The newest companies that could change the world
Vu Digital Translates Videos Into Structured Data
Vu Digital is launching new technology to help customers figure out what’s actually going on inside videos, online and otherwise. B. Wade Smith, the company’s vice president of operations and development, said that as more and more online content moves to video, it will become increasingly important to extract data about those videos in a form that’s easy to analyze… Read MoreThe End of The War on Drugs and The Emergence of The Venture-Backed Cannabis Industry
When news broke that Founders Fund, the proudly contrarian venture firm helmed by PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, was going to invest in a major $75 million in Privateer Holdings, a company focused on producing, distributing, and educating consumers about legal marijuana, it opened the floodgates for other investors to barrel in. We’ve since seen startups like Eaze, which just raised… Read MoreHowFactory Debuts A Better Way To Create Employee Training And Instruction Manuals
A number of businesses today document their standard operating procedures and other employee training guides in order to more quickly get new workers up to speed. But today for many industries, those documents are created in Microsoft Word and stuck in a binder. A company called HowFactory, launching today at TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2015, believes it has a better way — especially for… Read MoreSelequity Is A Crowdfunding Platform For Investing In Commercial Real Estate
For those who are looking to invest in real estate, finding good opportunities can be difficult. In commercial real estate, unless you know a property owner or developer, it’s nearly impossible to get your foot in the door. But today onstage at Disrupt NY, a company called Selequity has launched a platform that will make crowdfunding real estate investments much easier. Read MoreRon Conway Says Each Engineer Hired Creates Four Entry-Level Jobs
Tech companies aren’t bad for cities, argues SV Angel’s Ron Conway. He says that each time a tech company hires an engineer, they end up hiring four additional entry-level workers to support them. That implies that when startups grow, it’s not just high-skilled computer programmers who benefit. In this talk backstage at TechCrunch Disrupt NY, Conway discusses his thoughts on… Read MoreLiquidity Launches To Bring Clean Water To Everyone
Liquidity Nanotech is trying to change the world. But for once, the cliché could actually be applicable. The company is launching today onstage at Disrupt NY 2015 with the Naked Filter, a consumer water bottle with its proprietary water-filtration membrane built-in. Liquidity doesn’t look like an average startup. Built on over 15 years of patented university research, the team is a… Read MoreCase Is An Insanely Secure Hardware Bitcoin Wallet
You shouldn’t trust anyone with your bitcoins, and Case is well aware of that. Over the past few years, Mt.Gox, Bitstamp and countless other centralized services have suffered serious security breaches. But Case is about to put an end to all this, as this startup has built one of the most secure hardware bitcoin wallets in the world. The startup is launching onstage today at Disrupt NY. Read MoreIs Your Marijuana Growing / Testing / Delivery / Vaporizer Startup Idea Genius Or Half-Baked?
Everyone seems to have a marijuana startup idea. Snoop Dogg even raised a venture fund to invest in them. But would you believe it? Coming up with business plans while you’re high is not a fool-proof way to get rich! According to two experts, many of the opportunities are so crowded with competitors that you’d first have to invent a time machine and go back three years. Read MoreSwarm 2.3 Feels Like The Old Foursquare, Looks Way Better
Foursquare has today released an update for Swarm, the company’s social check-in app, that brings far more of the delightful gamification of the old Foursquare back to the service. But today’s update is just a pre-amble to version 3.0, which will be released in the coming weeks, and will include Mayorships within the entire Swarm community, as well as a leaderboard between friends… Read More
PageCloud Wants To Simplify Website Creation
PageCloud launched at Disrupt NY 2015 today to allow users to drag-and-drop photos, video, text or other elements onto a web page in order to create the look they want on a website. Much like other simplified web content management systems, such as Wix or Squarespace, PageCloud offers several pre-built templates, fonts and other elements to choose from. But it branches off from these other… Read MoreBioBots Is A 3D Printer For Living Cells
U.S. biotech startup BioBots sits at the intersection between computer science and chemistry. Its debut product, a desktop 3D printer for biomaterials, which was just demoed on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt NY — printing Van Gogh’s ear in replica, no less — combines hardware, software and wetware. It’s the latter area where the core innovation sits, says co-founder… Read MoreHow Snapchat Made QR Codes Cool Again
QR codes have been a laughing-stock for years now. The gangly square bar codes were slapped on posters and magazine pages, and heralded as an easy way to open URLs or bonus content. Instead they became a frustrating symbol of over-engineering. You often needed a special QR code reader app which might fail to recognize the little robot tattoos on the first try. By the time you found your QR app… Read MoreCEO Bastian Lehmann Says Postmates Could Be Profitable In 2016, As It Hits 2 Million Deliveries
Same-day delivery service Postmates could be profitable next year if the company wants to be, said CEO Bastian Lehmann today at TechCrunch Disrupt NY. The company has made 2 million deliveries, which is up 500,000 in around seven weeks. It took 10 weeks to go from 1 million deliveries to 1.5 million. Postmates is rapidly expanding to new cities and adding big partnerships, such as Chipotle… Read MoreFile-Sharing Service Droplr Is Going Freemium
File-sharing service Droplr is adopting a freemium business model starting tomorrow. Read MoreDrawbridge Adds Offline Purchases To Its Cross-Device Marketing Data
Drawbridge‘s platform is getting smarter thanks to partnerships with Datalogix and Axciom-owned Liveramp. The company, backed by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Sequoia Capital, already works to identify the multiple devices that are (probably) used by the same person, which in turn can be used to improve ad targeting and attribution. Read MoreSensay Lets You Text Strangers For Help With Pretty Much Anything
How much do you value the advice of a stranger? Sensay is betting that you care quite a bit about the opinion of a rando. The service lets users text a specific phone number with a question (like “what’s the best pizza in Brooklyn” or “where can I get a haircut in Santa Fe”), after which that user is instantly connected to a stranger who might have an answer. Read MoreSalesforce Expands Its “Pledge 1%” Philanthropic Model To New York Tech Companies
Fifth-generation San Franciscan and Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff has been a big proponent of civic engagement and philanthropy among the tech industry. To that end, when he started Salesforce, he set aside 1 percent of the company’s equity for philanthropic donations, 1 percent of employee time for volunteership and 1 percent of products or services to give away to nonprofits. That… Read MoreDesign Platform Canva Raises $6 Million, Expands To Businesses With “Canva For Work”
Creating professional graphics is not a skill set that everyone has, but online design platform Canva wants to change that. In mid-2013, the company debuted a service that allows anyone to more easily create graphics, including slideshows, invitations, handouts, posters, infographics, Facebook Covers, cards, collages, blog graphics and more. Today the company will be able to further fuel… Read MoreWitness’s Live-Streaming App Is A Panic Button For The Smartphone Age
What if live streaming, like those streams that run today on apps like Periscope or Meerkat, could be used to save lives? That’s the premise behind an app called Witness, which made its debut today at the TechCrunch Disrupt NY Hackathon. Built over the course of the weekend, developer Marinos Bernitsas demoed an app that immediately begins recording live audio and video as soon as you… Read MoreIAC-Owned Ask.fm Acquires Recipe Network Foodily
IAC-owned social network Ask.fm has acquired the entire team behind recipe network Foodily, the companies are announcing today, which includes those focused on product, engineering and design. These nine team members will now be tasked with the continued development of Ask.fm’s Q&A platform, while the Foodily website and mobile app will be maintained by a separate division within IAC. Read More
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