Startups and mobile Apps coverage

We cover startups and mobile Apps

[startups-apps]

56 million down the drain, Sprig, a food-delivery startup shuts down.

The food delivery market is saturated, and startups in this sector are feeling the heat, Earlier in May, Maple closed and sold its parts to  Deliveroo. Last March, SpoonRocket, also shut down and sold its IP to a  Brazil-based company. Other startups like Din and  Bento have also closed down. And now the San Francisco high end food-delivery startup Sprig shut down.  The company had raised over $56 million from top VC.

Money better spent in a thousand other startups.

[startups-apps]

Self-driving robots that will deliver you packages or even food

What if instead of sending a guy driving a vehicle or a motorcycle, you can send a small robot to deliver groceries, packages, or even  hot food ? Wouldn’t it be cheaper, as you won’t need to hire a delivery person and you won’t have to pay for petrol ... sure the technology will be costly at first, but at the long run, the cost would become almost negligible, so would be the delivery. Well, that’s at least what a startup “Starship” founded by 2 skype co-founders is promising us. The tech seams very promising and useful. Here’s a description from the startup website:

Starship Technologies is building a fleet of autonomous robots designed to deliver goods locally in 15-30 minutes within a 2-3 mile radius. The robots drive autonomously but are monitored by humans who can take over control at any time. Launched by two Skype co-founders, Ahti Heinla and Janus Friis, Starship Technologies’ aim is to fundamentally reshape how goods are shipped and delivered, and make local delivery, almost free.  

And here’s a video:

[startups-apps]

Slither.io the online multiplayer version of the  snake game

Do you remember that snake game almost everybody played, back when smartphones did not exist ? Well that game concept have morphed into a complex multiplayer online game, where losing is guaranteed. You start as a small warm collecting glowing dots, if you hit another worm you lose, and you become dots, the objective is basically to figure on the top of the leader-board ... The complexity here, is that other players will try to speed past you then cut off the road, causing you to bump into them and lose, thus allowing them to eat your dots ...

The game is fun, addictive, but a big time waster.

[startups-apps]

kickstart the Swiss accelerator that operates like the NFL

When you hear the word accelerator, the first thing that comes to any founder’s mind is “equity“, and more precisely how much equity to join the accelerator ? Well, kickstart-accelerator, wants none!

Kickstart was founded in 2015 and is an initiative by the Kick Foundation in cooperation with DigitalZurich2025. 

According to their website, they offer an equity free acceleration program:

Kickstart is the most ambitious Swiss startup program to date. Never before has Switzerland or Europe had a multi-corporate and equity-free accelerator program welcoming founders from around the world. Backed by academia, corporates and the local startup ecosystem, it aims to put Switzerland on the map by bringing some of the most promising early-stage startups from different fields to Switzerland for three months, and doing everything in its power to make them succeed.

The Accelerator works, in an NFL style funding way, here’s a summary of how everything works:

Each company gets up to 25k in seed funding and a mentor. There are 4 verticals: food, fintech, connected and smart devices and emerging technologies. The hope is to have 10 startups in each vertical. Each company will then put in 2% of their share into a vertical pool. That pool will then hopefully gain in value. Each startup will also hold X% in that pool. ex: If there are ten startups and 10 mentors then each startup and mentor will hold 5% of the pool which is made up of 2% from each startup. As the pool grows in value with the companies, each team’s % grows too.

[startups-apps]

Meet @MyAppConverter the #startup that #Convert your #iOS #App to #Android.

This Start-up, might be the answer to the prayer of many, MyAppConverter allows you, according to their website to upload your native iOS Project and get at least 70% of your iOS code automatically converted to Android. The process is since few days FREE of charge, but for what is not converted, you will need to convert it by yourself/ hire developers or you can request a quote from   MyAppConverter which will charge you relatively a low price relative to the amount of conversion already done. The explainer video below, explains the concept:

[startups-apps]

Parking tickets contesting app @fixed raises $700k from #MarkCuban #Sharktank

Parking tickets contesting app #fixed raises  $700k on Shark tank, the app allows you to contest your ticket with a single photo capture, the valuation is big, so is the potential. The app is free and only charges a percentage of successfully contested tickets.

[startups-apps]

Romeo in a Box  might help keep the GF happy!

@OfficialEBrady #StartupU contestant, have an idea that might get help you and your significant other get back to being Romeo and Juliette. Erin Brady, Miss USA 2013, is not only gorgeous but smart as well, the idea consist of a subscription based gifting solution, that allows men to offer their women, gifts that they might actually like.

The startup is still in launching phase, and Erin still have a lot to figure out, but at a starting package of $50, it’s definitely a must see service.

[startups-apps]

agar.io the successor of Flappy bird

If you thought Flappy bird was bad, you’ll need to see this game!

agar.io is a game where you “a dot”, should follow and eat smaller dots, the more you eat the larger you get and the slower you become, but you have the ability to split and eject fast another part from you allowing you to catch the smaller and faster dots. The game is an absolute time waster, it is addictive but a total waste of time.

[startups-apps]

The Top 10 startups so far for 2015

According to WSJ , Xiaomi (the chinese device manufacturer) and Uber (the taxi killer) top the Startup valuations so far this year.

the top startups in 2014<<

[startups-apps]

Ring Zero, the $1 million funded smart ring!

In the age of internet of things, it’s not a surprise to find a smart thing for everything!

Logbar Ring hardware Kickstarter campaign gave the company US$900,000 in funds & orders. 

Ring Zero is an upgrade, and was launched at SXSW, promising “300 percent more accuracy and 10 times faster gesture response compared to version 1.0,”

An interesting review about Ring:

[startups-apps]

The top 17 startups in 2014

Graph showing the top 17 startups in 2014 , valuation wise. We notice Xiaomi the Chinese Smartphone company leading the way valuation wise, and Uber racking the most funding with $ 2.8 billions in raised capital. 

[startups-apps]

Shradhanjali a startup offering a digital memorial wall

Two indian co-founders - Vivek Vyas and Vimal Popat imagined this startup back in 2010 and effectively launched the site in June 2011.

The idea: According to Vivek, the real pain point is that very little information about our ancestors is available on the Internet and the young generations don't have the means to find out more about their roots or ancestors. "That's when the idea of Shradhanjali.com came to our mind - a handy digital platform where one can share everything about the deceased and start a digital family tree that will never die out," he explains.

New idea in India: Eventhough there are some sites internationally ( Ourlovedones.com, Tributes.com and Legacy.com ...) Shradhanjali is a unique venture in India and has found its place in India Book of Records.

The Business side: Shradhanjali.com operates as a B2C, where users have to purchase a membership on the site. Once that is done, a member can create a profile page for the deceased and post all relevant information, including family details and a special mention about the deceased's contribution towards his/her family, community and society.

[startups-apps]

Media Coverage for startups

A long time ago, when tech entrepreneurs were fewer, tech startups less abundant and tech blogs in the dozens... media coverage for startups was easy! 

Now, with thousands of tech blogs, the coverage somehow became more difficult, audience became scattered, and tech blogs retaining the biggest share of audience became very discriminating towards start-ups, only a tiny percentage were talked about, and only when they were already big enough!

That's why, we decided to have an open mic, our startup section will cover any startup, we want to give back to the startup community the possibility of being found and discovered!

So, if you have a startup contact us, and be sure we'll talk about your venture.

[startups-apps]

hello world

a message to thr programmers out there