Last week, BostInnovation Editor Kyle Psaty predicted that this summer’s Web Innovators Group (WebInno) would the biggest yet and he may well have been right.
Last night, WebInno —the Boston startup scene’s biggest tech event — drew a hoard of attendees and nine hot startups to the Royal Sonnesta in Cambridge. New York City’s Milabra, Waltham’s DoInk, and Needham’s Chargify were Webinno’s three “Main Dishes” presenters, and each demoed in front of an audience comprised of angels, venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, developers, and community leaders. DoInk took home Webinno’s “Audience Choice Award” as the favorite startup after a killer presentation.
WebInno was founded by Venrock VC David Beisel five years ago and last night was the 26th WebInno.
WebInno’s main dish presentations kicked off with a presentation from Milabra’s CEO, Sam Cox. Milabra is a visual intelligence company that analyzes online advertisements and figures out ways to make them more appealing to audiences. Using state-of-the-art technology, Malabra is capable of visual recognition in realtime, individual face recognition, and adult content detection. They market directly to advertisers and agencies as well as selling their collected data and performing focused media tracking.
Crowd favorite, DoInk followed behind Milabra with a humorous and entertaining presentation by CTO, Aaron White. DoInk lets you create your own animated drawings online, without having to use Flash, but lets you convert your masterpiece into a Flash compatible download to share on YouTube, Facebook, or Twitter. The majority of DoInk’s extremely engaged and talented community is made up of kids who have even found ways to create 3D art with the 2D modeling software. DoInk recently launched an iPad application that allows users to avoid the iPad’s Flash blockage and create animation with the dynamic touch screen.
Virtual phone system company, Grasshopper recently launched their latest project, Chargify, which was the last product to present. Grasshopper’s Ambassador of Buzz, Jonathan Kay demoed Chargify, a website that helps entrepreneurs simplify their recurring online billing process with a customizable billing platform. Entrepreneurs — in particular serial entrepreneurs with several websites — can use Chargify to bill customers no matter what the product they’re selling is, and Chargify’s clients get a realtime dashboard that gives them customer analyses, revenue tracking, and cancellation trends. In line with Grasshoppers’ overall mantra of making work easier for startupers, Chargify does not take allows their clients to bill their first 50 customers free of charge using the software.
WebInno’s “Side Dish” presentations — companies who weren’t fortunate enough to get to pitch in front of all of the attendees at once, but demoed in a side room included 6 up-and-coming startups. Here’s a quick rundown of those companies:
Relay Rides is a car-sharing program, much like locally-based Zipcar, except rather than providing the vehicles itself, the company connects car owners looking to rent out their vehicles with people looking in need of a car.
Manpacks is a website that allows men to order their underwear and undershirts online in several package combinations and have their favorite items sent regularly over the course of the year.
Birchbox is a $10 monthly subscription service that sends women the latest beauty products to test out before they make purchases.
JitterJam is a social media marketing tool that helps businesses discover and monitor conversations relevant to their product or service, turn those conversations into paying customers, and keep track of direct conversation with those users as well.
Trustmaker, the only Y-Combinator company to remain in Massachusetts after the incubator left town, is a platform that aids businesses and organizations who operate in the online trustmark networks by providing analytics, badges, affiliations, and remote cancellations.
OpenExhange Communications is a communication platform that helps financial services businesses schedule meetings and video conference with up to 99 participants.
The companies that stood out from WebInno’s “Main Dishes” and “Side Dishes” were DoInk and RelayRides. Both companies had solid and fun demonstrations as well as concepts that set them apart. DoInk and Relay Rides’ communities are their focus and the driving force behind their business — a clear indicator that they’ve got a business model to pay attention to. WebInno 26 was my third go-around at the quarterly event and it did not disappoint me; the pace was quick and all of the startups performed to their utmost potential. We’ll see you at WebInno 27 in September.
Where you at WebInno 26 last night? What did you think of the presentors?
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