Earlier this week I attended the Mass Tech Leadership Annual Investment Conference and the Keiretsu Forum monthly screening meeting. During the course of the day I reviewed the business plans of 27 companies looking for funding. They were looking for $500K to $5M so most of them were looking for Angel money and not ready for VCs. The companies were all over the map in terms of products and services.
The list of companies is useful as a snap shot of where entrepreneurs are focusing their attention. In no particular order;
- Assembla - collaboration platform for enterprises
- Optodot - material sciences - nanoporous membranes
- bWary - configuration monitoring/compliance
- AnnouncementMail - email spam filter
- eRPortal - asset/material management
- xCellaSave - cell phone advertising
- InBoxer - email filtering and compliance
- Clinical Technology Advisors - patient compliance
- Beam Power - cell phone tower amplifiers
- MaestroTec - document management services
- RoamingWire - WiFi Hotspot hardware and software
- Jarg - semantic search technology
- AptSoft - transaction/event monitoring & notification
- Enventra - OCR for math equations
- RuleSphere - compliance rules engine
- MobileSecure - cell phone data security
- Kyos - digital health records - conversion/mgmt
- StarTech - Outsourcing software development
- InsightDirect - field service management software
InsightDirect was the best/most mature business I saw at the conference. They have a great product, solid management team, lots of customers, $3.6M in revenue last year, and a good business model.
RoamingWire could be in a great position too. They have very small WiFi antennas that mount on utility poles to create a WiFi Hotspot network.
MobileSecure is in a hot market - cell phone security. Could be big.
The Keiretsu Forum also had some interesting companies present. Here is a quick run down;
- Metaphor Solutions - IVR (Interactive Voice Response) for small businesses.
- Opthometrics - medical device to measure eye movements
- EggRock - Pre-assembled building components for hotels and universities
- Eastbridge Real Estate - Structured finance of mortgage securities
- Jookster - search engine which utilizes social networks for relevance
- Innovia Medical - device for detecting ear infections
- Cognistar - online training service
- Bezoloven - New drug delivery method for treating lead poisoning
Jookster is a search engine that refines results based on the votes of your friends or social network. They apply the normal ranking and relevance criteria and then filter the results based on your own history/preferences and those of your friends. This could take off if they can target the right market.
This day reminded me that there are still lots of problems to be solved. The key to success is the people, the product, and the market. There are always exceptions, but the probability of success goes way up if the people are experienced entrepreneurs, the product solves a real pain point, and the market is ready to accept the new solution. It sounds easy, but it is never obvious.
