In just three days, over 40 startups will descend on downtown Las Vegas for one of the country’s biggest startup competitions, at Tech Cocktail Celebrate Conference.
Startups from all over the country – from San Diego to Detroit to Maine – will be on display at our Monday night showcase to meet attendees, speakers, and – of course – the judges. On Tuesday afternoon, the four finalists will take the stage for live pitches, and one winner will be crowned the hottest startup in the nation.
The three runners up will take home American Airlines Business Extra points and $1,000 in Amazon Web Services credits, and the winner gets American Airlines Business Extra points, $5,000 in Amazon Web Services credits, and a $10,000 check.
Here are all the startups competing – best of luck to everyone!
6th Man Apps (Detroit): 6th Man Apps develops sports statistics software that analyzes advanced metrics typically only calculated on the highest levels of play. We identify the players that don’t necessarily light up the stat sheet, but when they are on the floor good things happen. We break down performance beyond basic statistics. It is effortless to pinpoint the highest scorer, so we find your most efficient scorer.
Aisle Planner (San Diego): Aisle Planner provides a modern, scalable, cloud based planning solution for an industry that is fragmented, dysfunctional and overdue for a major technical overhaul. Our wedding planning and management tools allow planners to plan more efficiently, collaborate with their clients, vendors and venues to expand their businesses and grow their bottom line. Designed by professional planners Aisle Planner is the smart solution for planning the perfect wedding.
Alumnify (San Diego): Alumnify is an alumni engagement software company that builds white label mobile applications for universities, high schools, and companies.
Alynd (San Francisco): Alynd is creating a shift in the mindsets, methods and measures for working smarter together that is ushering in the future of work and delivering on the promise of the quantified enterprise. We realized the atomic unit of collaboration is the commitment and that keeping our commitments is the basis of our reputation. In this way, Alynd helps professionals track the commitments they make to each other and provides them with an evidence based reputation, their Net Trust Score. Connecting the dots between performance and performance management is significant in this way because we uniquely serve the interests of the individual and the organization, the employee and the manager. In providing the intelligence that assists people in keeping their commitments and the tools to support the quantified enterprise, we make work suck less, improve productivity and enable everyone to find greater happiness in their lives. By focusing on people instead of projects, our design improves upon the way people work with each other, producing better bottom line results and improving organizational culture. Sign up for the alpha at http://alynd.com/
Beacon & Lively (Philadelphia): Beacon & Lively introduces the world’s premier piece of jewelry designed to keep you effortlessly connected, in a way that is stylish and comfortable.
bibs (San Francisco): bibs, a platform for modernizing running events, tying together online registration, RFID chip timing, and result sharing into a single platform. For athletes and spectators, bibs is an iPhone/Android app to sign up for events, receive times and results and share with their friends. For event organizers, bibs is a powerful tool that connects event registration, RFID timing and management into a single platform and allows them to connect with partners and sponsors.
bizzieMe (Maine): bizzieMe™ is an interactive, multi-media, retention marketing tool. We build games around your brand to offer one more way for you to deliver a positive experience to your customers. While our patent-pending digital platform gives us the flexibility to address any audience, we’re focusing on kids who often drive family hospitality choices, such as restaurant selection. By providing a great interactive experience, bizzieMe™ increases customer loyalty and repeat business with branded games and activities for your customers’ personal mobile devices.
Book Bottles (Twin Cities): BookBottles is an integrated technology system for nightclubs to better manage their venues. The software allows nightclubs to managing multiple areas of the club — including bottle service reservations, guestlist management and event ticketing — through the web and mobile platforms, and gives nightclubs access to their analytics for them to make better business decisions.
Booth (Fargo): Booth allows you to control your business communication by writing call rules around time, location, and 3rd party integrations.
Caktus (Chicago): Caktus is a social music platform focused on sharing, exploring, and discovering new music through a one-of-a-kind media player that allows users to listen to music from multiple libraries, both on-device and streamed, without ever leaving the app. Caktus continues to receive high praise from audiophiles, casual listeners, bands, and the music industry for its ability to organically connect users and artists through its social network and a love of music.
Charitweet (Detroit): Charitweet is a technology company built by MIT engineers to make giving go viral. Founded with the mission to help more money go direct to the cause, with less money wasted on ineffective fundraising. Charitweet empowers any person to donate to charity in less than five seconds — where each donation is broadcast to through a network — enabling nonprofits to harness the power of social giving with no overhead.
Chef’s Roll (San Diego): Chef’s Roll, the “LinkedIn for culinary professionals”, is going after the most delicious social vertical. With chefs from over 100 countries they are already connecting culinary students to Michelin-starred chefs with new opportunities around the globe. Casting producers are scouting talent on their site for culinary shows, top restaurants are posting on their job board, and food events and companies are lining up to partner on events and get in front of their chefs.
Chitter (Chicago): We are reinventing brand loyalty and consumer engagement. Advertisers and marketers are now faced with a dilemma: consumers are savvy, and no longer rely on traditional marketing to make purchasing decisions. Rather, they look to the online content of their peers to influence and make purchasing decisions as their content is far more trusted. Chitter is the intersection of what the consumer is already doing online and how brands want to advertise online. Chitter is the solution for everyone from the smallest business to the biggest brands and retailers. Our technology gives brands an opportunity to incentivize their consumers to push positive, designed experiences to their own social media, turning them into consumer advocates and brand ambassadors. Chitter is the new source for Social Currency.
Circumrent (New York): Pay less when you move in, get paid 3% of your annual rent back when you move out. Circumrent puts the power of the rental market in the hands of everyday New Yorkers.
Clarify (Austin): The world has moved beyond text. Ever since the invention of the Gutenberg press human knowledge has been preserved and communicated in text. Now video and audio technologies enable the capture and storage of information in quantities that are mind-boggling. But there’s a problem. There’s a chasm that needs to be crossed. On one side is the abundant generation of all this information and on the other side is the potential of how developers can use it. To cross the chasm, video and audio must become just as searchable as textual information like web pages and word documents. We’re building the bridge. Our platform makes searching AV files simple for developers to integrate into their applications. Our self-service API allows you to make your audio and video files actionable and connect you with their potential.
Cloud Elements (Denver): Cloud Elements is a cloud API integration and aggregation service that developers use to integrate, monitor and maintain leading cloud services at a fraction of the cost and time. With their unique ‘one-to-many’ approach, a developer can integrate a single API to connect all the leading services in categories such as Documents, CRM, Finance and more. Cloud Elements is headquartered in Denver, CO, but serves customers worldwide. More information about Cloud Elements can be found at www.cloud-elements.com.
CommunityLeader (Twin Cities): Crowdfunding promises to democratize private capital markets in the United States and around the world. Getting private capital into the hands of deserving growing business, and opening up a broader group of investors to participate is essential to the economic health of our communities. Unfortunately there are significant regulatory, financial, operational and cost barriers for crowdfunding to come to market. Portals, Broker/Dealers, Developers, Business School, incubators, and financial service professionals want to be part of this market — but the real and perceived barriers are too high. CommunityLeader removes those barriers. CommunityLeader has built and aggregated the necessary products and services into a seamless ecosystem, which can be cost effectively licensed with customized service packages. We allow our clients to enter the “Crowdfunding” market fast, cost effectively and with confidence that they will be operating in full compliance with the complex regulations.
CrowdTunes (Raleigh): CrowdTunes is a music management service that empowers patrons to bid on the music they want to hear from their phones. We provide a fully legal, turnkey music solution to venues that improves their bottom line through increased sales to a more engaged customer.
Date My Wardrobe (Boston): Date My Wardrobe is an online marketplace for renting or buying/selling high end fashion from other users. Users can make money by making better use of high end wardrobe items such as shoes, handbags, dresses which they don’t wear often by renting them out to other fashionistas. In addition, users can also rent from others instead of buying something new for every special occasion they attend. Date My Wardrobe mobile app launched in September 2014 and is is available on the app store.
Fare Mechanic (Chicago): Fare Mechanic is the next great metasearch site for finding the best airline travel option for your trip. In today’s market of ever increasing fees, longer flights with connections, and the confusing structure of loyalty benefits, we are here to provide total clarity. Users can perform a basic airfare search, and with a few extra details like number of bags, frequent flyer program statuses, airline branded credit cards, and value of the user’s time, we can calculate the true cost of the trip and find the best option for their money. Our patent pending algorithm looks at every detail to ensure there are no last minute surprises like carry on or checked bag fees that show up when you check in – making that bargain flight now an expensive trip. Find the best value flights for your situation and save on the fees.
FiNe – Fidelity Network (Miami): The FiNe team is comprised of an eclectic group who cover a wide range of industries with their professional expertise. They bring backgrounds of Law, Business, and IT to the table along with a charming amount of charisma and testicular fortitude. Choosing to work alongside the FiNe team is a chance for you to experience unbridled ambition and resilience in working towards a common goal… the success of the Fidelity Network.
Flat Out of Heels (Miami): Flat Out of Heels, LLC is the creator of the Flat Out rollable flat and the Flat Out shoe vending machine. Our rollable flats can be discretely carried for emergencies or worn all stay for stylish, durable comfort. Placed in venues like airports, nightclubs, malls and hotels, where many women are wearing heels, the vending machines make it convenient to get emergency shoes when needed. Step out of the high heels, slip into Flat Outs and go.
LocusPlay (Rhode Island): LocusPlay helps pen & paper lotteries in emerging markets go mobile. LocusPlay is the first cloud and mobile based B2B platform for lotteries. Lotteries in two continents currently use LocusPlay to sell tickets using mobile Point-of-Sale terminals as well offer online and mobile lottery including those players who do not have Smartphones.
GWIG: Go Where I Go (Charleston): GWIG, or Go Where I Go, digitized word of mouth referrals. With over 50 million businesses in the application to date, happy customers can refer their favorite businesses to their friends, while small businesses can use the GWIG dashboard to track and recognize those referrals in real time. With over 75 sites and companies focusing on Reviews and Ratings to manage online reputation, GWIG is the only company that solely focuses on Referrals from Happy Customers. GWIG moves past the negativity, with no Reviews or Ratings at all. Just Referrals. Now, Happy Customers can say, ‘Go Where I Go.’
HDScores (Baltimore): HDScores consumer facing application simply put is Zillow for Restaurant Inspection Data. Answering the Question “How clean is the restaurant your about to eat in? All from any smartphone.” HDScores takes static government data from any format/technology, collect it in near real-time and visualizes that data in an easy to read, search, and understand format across the United States for consumers, businesses and government agencies. Currently launching a iOS 7/8 with an Android app and Web interface coming in the late 2014.
Headcount (Freeping) (DC): Freeping comprises a B2B2C software as a service solution that connects consumer Brands with consumers in emerging markets on their mobile phone. Mobile users in emerging markets do not access mobile Internet due to high cost, price sensitivity, and unreliable networks. Freeping solves this problem by pairing the global phenomenon of “missed calling” with free incoming SMS to keep consumers updated on the go. Clients can reach end users two ways: (1) through their enterprise account in which they create, deploy, manage and analyze SMS campaigns, and (2) by sponsoring one of our updates.
Healthfundr (Dallas): Healthfundr is a marketplace to match accredited investors to high quality health startups, and startups to capital and expertise. We are an online platform where investors can intelligently invest in health startups alongside experienced co-investors, at flexible investment minimums, and with relevant, market-specific information from industry and startup experts. To facilitate better investing and portfolio management, Healthfundr also matches investors and startups to industry and startup experts through hf Expertise. The hf Expertise marketplace efficiently connects startups to strategic expertise and investors to relevant, market-specific information to help them make smarter investing decisions.
HIS Energy (Baltimore): HIS Energy, LLC provides a self-powered sensor that gathers its power from the energy available in the environment (Solar, Vibrations,Thermal, Radio Frequency). This is made possible by a proprietary intelligent power management module that can gather and store multiple forms of energy simultaneously. This energy is used to power sensors for the “Internet of Things”. Where everything will be connected to everything.
HomeTrackR (Charleston): HomeTrackR provides homebuyers, sellers, and real estate pros digital home history reports that instantly identify potential problems with a homes before making an offer to purchase.”
JobHive (Las Vegas): JobHive is a social hiring platform for both employers and job seekers. With tools like Video Applications, Guaranteed Response™ notifications, and collaborative hiring software, JobHive emphasizes the human element of job search and online hiring. JobHive connects real people with real opportunities, changing lives everyday.
KlickOrder (DC): KlickOrder is the answer to an increasing demand for convenience in ordering food over the smartphone. Our app has several unique features that set it apart from our competitors. These include a fast and easy ordering process, a method to share the app with friends to receive rewards, two clicks to split the cost with friends, automatic loyalty program, a jackpot-style method for earning discounts, and 500,000 restaurant reviews. KlickOrder is a Washington DC-based business. The KlickOrder app is in iOS & Android. It now has over 200+ restaurants in the DC area set up for smartphone ordering through the app. KlickOrder’s customer base has grown to 3,000+ users.
Kloset Karma (Miami): Kloset Karma is a fashion exchange mobile app that allows women to renew their closet without the need to spend money.
Kovue (DC): Kovue was started in 2012 out of a software development company who’s expertise is in network and device management software. It was founded by an experienced team of former cable executives and software engineers with a strong background in IP device management and control who saw an opportunity to leverage their previous experiences and contacts into creating a new consumer product for the television and video entertainment industry. Kovue is based in Washington DC and is proud to be part of our nation’s capital’s tech community. Kovue is a new type of social network platform for a real-time, connected television viewing experience with friends and family. This is the first product to create a live social environment around TV and video entertainment viewing, dramatically changing the way friends can watch together across different locations. Using the Kovue application on your mobile device, you can see what your friends are watching and join them, talk and share show information in real-time, and send and receive specific show recommendations from friends to turn television viewing into a truly social event.
Medytex (Fargo): Medytex is a real-time healthcare survey system that lets patients voice their concerns privately regardless of their age, gender or language. Providers view these results instantly on a secure dashboard and are able to improve quickly based on recommendations from our system.
MyCircles (Miami): MyCircles separates its services into three distinct products: MyCircles – targeted social networking; DatingCircles- a variety of dating Circles that provides its members the option to join one or many of the DatingCircles that appeal to their lifestyle; & MyCirclesPro – professional networking, B2B & B2C. By separating its services into three product lines; consumers, advertisers & sponsors are easily able to control the content they view, receive & are associated with while helping diversify MyCircles’ revenue streams.
Need (Dallas): Need is a refined retailer and lifestyle magazine for men. Each month, Need curates and sells a limited quantity of items — clothing, literature, furniture, coffee, and otherwise — for the discerning gentleman. Collections are presented in the form of a high-end men’s editorial with award-winning design and beautiful photography. In other words, Need provides a confident, unique, and exclusive resource for gentleman to live more interestingly.
Pelonkey, Inc. (Las Vegas): Pelonkey allows freelance entertainers and event planners to personally take control of their careers, by providing access to business tools such as invoicing, merchant accounts, legal advice, promotional tools and more through an easy to use, online marketplace.
Pico (Philadelphia): Pico collects pictures that were taken by your friends during any lifetime occasion into one collaborative, real-time album. Although we all take lots of pictures all the time, it is often the case that the best pictures of us are hidden in others’ photo libraries. Currently, there is no simple or efficient solution that gives us access to these valuable memories.
Popular Pays (Chicago): Pop Pays is a platform that incentivizes Instagram influencers to post about brands. Brands can list offers on our app, ranging from a free cup of coffee for people with 500 followers to a paid gig opportunity for the biggest influencers. As a result, brands get content 12x cheaper than buying ads direct from Instagram and much more authentic and effective since it’s coming from a real person instead of the brand itself.
Salmon Social Inc. (Boise): Salmon Social is an app that reinvents the way people discover, places, deals and each other.
Seva Call (talklocal) (DC): talklocal is a next generation search engine that connects consumers and service professionals in a way that is convenient and beneficial to both. No more leaving messages, negotiating appointment times or wasting time talking to companies that can’t help you. Within minutes we will connect you to businesses that can meet your demands, all while keeping your contact information private!
Skyworks Aerial Systems (Las Vegas): Skyworks Aerial Systems (“SkyworksAS”) is an aerial robotics company that develops and sells small and adaptable unmanned aerial systems (UAS). Founded by top student researchers from University of Nevada Las Vegas (UNLV), SkyworksAS is an award-winning high-tech start-up. SkyworksAS’ UAS use unique modular design to enable the delivering of a variety of solutions to both civil and commercial entities, as well as facilitating educational, research, and development needs for the unmanned systems industry.
Snapsure (Detroit): Snapsure is a mobile platform that connects shoppers with the people they trust for instant feedback on the things they want to buy. It’s simple to use — Snap a picture, choose the friends that you want feedback from and set a timer for how quickly you need their response. Your friends immediately get an alert and are able to vote with the world’s simplest voting screen. And you get the results, instantly, in an awesome infographic! Better yet, Snapsure also allows you to instantly connect with fashion bloggers, stylists and designers for expert fashion feedback! Tough decisions are made easy with Snapsure.
SocialTagg (Los Angeles): SocialTagg is an integrated event platform focused on connecting people at events, because we recognize that people go to events to meet other people. We revolutionize the event space with an end-to-end solution combining social, event registration, and ticketing into one platform, which enables event organizers to host better events and business networkers to have better networking experiences. For the event organizer, we offer a quick and easy way to generate personal badges, register and check-in attendees, measure event analytics, and create surveys, all while providing a world-class networking experience. For the networker, we offer an intuitive way to exchange contact information with other networkers utilizing the same badge. Follow us at @SocialTagg to stay in touch!
SoundBetter (San Francisco): SoundBetter is the world’s leading services marketplace for musicians. Providing a platform for millions of musicians to connect and hire thousands of music production professionals from all over the world, including dozens of Grammy Award winners.
Spincard (Detroit): Spincard is a mobile app to simplify the exchange of contact information. Think of Spincard as your enhanced business card, or better yet a digital identity that can be easily shared to those you meet. Search your contacts by many things such as job, skills, and faces! Create and share the most timeless business card yet. Learn more at spincardapp.com. Or better yet, download the free app for iOS and Android.
Tambero.com (Buenos Aires): Tambero.com is a cloud platform that helps farmers to keep track of the information of their livestock, dairy and crops. Farms distributed in 150 countries track the status of their animals and receive alerts and recommendations to increase their production based on the application of the best practices and data analysis.
Tengrade, Inc. (Los Angeles): Real opinions from friends. On anything. Tengrade is disrupting the multi-billion dollar market for ratings and reviews to become the single central source of public opinion on all topics. Tengrade cuts through the clutter of fake and irrelevant reviews that bog down other sites, by providing real opinions from friends and people like you. Perhaps most uniquely, Tengrade does this via its patent-pending “Startag” technology, which allows users to quickly and easily voice their opinions from *0 to *10 via a tweet or Facebook post, and get back instant ratings, customized from their friends and people like them.
Waleteros (Miami): Waleteros is much better than a Check Cashing Store. Waleteros enables underbanked and unbanked US Hispanic consumers to cash checks, pay bills, send money and receive small loans using their smartphones. Anywhere, anytime. Waleteros is more convenient, cheaper and safer than a Check Cashing Store.
Waveborn (DC): Waveborn is a socially conscious sunglasses company. Waveborn sunglasses are handcrafted by artisans in Milan, Italy and come in a variety of unique models and colors with UV, mirror, and polarized lenses by Carl Zeiss Vision. Waveborn is proud to offer a full one year warranty on all sunglasses. If your Waveborns are broken, lost, stolen, or don’t fit properly, then we will replace them for FREE.
Zuldi (Las Vegas): Zuldi develops Mobile POS (Point-of-Sale) systems that seamlessly integrate with Legacy POS systems without any hardware upgrade. Large Food & beverage and Retail operators are turning to Mobile POS to increase their sales, expand their customer base, and bring a paradigm shift to the ordering and payment experience. Zuldi’s Mobile POS provides an “Apple Store-like” experience to all size Food & Beverage properties by empowering waitstaff to conduct table side ordering, bill split, e-mail digital receipts, and process payments via Apple iPod Touches. The application is reliable, straightforward, enterprise grade, and has an easy user interface that’s intuitive and simple to configure. Staff are empowered to speed service, up-sell products, protect customer security, and bring a paradigm shift to the customers experience.