A new year and a new class! Our friends at Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator unveiled its latest class, its 12th for those counting, for the four month accelerator program this week. A total of 12 companies were vetted and selected to receive $100K (up from the previous $40K) in investment and mentorship from over 300 industry professionals for the program whose past alumni include some notable New York startups such as Bespoke Post, TripleLift, and CardFlight. These alumni (113+ in total) have raised over $220M in capital, with an aggregate market cap exceeding $1B according to the ERA website.
CLICK HERE TO SEE THE 12 COMPANIES IN ER ACCELERATOR’S LATEST CLASS
Parkwise
Founded by Alexander Shvartz, Dennis Bolgov, William Larrenaga in Boston, Parkwise is a mobile app available for android and iOS that assists drivers in finding on street parking in real time by using crowdsourced driver data. The app also provides local information on traffic events like street closures, cleanings, and emergencies. The app currently works all over Boston and also provides street maps for Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.
Debitize
Founded by Liran Amrany and Jeff Hu in 2014 in New York, Debitize is a personal finance tool that is focused on responsible credit card usage. The app links up with your credit card and sets aside funds for each purchase made on the card from your checking account and then pays your bill on a weekly basis. You’ll never have to worry about a recurring balance and the onerous and debilitating interest that’s tacked on each month while still earning all the credit card rewards. The company pledges that since you are paying on a weekly basis, your credit utilization will be minimal and this will also boost your credit score.
Summit Sync
Founded in 2015 by Justin Musterman and AI Torres, Summit Sync is a mobile app for professional networking at business events and conferences. Users create a profile, opt into groups and specific events, and get all the relevant details in the palm of their hand. They also have the ability to connect with others attending the same event through a “Pass or Sync” functionality, which is similar to swiping on Tinder. Matches are then able to connect and message to set up offline meetings. The product is marketed to the event organizers to improve the experience of attendees.
Shortly after its founding the company raised $750K from Alex Robart according to Crunchbase.
Payfully
Founded by Daniela Birnbaum, Jonathan Slimak, Alberto Sheinfeld, and Luis Scull in 2016 in Brooklyn, Payfully provides receivable financing for Airbnb hosts, cutting the lag in receiving payments from Airbnb for a portion of the proceeds. Hosts receive payment for reservations within 48 hours of booking. We previously covered their $300K funding round – NYC Startup Payfully Just Raised $300K To Be to the Go To For Any Airbnb Host.
Popwallet
Founded by Elias Guerra, Wes Biggs, and David Bustos in the summer of 2015 in New York, Popwallet is a marketing automation tool that uses mobile wallets as another channel for brand marketing. Through the platform, Apple Wallet and Android Pay can be used to announce new products, create rewards, send reminders, send special offers all while data is being captured and consumer behavior is being tracked. This info can now be used to make future marketing decisions both at an aggregate and individual level.
iSow
Founded by Tanya Van Court and Naledi Khabo, iSow is a platform for financial literacy targeted towards children. The platform uses smart gifting to allow children to save money towards a purpose to cement a healthy mindset when it comes to savings and investments. The company previously received a $507.5K investment from Pipeline Angels in January of 2016. We covered the company in the fall – NYC Startup iSow is Changing How the Next Generation Receives Birthday Presents.
Quottly
Founded by Rob Castelluci in Gainesville in 2015, Quottly is a marketplace for college courses for the purpose of using transferable classes to earn a degree for significantly less. With the costs of college education rising to unprecedented levels, this platform is your tool to game the system and arbitrage the best savings by managing the process with all parties involved. It will be interesting to see how receptive the accepting universities are to this as this idea gains popularity and scales.
CyberCentric
Founded by Jeremiah Steptoe and Adam Lahav, CyberCentric is a security platform that scans your internal data on your own infrastructure and then monitors the presence of this data in real time across the web. The platform then takes steps to recover any data that has been found externally and prevent further leaks. The system is friendly to use and does not require technical sophistication to be implemented.
Auto I
Founded by Tom Santora, Rob Carpenito, and Sorin Davidovici, Auto I is a video and camera surveillance application that’s integrated into vehicles. Monitoring vibrations caused by things like collision and break ins, the platform saves the recorded footage so that you have a recording of the incident for insurance and police.
TwoSense
Founded in Dawud Gordan and John Tanios, Two Sense is a mobile SDK that leverages data for applications. They currently have two SDKs. The first allows developers to integrate location and behavioral data while the second focuses on security and verification of users to reduce fraud. Developers can integrate these two offerings seamlessly and quickly; saving development time and cost.
Air Tailor
Founded in Brooklyn in May of 2015 by Joshua Brueckner and Brian Flynn, Air Tailor is an on demand platform for clothing alterations via text. How does it work? Promising a 5-day turn around, the consumer sends a text about the alteration that is needed, the company then provides detailed instructions and collects information on the specific alteration, and then the user ships in the article of clothing with a prepaid label or via a messenger service in NYC. This is tailoring without ever leaving your home.
Sayspring
Founded in 2016 by Mark Webster, Sayspring is a prototyping software for voice applications using Amazon Alexa without the use of coding. Just as you create wireframes to plot the user experience, this platform will let you integrate voice into the experience
