ITEN monthly newsletter 2013 in review

11/26/13

ITEN Monthly Newsletter- November 2013
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   ITEN:  Catalyst for Tech Startups
                  2013 In Review
November 2013
In This Issue
Thank You From ITEN
Sign Up For Startup Digest
The St. Louis Startup Scene in 2013 By Brian Feldt
1MC Retrospective
Featured Company of the Month: Gremln
2014 Startup Report Coming Soon
Saving Memories Forever Graduates from Mock Angel Program
First Companies Matched with ITEN's EIR
Featured Events: 2nd Thursday
Companies Are Hiring

Thanks!
ITEN's staff would like to pause and express our thanks for the
wonderful support, encouragement, participation, and recognition we
receive from so many inside (and outside) our
community.......including our sponsors, mentors, investors,
entrepreneurs, service providers, board members, advisory board
members, ecosystem partners, civic and community organizations,
corporations, governmental entities, news organizations, wellwishers,
and the hundreds of people who are giving selflessly to the startup
ecosystem.   You inspire us to be the best we can be.    We are lucky
to be uniquely positioned to see the progress, accomplishments and all
of the seemingly insurmountable challenges that are overcome on a
daily basis by these new ventures.  Our hats are off to them.

To all of our readers:  We're grateful to be witnessing with you such
dramatic and positive changes in the culture of our city and region!


StartupDigest

The personalized insider newsletter
for all things startup in our area.

2014 Startup Report Coming Soon

Subscribe to the FREE weekly St. Louis
edition of Startup Digest, providing a menu of
the best events for tech startups in our town.
With the evergrowing array of startup
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With the evergrowing array of startup
activities in St. Louis, it's hard to know which
to attend.  Startup Digest can help.  We
curate the events and point you to the best
ones for the week ahead.

The St. Louis Startup
Scene in 2013
Brian Feldt

Reporter St. Louis
Business Journal

The St. Louis startup
scene came a long
way in 2013. It
certainly has a long
way to go in 2014.

But St. Louis entrepreneurs whether in T
Rex, Lab1500, CORTEX or somewhere else
know that. They're not about to settle for
"came a long way." In fact, they're thirsty to
take the next step.

I've been covering the tech community for
the St. Louis Business Journal for roughly a
half year now. In those five months,
significant strides were made that should play
a huge role in tech's success in 2014.

LaunchCode appears poised to help tackle a
talent shortage that could satisfy the flux of
tech jobs many predicted for St. Louis.
SixThirty is attracting topnotch companies
from around the world in the financial
services sector. Arch Grants has a new
leadership team in place a team that from
my perspective seems ready to take the
organization to new heights. And TREx's
purchase of the Lammert Building has major
implications for longterm progress.

Across town, the @4240 building will be
impressive. It's already helped recruit the
Cambridge Innovation Center to town and it
will be fun to see what companies begin to
set up shop there. And the innovation
happening over at the Center for Emerging
Technologies is notable, especially with the
startups in the BioGenerator.

Those are the highlights. What's missing?

Well, a bigtime exit or two would be nice. It
would certainly add fuel to the innovation fire
happening in St. Louis.

Most people that I talk to seem to think
there's around four to five companies that
could make a bigtime exit. It's nice to
prognosticate, but until it actually happens,
it's still a glaring need for St. Louis.

More money always helps, too.  Where's the
preSeries A capital that can help bridge the
gap between seed and serious venture


In April, ITEN published our first ever St. Louis Startup Report,
highlighting the history, growth, and outlook for tech industry startups in
the St. Louis region. The report was an instant hit, gaining both local and
regional attention.

Here are some of the results and metrics that indicate the progress that
our ventures have made and the impact ITEN is having on our
community. These statistics are current as of the end of October, 2013:
298 tech startup ventures are actively involved with ITEN, receiving
mentor assistance, enrolled in our programs and attending events.
ITEN has interacted with a total of 450 startup tech ventures in our
region since the inception of ITEN in April 2008.
71 Volunteer Mentors are engaged and working with our startups 1
on1 and via our acceleration programs.
A total of 25 ventures have graduated from our Mock Angel
Training, preparing them for investor consideration. The complete
list can be seen at https://www.itenstl.org/programs/for
investors/mockangelgraduates.
ITEN companies have received over $91 M in outside funding to
date. Of that total, $50M has been invested into our Mock Angel
graduate companies.
The combined monthly revenue run rate of ITEN ventures is $5.5M.
Our ventures have created over 850 net new full time employment
positions
There are 75 investors or investor groups that are directly affiliated
with ITEN
ITEN will continue to publish the St. Louis Startup Report every year.  As
the end of 2013 is approaching, we will be calling on all ITEN registered
companies to complete our yearend survey. The survey data will be
used to determine the ITEN TOP 10 rankings in a number of areas.
Completion of the survey will avoid your venture being left out.  As
always, your data will be kept confidential.

Saving Memories Forever Graduates from
Mock Angel Program


Harvey Baker, founder and CEO of Saving Memories Forever
(www.savingmemoriesforever.com), has a vision to create a very user
friendly appbased product that will help families and genealogists
capture and preserve their important events and memories.    With
thousands of users already, the company is off to a great start.    Saving
Memories Forever graduated from Mock Angels at the November 20th
session, and has become our 25th graduate.

The Mock Angel program is specifically designed to prepare emerging
tech startups for investors.   Companies already in ITEN can apply for
admission to Mock Angels, and there is a rolling admission policy.    Most
ventures complete Business Model Validation before being admitted to
Mock Angels.

Mock Angels specifically works on the investor pitch and preparation of
due diligence materials, but this work often exposes deeper issues in the
candidate company's business model.    Many ventures have made
significant pivots during their time in the program that have led directly
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gap between seed and serious venture
capital? Cultivation Capital seems like it's on
the right track, but there's got to be more.

Heading into the new year, there are three
areas I'm particularly interested in seeing
play out.

1.    What type of deals will Cultivation
Capital make as it continues to mature?

2.    How will the new SEC regulations
allowing general solicitation alter the playing
field? Groups like iSelect are already trying
to exploit those regulations. If they succeed,
that could be huge.

3.    What company makes the first big exit?
Will they put some of that money back into
St. Louis? If not, will it all be for naught?

With all that said, a shameless plug. If you're
not already subscribing to the St. Louis
Business Journals's TechFlash daily
newsletters, please do. We push out all the
latest news and info to come out of the
startup community here in St. Louis. And
please follow me on Twitter at either (or
both) @stlbizbfeldt and @TechFlashSTL

1MC Retrospective

In February of this year, ITEN brought one of
the Kauffman Foundation's newest initiatives
for entrepreneurs to St. Louisthe 1 Million
Cups program. 1 Million Cups (1MC) is a
simple way to engage entrepreneurs in
communities around the world. Each week,
the 1MC program offers one or two local
entrepreneurs an opportunity to present their
startup to a diverse audience of mentors,
advisors, entrepreneurs and interested public.
Presenters prepare a short presentation and
engage in 2030 minutes of feedback and
questioning after they present. Entrepreneurs
gain insight into possible ways they can
improve their businesses, gather realtime
feedback, connect with a community that
truly cares about their progress, and walk
away feeling like they have advanced their
business. The audience also learns a great
deal from the presentations.

At the time it started here in town, St. Louis
was the 4th city to host a weekly 1MC
gathering.  Now the program exists in 20
cities across the country.  Here in St. Louis
over 50 startups have presented at our local


significant pivots during their time in the program that have led directly
to later success.    Graduating companies are introduced to a growing list
of investors looking for the best tech deals coming out of our region.
See the full list of Mock Angel graduates at
https://www.itenstl.org/programs/forinvestors/mockangelgraduates.

First Companies Matched with ITEN's EIR
John Grispon  ITEN EIR

In the four months since beginning work as the
initial Entrepreneur in Residence (EIR) for ITEN
I've learned firsthand there's an incredible
amount of ecosystem talent seeking to support
the aspiring tech entrepreneurs in St. Louis.
There's also a terrific number of smart, energetic
startup companies that have unique concepts to
grow their business in our city. Identifying
potential startups that made for a good match
required a combination of analysis, experience,
feel, and a bit of luck. Another critical component is identifying the right
team chemistry that fits with an advisor's personality and management
style. And certainly the idea or problem the company solves is of
substantial importance it has to be unique and big.  After meeting with
many qualified companies I felt my experience and background were best
suited to contribute to Pixel Press, TechSource 360, and AcuteTeleCare.

Robin Rath and the team at Pixel Press (www.projectpixelpress.com)
were a great match from the first meeting. The combination of game
development industry experience and software industry knowledge made
Pixel Press attractive. Pixel Press enables users to draw their own video
game on paper and then 'automagically' transfer the drawing onto an iPad
using the builtin camera and clever software.  A couple of clicks and you
can play and share your game with friends.

The combination of a unique idea along with a creative and open
management team made this an easy decision. The team has doubled in
size while the product has advanced substantially going from prototype to
a working beta. In early November Pixel Press went through their first
ITEN Mock Angel presentation. The team has also solidified investments
from a few key local investors and is part of this fall's Capital Innovators
class. Finally, the multiple partnership prospects with recognized industry
names make Pixel Press a name to watch in St. Louis.

TechSource360 (www.techsource360.com) is new to ITEN but founder
Mark Kehoe and his team  have a combined 26 years in startups and
public companies. TechSource360 seeks to leverage their print industry
experience and enterprise rolodex to reveal and reduce the printing costs
of Fortune 1000 companies by creating realtime print policy controls for
network devices. With an easytoinstall enterprise solution they collect
massive amounts of rich data detailing how and what organizations print
while deep analytics help enterprises shrink print expenses and reduce
their carbon footprint.

I chose to work with Mark based on his great company concept and my
ability to contribute to awareness of the financial and technical resources
in the startup ecosystem. While only having worked with the team for the
last six weeks, we are preparing to participate in ITEN's Mock Angel
program and have worked hard to simplify the company message and
create a new pitch deck.

AcuteTeleCare's David Jacques is developing a healthcare solution to
improve care coordination for the over 800K people in the US that
experience a stroke. The lack of trained stroke specialists combined with
the delays in treatment limit timely delivery of effective medication to
the patient.  While other inmarket solutions focus on hardwarebased
delivery, Acute TeleCare's remote patient monitoring model seeks to
leverage mobile devices and familiar lightweight tools with easy
installation at many points of care for faster decisions.


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over 50 startups have presented at our local
1MC weekly events.  Presenting companies
have found talent, made business connections
and honed their presentation skills.  The
discussions have been lively and fruitful for
everyone involved.

Earlier this year a group of entrepreneurs
stepped forward to become the facilitators of
the program here in St. Louis.  Paul Heirendt,
Aaron Mottern and Paul Hermanson work to
book companies, filter presentations and
foster the discussion each week for 1MC in
St. Louis.  Their help has been tremendous in
reaching out to their networks and beyond for
companies each week.

Since its inception here in town, 1MC St.


Louis has enjoyed a partnership with the Nine
Network in Midtown.  The Nine Network has
provided a physical home for 1MC as well as
providing the essential coffee.  One unique
advantage of this collaboration has been the
fact that the Nine Network has filmed,
livestreamed and archived all the
presentations since the first one in February.
You can see them at ninenet.org/1mc

We look forward to even more activity in
2014!

community.    Let's take a step back, look at the successes and
challenges and what it all means as we approach the new year.   We'll
look for ideas and suggestions from the audience about what you think
the region needs, and how we can maximize the positive trajectory for
the tech startup ecosystem.
Speakers:  Francis Chmelir and Jim Brasunas, ITEN; others soon to be
named.

Held at the Tavern of Fine Arts , 313 Belt Ave St. Louis 63112, just off
Pershing between Union and DeBalivere. It's a happy two hours with all
of your friends from ITEN and beyond.  Everyone is invited; plenty of
free parking.

Always interesting discussions and it's a great way for entrepreneurs,
investors, mentors and others interested in networking with and about
startup tech ventures to connect with each other. 2nd Thursday is open
to all and all are welcome, so do come hang with us!

Special heartfelt thanks to our 2nd Thursday event sponsors:  AHM
Financial, and the iSelect Fund.

If you missed the last 2nd Thursday, Click here to watch our archived
videos.

e

Featured Company:
Gremln

The adoption of Facebook, Twitter, and other
social media by businesses is nothing new,
but did you know that there are entire
industries that have barely put their toes in
the social media waters because they are
afraid?  The realtime nature of social media
brings with it unique risks that make
regulated industries, such as financial
services and healthcare, sit on the sidelines.
Recently though, this has begun to change.
83% of consumers say it's important to read
user generated content before making
decisions on financial services. 44% of
millennials will not purchase insurance
without reading other'
s opinions.  Combine these with the baffling
statistic that 70% of customer questions in
Twitter still go unanswered and you have
statistics that have helped regulated
companies to realize that involvement in
social media is essential. They are actively
seeking a software solution that helps them
mitigate the risk of social media involvement
and GREMLN is exactly what it is needed.

GREMLN is secure social media software for

David is an experienced entrepreneur but sought additional insights into
the local ecosystem and fund raising. AcuteTeleCare resonated with me
because of my experience with my own company (Respondesign) in the
telemedicine space. Our relationship is only a few weeks old and we are
working together to identify the necessary resources to bring this
intriguing product to market.

Featured Events
2nd Thursday

December 12th, 2013 4pm until about 6pm Networking with ITEN
companies, mentors, investors and interested friends. (Speaker starts at
about 4:20)

Topic for December:  The Year in Review: 2013  This year has been an
exciting one in many ways, with important advances for the tech startup

ITEN 2nd Thursday Speaker Series November 14
2013 Part 1



Companies Are Hiring


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11/26/13

GREMLN is secure social media software for
social media risk mitigation. Think of them as
a social media marketing and analysis suite
wrapped in a security layer to maintain
compliance with communications guidelines
set by the SEC, FINRA, FFIEC, the FDA, and
many others.  This is done by providing
message workflow that prevents any
messages from going live without going
through the appropriate review process.
Filtration tools enable companies to prevent
certain words, phrases, and abstract
concepts, such as stock tips, from being
posted.   Additional tools include message
archiving and automatic insertion of
disclosure statements based on message
content.  These tools, combined with a full
marketing and engagement suite, remove
roadblocks to social media participation, and
provide the tools these companies need to be
successful in social media.

With over 150,000 registered users, GREMLN
is well on its way to being a significant
market player in secure social media tools.
They were recently endorsed by the New
York Bankers Association as the exclusive
social solution for the banks in that state.
See what The North Face clothing company
and the Missouri Bankers Association call
"essential to any business with a social media
presence."  Check them out today at
http://GREMLN.com.


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Developer

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Ninja and
Account
Manager

SPONSORS

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Engineer

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Questions? Email Jing Stiffler at jstiffler@itenstl.org or visit  www.itenstl.org

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ITEN monthly newsletter 2013 in review