Entrepreneurs Roundtable Graduates 10 Promising New Ventures

era





 

 

Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator has graduated its fourth and largest class. Startups in the ERA IV program receive a $40,000 investment, access to nearly 200 mentors, free and subsidized services, and three months of office space at ERA new office in Manhattan.  ERA grads have solid success rates for follow-on funding: nine out of ten from ERA’s first class raised follow on funding, and subsequent classes are on track for about the same.  ERA’s portfolio of 40 companies is worth an estimated $150 million today.

Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator Spring 2013 Graduates:

1. Acquaintable

acquaintable

Acquaintable is a new and clever online dating service to meet friends-of-friends, bringing the social graph to online dating.  If you indicate you like someone, and he/she does the same,  Acquaintable makes the connection. Fifteen percent of beta users returned daily.  I asked 15 friends over 40 if they would use this if they were single and in college, and they all said “you bet!”

2. Cognical

cognical

Cognical offers a service for lenders, providing an algorithm-based underwriting engine to helps lenders identify the loan applicants that will pay them back.

3. Consignd

consigned

Consignd provides a way for anyone, particular popular Pinterest users and bloggers, to set up their own eCommerce site.  Influencers with large followings can create their own storefronts and recommend other people’s products in exchange for 25 percent of any sales.

4. EasyPairings

easy pairings

EasyPairings helps restaurants hire new staff quickly, automating much of the process of finding active job seekers with the necessary qualifications.

monaeo5. Monaeo

Monaeo incorporates geolocation into tax preparation, and provides audit-worthy tracking of location to minimize taxes for mobile executives and rich folk.

6. Startist

startist

Startist brings creative people together to collaborate on projects ranging from film and the arts to games and technology by allowing the showcasing and discovery of work.

7. Suitey

suitey

Suitey plans to disrupt the residential real estate broker business. It combines the best of online real estate services and brokers, and saves money for home buyers.

8. TheSquareFoot
thesquarefoot

TheSquareFoot enables commercial real estate prospective tenants to search for executive suites, industrial, retail and office spaces.  Launched in Houston, TheSquareFoot has 75% of the market online, and moving into Dallas next.

9. Trendalytics

trendalytics

Trendalytics crunches the social web and provides insights on fashion trends.  Ideal for fashion retailers, manufacturers, and fashionistas.

10. VocalizeMobile

vocalize

VocalizeMobile hooks small businesses with a free service to manage their online ratings, then helps them with a suite of marketing tools to improve their web and mobile presence  across online directories like Google Places, Yahoo Local, Yelp, Mapquest and YellowPages.

era pic

SMB: A New $2 Billion Business for Newspapers?

Selling digital marketing services to 27 million small businesses (SMBs) could become a $2 billion new business by 2016  for newspaper companies, according to Ken Doctor.

Some benchmarks:Westchester_Chappaqua1-527x375

  • ReachLocal, with $430 million in most recent 12-month revenue.
  • Hearst’s LocalEdge, a reincarnation of its Buffalo yellow pages business, with 1,000+ full-time salespeople.  Customers include the Minneapolis Star Tribune (Radius, averaging client paying $426 per month), and the Dallas Morning News (508 Digital), Morris Communications, Wehco Media, Newsday, and the New York Daily New
  • Dallas Morning News Speakeasy, a 12-person start-up, with an average client paying $3,600 per month.

Ken Doctor’s well-researched piece is here.

With ad revenue dropping by more than half in 5 years, to $22 billion, the $2 billion could make up barely 6 months of average industry ad revenue declines.