Companies funded in the first year of the TiE Angels investment program (I-W, Aug. 5) were showcased at TiE Silicon Valley headquarters here Sept. 29.
TiE Angels chair Venkatesh Shukla said a total of 10 companies have received funding amounts from TiE Angels that range from $200,000 to $650,000. “Most come only to TiE, or come first to TiE” for funding support, he pointed out.
TiE Angels now has more than 90 members who evaluate proposals online and pick six finalists for company presentations each month.
Shukla said that no other venture capital group has the “quality of expertise” TiE charter members and angel investors can provide.
The group will “co-invest or syndicate with other angel groups or with venture capital funds,” Shukla said.
One company funded by TiE Angels is Claritics, a social intelligence company that improves user acquisition, engagement and monetization for social and mobile games.
Raj Pai, CEO of Claritics, told the TiE audience that the gaming engagement and monetization market will increase by a factor of 10 over the next few years.
Glassbeam, which received $300,000 from TiE Angels in a $1.2 million round and has total funding of $3 million, is a cloud-based analytics company converting unstructured data into business intelligence.
Puneet Pandit, co-founder and CEO, told India-West that Glassbeam is unique in the data-mining field because it uses software-as-a-service to “create a structure for raw unstructured data.”
Yatown is one of the few consumer-to-consumer plays among the first 10 TiE Angels investments. Company CEO and co-founder Christopher Nguyen said the company wants to “do for modern cities what old town squares did for old towns.” Neighbors join social networks to get information, shopping tips and neighborhood news.
Another company funded, Vigilent provides energy management systems for data centers, telcos and large commercial buildings.
Vice president of business development Bob Thronson explained that Vigilent addresses efficiency of air conditioners. The system takes a week to install and enables users to actually turn off some air conditioners and still reduce temperatures.
ActionRun, Inc., provides automated patient communication and customer relationship management to dental practices.
TiE Angels steering committee member Raj Parekh, founder and chairman of Redwood Ventures, has invested in the company.
He told TiE that the company analyzes customer data of individuals who “haven’t been to a dentist” for a long time and entices them back. ActionRun now has about 3,000 customers, he added.
Another company funded by TiE Angels, Vyycore, Parekh said, “improves the efficiency of home amplifiers 50-80 percent.” The founding team is based in Israel and has major customers lined up.
Saurabh Khetrapal, co-founder and CEO of Sales Portal, said his company offers an “auction-based marketplace in call centers for phone leads.” The company closed $4.6 million in a series “A” round, has over 300 customers and hopes to launch in India in 2012.
Sanjay Mittal, co-founder and chief technical officer of Spotzot, said his start-up aggregates last minute sales offers from 750 retail chains and makes them available to shoppers via mobile phones or on its Web site.
Focalpoint Energy CEO Taber Smith said his company provides a solar hot water and steam generator for industrial applications. Focalpoint is building a $612,000 system in California that saves “40 percent” more energy and has “four times the payback” of its competitors.
ShopSocially is a social commerce site allowing shoppers to share purchases with friends on Facebook, Twitter, e-mails, etc.
ShopSocially co-founder Jai Rawat told India-West, “ShopSocially is generating thousands of product recommendations, millions of brand impressions and tens of thousands of high converting, new customer traffic to retailers every day.”