OtherPIE Graduates Second Class, Showcases Local Talent & Tech
The Portland Incubator Experiment (PIE) debuted its second class of startups today (Oct. 5, 2012) at the Gerding Theater, including one that landed $1 million in funding earlier this week and another that “stublished” the PIE Demo Day online (that’s modern event speak for proudly sharing your event experiences online, much like the ticket stubs you used to collect).
PIE also gave a nice nod to another Portland startup, Vizify, whose graphical bios of the PIE company entrepreneurs were displayed before presentations began.
Congratulations to the six companies that have spent the past three months at PIE, finetuning their products, pitches and entrepreneurial know-how! Here’s OEN’s recap of PIE Demo Day.
Appthwack
With thousands of different mobile phones and tablets, it’s become a big challenge for mobile app developers to keep up and make sure their app works on every platform. In fact, “it sucks,” says Appthwack founders, both ex-Intel engineers. That’s where Apptwack comes in. Developers just need to upload their app to Appthwack’s secure site, and the system will run it across their lab of devices and send a report with bugs or issues.
CodeScouts
Remember Willamette Week’s article, “Where the Tech is She?” Software developer Michelle Rowley was interviewed for the piece, and a one sentence reference to a Python development workshop she was planning to offer women created a huge response that, in turn, led to Rowley founding Code Scouts. The first non-profit to go through PIE, Code Scouts aims to build a community for women to learn software development skills and find jobs in the in-demand field. Code Scouts is seeking $250,000 in funding to launch the program in Portland and expand nationally.
KS12
From Berlin, KS12 is a creative shop that is pioneering a new event video form they call the “video sprint.” More than just an event video, the video sprint aims to focus on the big ideas and people associated with an event and generate tens of thousands of views. Check out a clip from KS12’s “Early Stage” video sprint on Portland’s vibrant startup scene.
Little Bird
A little bird told the audience that the first PIE company to present was also the first to secure funding — $1 million just this week. Oh, actually, that was Little Bird CEO Marshall Kirkpatrick, who explained how Little Bird offers a new, highly effective way to identify social media influencers, especially those who may not be so obvious but are equally , if not more, important to engage. With 24 customers and growing, Kirkpatrick crowed: “Portland’s Little Bird will bring the power of social media with the data under the hood.”
Lytics
A company founded by former WebTrends employees, Lytics aims to put large amounts of data to work. CTO Aaron Raddon explained: “We make big data useful.” So useful, in fact, that companies are finally able to act on data to make pricing decisions, plan push notifications or segment users.
Stublisher
Everyone can relate to the magic of concerts and music and saving those ticket stubs as “trophies” of an event experience, says Stublisher Founder Kyle Banuelos. Now, Stublisher makes it possible to visually share event memories and experiences beyond your particular group of friends. Integrated with Instagram and soon Twitter and other platforms, artists can build their brands and event-goers can share their experiences – like PIE Demo Day, now stublished.
