InSITE Team Project Update: HEVO Powers Up
Imagine driving an electric vehicle into Manhattan, reserving a Preferred Parking Zone with a smart phone app, and then leaving your car to recharge wirelessly as you shop or visit friends. Further, imagine that delivery trucks for your pharmacy or grocery could do the same, no longer causing noise, pollution, or traffic as they idle along major avenues. This is the efficient urban future envisioned by HEVO Power, a startup based out of the NYC ACRE incubator space in SoHo. InSITE fellows Lee Cooper, Pranav Goel, Josh Goldman, and Frederico Lourenco have been working with HEVO over the past...
Read MoreInSITE Team Project Update: UpriseArt
Last Saturday, a team of InSITE Fellows trekked to Greenpoint, Brooklyn to attend “Small Truths: A Studio Visit with Langdon Graves.” The event, which attracted art enthusiasts from around New York, was hosted by Uprise Art, one of six companies participating in InSITE’s Fall 2012 Company Mentoring Program. Uprise Art is a curated online gallery that connects collectors with one-of-a-kind pieces and streamlines the process of purchasing artwork. The company, which is based in Manhattan, has an invest-to-own model, allowing collectors to receive a piece of art up front, then invest a...
Read MoreInSITE chooses 6 companies for its Fall 2012 Mentoring Program
Last week, InSITE kicked off our Fall 2012 Company Mentoring Program. We spent the summer scouring the city for interesting companies working on cool stuff. We then spent over a month looking through the applications from the founders of these awesome companies. A lot of people don’t appreciate how hard selection processes can be. We left every conversation with entrepreneurs fired up about their businesses. Narrowing down that list was extremely difficult and painful. There are a number of really great people working on really great stuff right now. That’s exciting for the community....
Read MoreInSITE company BRANCH closes $2M round
On March 6th, former InSITE company Branch (previously Roundtable) announced that they had closed a $2M round led by Obvious Corp, Lerer Ventures and SV Angel. As part of the deal, Obvious will “join forces [with Branch] on the technology, the product design, the branding, the marketing, and several other aspects of this interesting new product bursting with potential.” Led by Josh Miller, Hursh Agrawal, and Cemre Güngör, Branch launched last summer as a “group blogging/debate platform.” Of their time with InSITE, Josh said “When we were heads down, obsessively tinkering with in...
Read MoreHappy Holidays! BestVendor Raises $3 million in Series A Fundraising
On Monday, BestVendor secured $3 million in Series A funding to support the company’s mission to become the leading resource for business professionals looking for the best web, mobile and desktop applications. Seeking to capitalize on a market segment seemingly neglected relative to the consumer app space, BestVendor is building a community that reviews and recommends work applications for prospective users, thereby generating optimum results that are in line with its goal to let people ‘discover work apps you’ll love.’ BestVendor views the work app sharing segment as a logical...
Read MoreRightsFlow Acquired by YouTube
YouTube has just acquired RightsFlow, a startup that manages music licensing and payment services. Launched in 2007, RightsFlow helps online music services, record companies, distributors and artists license music and lyrics while also managing royalty payments for the rights-holders. The company’s proprietary licensing technology and 30-plus million song database allows RightsFlow to license content, render accounting, and pay royalties on behalf of clients. As CEO Patrick Sullivan writes in his announcement: We’re pleased to now be taking a momentous step with the team at YouTube,...
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