Rice Alliance announces most promising IT and Web 2.0 companies at Energy and Clean Technology Venture Forum

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– December 17, 2009Posted in: Current News

Rice Alliance announces most promising IT and Web 2.0 companies at Energy and Clean Technology Venture Forum

BY MARY LYNN FERNAU
Special to the Rice News

The Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship announced the most promising information technology and Web 2.0 companies at the seventh annual IT and Web 2.0 Venture Forum in Houston last week. IT and Web 2.0 companies showcased their new ventures at the largest venture capital conference in the Southwest. More than 400 people attended, including investors, venture capitalists, industry representatives, business leaders, service providers and entrepreneurs.

More than 50 companies presented their business plans and elevator pitches, which simulate meeting an investor on an elevator and having only 90 seconds to convince them to invest in a company. The most promising companies were selected by the Rice Alliance IT and Web 2.0 Advisory Board.

Five other new IT and Web 2.0 companies were preselected to present their 10-minute business plan presentations at the forum; these five were also named most promising IT and Web 2.0 companies.

“Every year the quality of companies improves. This year we had variety, from planning your evening activities to learning English,” said Brad Burke, managing director of the Rice Alliance. “Many of the companies at this year’s event have developed prototypes, obtained proven results and are on their second round of funding. This makes them more appealing to investors, who have also expressed appreciation for the quality of the companies.”

The top five most promising companies based on their business plan presentations were:

– InView Technology Corporation (Austin), a manufacturer of high-performance cameras with infrared, ultraviolet and terahertz capabilities

– Gimmal Group (Houston), a team of industry experts and system integrators that defines and produces enterprise content and records management solutions

– RecycleMatch (Houston), an online market for matching waste streams from one company into useful materials for another company

– SmartVault Corporation (Houston), a leading software-as-a-service document management provider for QuickBooks

– YouData (Houston), a system that allows consumers to pay for digital micro-purchases such as music and video downloads by engaging with ultratargeted advertising

The most promising companies based on their elevator-pitch presentations were:

– Turn2live.com (Austin), a service that helps consumers find events that match their moods

– Vendor Safe Technologies (Houston), a service that provides security solutions to brick-and-mortar merchants who process credit cards

– Nihaoareyou.com (Binjiang, Hangzhou China), an online English learning community that connects Chinese students with foreign teachers from around the world using a live virtual classroom

– Werkadoo (Houston), an on-demand project network that matches people to projects

– Syntiant (Houston), a provider of a new way for consumers and workers to interact with cyberspace and others using cyberspace

– Famigo (Austin), provider of multiplayer family games that are playable anytime, anywhere

– Giftiki (Houston), an e-commerce platform that allows users to easily transfer small amounts of money as gifts to a friend or family member

– Memory Reel (Dallas), a Web platform for managing digital photos and memories

– Social Agency Inc. (Austin), a social-media campaign-management platform that allows businesses to manage, monitor and measure its social-media voices across multiple channels

– CouncilView (Houston), a software product and installation service that provides live streaming, webcasting and archiving of public meetings over the Internet

The forum was supported by Andrews Kurth, Austin Ventures, Sevin Rosen Funds, Trailblazer Capital and Rice University. Supporting organizations were Houston Technology Center and Opportunity Houston, and media sponsors were Houston Business Journal and the BusinessMakers Radio Show.

The Rice Alliance is the university’s nationally recognized initiative devoted to the support of technology commercialization, entrepreneurship education and the launch of technology companies. It was formed as a strategic alliance of three schools: the George R. Brown School of Engineering, the Wiess School of Natural Sciences and the Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Business. Since its inception, the Rice Alliance has assisted in the launch of more than 250 startups that have raised more than half-a-billion dollars in early stage capital.

For more information about the Rice Alliance, visit www.alliance.rice.edu.

–Mary Lynn Fernau is director of marketing for the Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship.

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