web servers, app servers, databases, load balancers, network security, backups, encryption, permissions, and more.

Backpack

Location: San Francisco, CA

CrunchBase: backpack

Twitter: backpack2014

Hacker News: n/a

Status: live

Market:

Backpack is a peer-to-peer marketplace that connects shoppers and travelers to empower consumers to buy overseas products at a discount. Shoppers get access to foreign products by paying travelers coming to their country a fee to purchase and deliver the items. Backpack aggregates items that you can search on the website through Amazon and Ebay, or you can manually enter a link of any product you need with the price. Travelers earn money based on the product size and dimensions.

Bayes Impact

Location: San Francisco, CA

CrunchBase: bayes-impact

Twitter: bayesimpact

Hacker News: n/a

Status: live

Market:

Bayes Impact is a nonprofit that deploys data science teams to work with civic and nonprofit organizations on solving social impact challenges. We leverage the power of the data revolution to positively impact communities. Bayes Impact works on a select number of high-impact high-feasibility projects. We rely on full-time fellows that focus on one project at a time with the support of leading industry and academic mentors, advisors, and volunteers.

Beep

Location: San Francisco, CA

CrunchBase: beep-2

Twitter: beeplife

Hacker News: n/a

Status: live

Market:

Beep connects your speakers to your music over Wi-Fi. Beep uses a small copper dial that can be placed anywhere in your home and works with any speaker system with an aux-in port. With Beep’s technology and open platform, connecting streaming music to every room in your home is beautiful and easy.

Bikanta

Location: Newark, CA

CrunchBase: bikanta

Twitter: n/a

Hacker News: n/a

Status: live

Market:

Bikanta uses tiny diamonds to find cancer. Bikanta is a revolutionary platform nanotechnology based on nanodiamonds to push the boundaries of current optical imaging methods for medical diagnostics. The potential of nanotechnology in the near-term is to act as tools to study disease. The long-term impact of nanomedicine will be the story of extending surgical control to the cellular level.

BitAccess

Location: Ottawa, ON

CrunchBase: bitaccess

Twitter: BitAccess

Hacker News: n/a

Status: live

Market:

BitAccess designs, manufactures, and sells ATM-like kiosks that convert fiat money (real-world money) to and from digital currencies like Bitcoin.

BlockScore

Location: Palo Alto, CA

CrunchBase: blockscore

Twitter: getblockscore

Hacker News: n/a

Status: live

Market:

BlockScore is an identity verification and anti-fraud solution for online transactions. BlockScore offers an unintrusive experience for consumers and an accurate and cost-effective solution for businesses in every industry from digital currencies to in-person transactions.

Carlypso

Location:

CrunchBase: carlypso

Twitter: trycarlypso

Hacker News: n/a

Status: live

Market:

Carlypso takes care of selling your used automobile for you. Car sellers get the the money of a private sale with the convenience of a dealer trade-in.

Checkr

Location: Sunnyvale, CA

CrunchBase: checkr

Twitter: checkr_io

Hacker News: n/a

Status: live

Market:

Checkr automates the process of professional background checks through an API and online access.

ClearTax

Location:

CrunchBase: cleartax

Twitter: clearTax_in

Hacker News: n/a

Status: live

Market: financial services and payment processing

ClearTax is tax preparation software for electronic filing of personal tax returns. ClearTax is specifically designed for e-filing by Indian citizens and processing Form 16 (F-16), which is India’s equivalent of the W-2 tax form used in the United States.

Fixed

Location: San Francisco, CA

CrunchBase: fixed-parking-tickets

Twitter: GetFixedMe

Hacker News: n/a

Status: live

Market:

Fixed helps you fight parking tickets. Use the Fixed app to take a photo of your ticket and evidence of why it was wrongly issued. Fixed will contest the ticket with your local government. You pay only 25% of the ticket price if your ticket is dismissed. You only pay for the ticket itself if the ticket isn’t dismissed.

Flytenow

Location: Boston, MA

CrunchBase: flytenow

Twitter: flytenow

Hacker News: n/a

Status: live

Market:

Flytenow connects people seeking to fly in private planes with local pilots. The service enables private pilots to share flight expenses with passengers.

Front

Location: San Francisco, CA

CrunchBase: front

Twitter: frontapp

Hacker News: n/a

Status: live

Market:

Front is a service to collaborate, comment, assign, and reply to shared inboxes used by businesses.

Ginkgo Bioworks

Location: Boston, MA

CrunchBase: ginkgo-bioworks

Twitter: Ginkgoo

Hacker News: n/a

Status: live

Market: biotechnology

Ginkgo Bioworks is a biotechnology company that engineers organisms and creates designer microbes. Some of its current projects include a project with DARPA to treat antibiotic-resistant germs, using designer microbes to convert CO2 emissions into fuel, and somehow making yeast smell like roses.

Glowing Plant

Location: San Francisco, CA

CrunchBase: glowing-plant

Twitter: glowingplant

Hacker News: n/a

Status: live

Market: biotechnology

Glowing Plant creates glowing plants by using synthetic biology and genome compilers software with natural lighting.

Greentoe

Location:

CrunchBase: greentoe

Twitter: GreenToeDotCom

Hacker News: n/a

Status: live

Market:

Greentoe is a name-your-own-price service for online purchasing. Consumers simply name the price they are willing to pay for an item. Greentoe then automatically checks its network of certified retailers to see who is willing to meet that price, with the first retailer that agrees earning the sale.

Helion Energy

Location: Redmond, WA

CrunchBase: helion-energy

Twitter: n/a

Hacker News: n/a

Status: live

Market:

Helion Energy is developing the Fusion Engine, a near-term and low-cost nuclear solution for clean safe energy. The Fusion Engine’s patented reactor technology is based on award-winning and peer-reviewed research. Recent technology breakthroughs enable clean fusion energy in the near future.

Impraise

Location: Los Altos, CA

CrunchBase: impraise

Twitter: ImpraiseApp

Hacker News: n/a

Status: live

Market:

Impraise is an easy way to share feedback at the workplace. Impraise makes it simple to give and receive actionable, timely feedback from your colleagues. With Impraise, you can easily track and analyze performance in real-time, get motivated to achieve goals, and get rewarded for excellent work.

Kash

Location:

CrunchBase: kash

Twitter: withkash

Hacker News: n/a

Status: live

Market:

Kash is a mobile payment company that gets rid of credit cards and middle-men that stand between bank accounts and retailers. Kash uses SecureDebit technology, a direct bank payment method that avoids the credit card network and allows retailers to save 2-5% in transaction processing fees.

Lawn Love

Location: San Diego, CA

CrunchBase: lawn-love

Twitter: n/a

Hacker News: _sentient

Status: live

Market:

Lawn Love makes it easy to find, book, and pay a landscaping or lawncare provider.

ListRunner

Location:

CrunchBase: listrunner

Twitter: ListRunnerApp

Hacker News: n/a

Status: live

Market:

Listrunner puts medical patient summaries, updates, and tasks together so teams can get more done with less effort.

LivBlends

Location: San Francisco, CA

CrunchBase: liv-blends

Twitter: LivBlends

Hacker News: n/a

Status: live

Market:

LivBlends is the Keurig machine for freshly blended beverages. Pods come pre-packaged with fresh fruits, vegetables, seeds, and nuts – insert a pod into the machine, blend, and you’re ready to go. No need to source, clean, cut, and measure ingredients – nor mess with the clean up. Eating fresh, healthy foods has never been easier.

Local Lift

Location:

CrunchBase: local-lift

Twitter: Local_Lift

Hacker News: n/a

Status: live

Market:

Local Lift is a rewards-based crowdfunding platform for local small businesses. Our platform helps small businesses raise funds to improve or grow, without making expensive loan payments or giving up equity.

MTailor

Location:

CrunchBase: mtailor

Twitter: mtailor

Hacker News: n/a

Status: live

Market: fashion and clothing

MTailor is custom-fitted dress shirts for men that can be ordered with an app. MTailor uses your phone’s camera for the perfect fitting custom shirt.

Naytev

Location: San Francisco, CA

CrunchBase: naytev

Twitter: gonaytev

Hacker News: n/a

Status: live

Market:

Naytev optimizes how content is shared from websites to social media, creating a 30% bump in referral traffic. We use machine learning to surface and discover effective messages in real time, and prioritize those as users share. For example, publishers can share a single article with a half-dozen different headlines and thumbnails. Naytev will analyze and choose the versions that create conversions. Add Naytev to your site in under 2 minutes with a single copy-paste and use our graphical post editor to start creating experiments.

Nightingale

Location: San Francisco, CA

CrunchBase: nightingale

Twitter: ngaleapp

Hacker News: n/a

Status: live

Market:

Nightingale is a mobile app that makes it easier for behavioral therapists to collect and report data.

OneName.io

Location:

CrunchBase: onename

Twitter: onenameio

Hacker News: n/a

Status: live

Market:

OneName makes it easy for anyone to be listed in the directory for Bitcoin. Users pick a Bitcoin username and create a Bitcoin profile. The goal is that every bitcoin user has their own private page for sending and receiving money from other bitcoin users.

Parenthoods

Location: San Francisco, CA

CrunchBase: parenthoods

Twitter: n/a

Hacker News: n/a

Status: live

Market: parenting resources

Parenthoods is a local community where parents relate with each other beyond the highlight reels of smiling kids at birthday parties. This isn’t a place to give updates on how your little ones are doing, or to paint that perfect picture. Its where parents come for real talk. It’s the place to share your wins and misses, and to get advice. There is no perfect parent. And that’s okay.

PersistIQ

Location:

CrunchBase: persistiq

Twitter: persistiq

Hacker News: n/a

Status: live

Market:

PersistIQ provides smart drip campaigns for coordinating and automating outbound sales.

PicnicHealth

Location: San Francisco, CA

CrunchBase: picnichealth

Twitter: PicnicHealth

Hacker News: n/a

Status: live

Market:

PicnicHealth is a subscription-based service that tracks and stores medical records creating a comprehensive health timeline for its users. PicnicHealth makes it easy for you to seamlessly import medical records from your doctors, understand what’s going on with your health, and coordinate care between your providers.

Product Hunt

Location:

CrunchBase: product-hunt

Twitter: ProductHunt

Hacker News: n/a

Status: live

Market:

Product Hunt surfaces the best new products, every day. It’s a place for product-loving enthusiasts to share and geek out about the latest mobile apps, websites, hardware projects, and tech creations.

Quora

Location: Mountain View, CA

CrunchBase: quora

Twitter: Quora

Hacker News: n/a

Status: live

Market:

Quora is a question-and-answer website created, edited, and organized by its community of users.

Rigetti Computing

Location: Berkeley, CA

CrunchBase: rigetti-computing

Twitter: n/a

Hacker News: n/a

Status: live

Market:

Rigetti Computing makes commercial quantum computing systems. Rigetti uses Ansys simulation software to rapidly test changes without having to build new circuitry with each iteration. Quantum computers can hypothetically perform certain kinds of operations immeasurably faster than traditional processors. Commonly-cited applications for the technology include simulating chemical reactions at a molecular level in order to create drugs and new materials, more advanced artificial intelligence, and cryptography.

Roost

Location:

CrunchBase: n/a

Twitter: n/a

Hacker News: n/a

Status: live

Market:

Roost enables website visitors to subscribe to websites and get browser-based push notifications. Web developers can add support for push notifications with just a single line of javascript. The Safari web browser already supports push notifications. Chrome and Firefox are expected to support push notifications by late 2014.

Shift Payments

Location: San Francisco, CA

CrunchBase: shift-payments

Twitter: ShiftPayments

Hacker News: n/a

Status: live

Market:

Shift Payments is a payment system to spend digital currencies, virtual currencies, cryptocurrencies, and loyalty points anywhere major payment cards are accepted.

ShipBob

Location: Chicago, IL

CrunchBase: shipbob

Twitter: LoveShipBob

Hacker News: n/a

Status: live

Market:

ShipBob handles all the details of shipping packages for you, from packaging to pick-up. Simply schedule a pickup of your package using a web form or smartphone app and ShipBob does the rest. A Shipbob agent (Ship Captain) will visit your location within 30 minutes of scheduling the pickup, package the items, and mail it via the lowest cost carrier for the selected shipping option. The lowest cost carrier will be used (USPS, FedEx, or UPS) and tracking numbers and delivery confirmation will be provided.

Shout

Location: New York, NY

CrunchBase: shout-app

Twitter: useshout

Hacker News: n/a

Status: live

Market:

Shout is a real-time classifieds app for exchanging anything. Shout handles the entire lifecycle of an exchange between two people. The app verifies the identities of all sellers, handles communication in-app, processes and escrows payments, ties into social identities, and has an internal review system to build a long-term trust profile of sellers. All of these pieces help facilitate trustworthy and efficient person-to-person exchanges.

Sliced Investing

Location:

CrunchBase: sliced-investing

Twitter: SlicedInvesting

Hacker News: n/a

Status: live

Market: financial services and payment processing

Sliced Investing enables ordinary investors to participate in exclusive pre-vetted hedge funds. Sliced membership is free and allows investing in hedge funds with lower minimum investment amounts.

Theorem

Location: San Francisco, CA

CrunchBase: shop-theorem

Twitter: n/a

Hacker News: n/a

Status: live

Market:

Theorem is Priceline for anything. Theorem connects buyers with curated local merchants around the world to purchase anything in a Priceline-esque way. Users make offers. Merchants see the data and choose a price. Anyone at or above the price point receives their purchase in the mail. It’s easy and fun when people pay what they want for high quality merchandise.

Think Gaming

Location: New York, NY

CrunchBase: think-gaming

Twitter: gamingoutloud

Hacker News: n/a

Status: live

Market:

Think Gaming is a mobile advertising data co-op. Think Gaming provides an aggregated database detailing volume, cost per install, and install quality for more than 400 publisher ad networks. Our platform lets mobile game developers work together and share advertising data that helps them find the best paying users. Developers with a great game get the same visibility as those with a big budget.

TicketLabs

Location: Toronto, Canada

CrunchBase: ticketlabs

Twitter: TicketLabs

Hacker News: n/a

Status: live

Market: event planning (real world)

TicketLabs is a social marketing platform intended for use by smaller musical and entertainment venues. The software aims to bring to marketing and selling power of analytics usually only available to managers of larger venues to artists and locations of any size and popularity.

Tiempo

Location: Sunnyvale, CA

CrunchBase: tiempo-2

Twitter: tiempolabs

Hacker News: n/a

Status: live

Market:

Tiempo is a free time-tracking app for iOS, Android, and the web that can be used by individuals and companies to track employee hours to pay them faster. Employees can log in hours and send it to their manager for approval. Approved invoices can be paid in moments and payments arrive in recipients’ bank accounts in less than 3 days.

VizeraLabs

Location:

CrunchBase: n/a

Twitter: n/a

Hacker News: n/a

Status: live

Market:

VizeraLabs is a smart projection device that performs accurate projections onto three dimensional physical objects. Vizera’s first application is real-time in-store upholstery projections on actual furniture. Future uses for Vizera may include home decor, vehicles, construction, and healthcare.

WalkSource

Location:

CrunchBase: walksource

Twitter: walksource

Hacker News: n/a

Status: live

Market:

WalkSource is a business-to-business network for hoteliers looking to run operations more efficiently and generate more revenue. WalkSource is an online marketplace for trading excess hotel demand. Our tools allow hotels to increase sales and deliver more guests to their property every night. Our customers confidently overbook their properties, exchange lower priced guests for higher priced ones, find good deals for a Walked guest, and complete the entire process within 5 minutes on WalkSource.com. We make the market more efficient, providing hotels with increased revenue and last-minute guests.

Weave.in

Location: San Francisco, CA

CrunchBase: weave-2

Twitter: startweaving

Hacker News: n/a

Status: live

Market:

Weave is a networking app for professionals that helps professionals find others that they would like to meet, through a double opt-in selection process. Weave also include a Tinder-like feature that uses proximity to make it easier for users going to events or part of professional organizations to find each another.

Zen99

Location:

CrunchBase: zen99

Twitter: n/a

Hacker News: n/a

Status: live

Market:

Zen99 offers software tools to assist freelancers and contractors with certain aspects of business management. Zen99′s online dashboard lets users sign up for health insurance, track earnings and expenses, and calculate how much to set aside for taxes. There’s also a section of online guides and advice.

Zip Phone

Location:

CrunchBase: n/a

Twitter: zipphoneapp

Hacker News: n/a

Status: live

Market:

Zip Phone is a free app for encrypted voice-over-ip phone calls.

Source: http://ycuniverse.com/ycombinator-companies

#startups

Big-data + Expert knowledge

So what is Big Data?

Big data is a term used to describe data that is voluminous and reactive to business needs. Many businesses are using big data technology to track everything they possibly can, possibly not knowing exactly how they will use that data. The term can also include a mixing bowl of technologies that allow for storage of massive amounts of data, adhoc compilation and investigation of that data.

There are two primary barriers to storage of large amounts of data:

Storage devices, the volume and speed of incoming data typically exceeds the capabilities of hard-drives to store and retrieve data, and

Processing speed, businesses need to react quickly to fleeting opportunities, find competitive advantage and leverage their existing customer base and the processing speeds of computers cannot processes requests to summarise and investigate massive stores of data.

So this is why Big Data platforms (e.g. Hardoop) have been developed; they can distribute storage and processing of data across and almost infinite number of computers.

Case study: Netflix

1000's of hours of micro-categorisation by experts has created the most accurate suggestion engine with 76,000+ microgenres. Netflix track everything their users do including viewing, scrolling, voting and time of day/week/year. All of this data is piped into their suggestion engine and combined with the most granular microgenres in the world, provides the most amazing suggestions.

You might like to listen to a NPR podcast that talks about the Netflix suggestion egine: Netflix Built Its Microgenres By Staring Into The American Soul, January 02, 2014.

Case study: BBC news archives

In 2005 I embarked on a project to classify and organise the BBC's video archives. I spent hundreds of hours designing and implementing a metadata model that would allow people to search for news within the archive about specific events, what happened (e.g. protest) and things that were in the video (e.g. horse, parliament house).

Case study: Starspoon

Starspoon is a sporting website I worked on in 2012. It combines expert data collection about sports, teams and players and analysis of terabytes of text. Starspoon also collects information about which article each user views, likes and shares; it uses this information to continuously adjust the which articles appear foremost.

Get started now mining your Google Analytics data, to provide get more customers and keep existing ones, email me or call on Skype l33t8l.

Lee Sinclair Metatheory.co

#big data #information design #user experience design

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