Everything to know about the 500 Startups Batch 9 Demo Day
My favorite companies, the glaring trends, and other neat observations
The 500 Startups family just welcomed another batch of 29 companies to the alumni list after its 9th Demo Day on Tuesday, July 29th at Microsoft’s Building 1 in Mountain View. The Demo Day was full of Australian accents, sexy pitch decks, and awesome demos: here’s my breakdown of the event to make sense of it all.
Overall
After working at a VC firm and constantly hearing pitches, I have to say that sometimes listening through a whirlwind of pitches can get a bit tiring; however, though there were nearly 30 pitches to listen to, I was engaged in every single one. They were short, sweet and to the point.
The decks, which drill on run rates and customer stories, are available on the 500 Startups Slideshare account.
Major Trends
After categorizing the 500 Startups Batch 9 companies, there are clear industries looking to be disrupted. I took all of the Batch 9 companies and grouped them as best I could into this visual:
The “service” category is quite broad — I interpreted it as companies that are using desktop or mobile as a platform to simplify a problem consumers are facing (for Share Some Style, that’s creating a more stylish universe and for Lenda, that’s dealing with home loans).
The Trend Toward Global
Something worth noting is the number of companies in Batch 9 with a global emphasis. Jetbay focuses on traveling packages in China, Solidarium is a marketplace for Brazilian handmade products, and Sourceasy bloomed from Indian apparel manufacturing. Not to mention, the amount of Australian accents and “G’day”s.
Dave McClure remarked after introducing these global companies:
“I encourage you to take a look outside the Valley…these are big unsexy businesses but these big unsexy businesses are making lots of money”
My Favorite Companies
KangaDo
This company, self-proclaimed as the “Uber for after-school”, tackles the major pain points that working parents face involving picking kids up, arranging car pools, and not fearing the daycare bill.
Parents are arranged based on activities (my mom can meet other moms of my friends in tennis class) or neighborhood. The startup has already partnered with major school districts and will be promoted at back-to-school nights in the Bay Area as the official carpool app.
This company has amazing acquisition potential because it targets a niche market within transportation and ride-sharing and targets it well.
Lumific
This app was made for me. When the founder was discussing the problem it was trying to solve, I had one of those “OMG THAT’S ME” moments.
Lumific, described as “Your Smart Photo Assistant”, automatically sorts and edits photos. After uploading images into DropBox, whether it’s 15 photos from an outing with your friends or 1,500 photos from your global trip, Lumific will pick the best pictures (if you spend 5 pictures trying to capture one turtle, it will pick the best-looking one), auto-enhance, and crop your pictures making it easier than ever to prep your photos for sharing with friends.
After feeling super excited about this company, I was talking to a friend about it and he said that Google+ already has a similar service; if you have a Google phone, pictures you take will automatically be enhanced and cropped, and Google+ will automatically generate “highlighted” photos. Interested to learn more about the differences and similarities between these services.
Regardless, I need Lumific in my hands right now and this is another great acquisition target.
Pop Up Archive
Searchable sound — brilliant and can’t wait for this to become a searching norm. This takes services like Shazam to the next level by indexing audio uploaded to its site, with more translation accuracy than Google (claimed the founder).
Currently, Pop Up Archive is focusing on podcasts with major clients like NPR and KQED, but there is so much potential here. The company claims 50% month-over-month growth and can be used as a tool to drive data, page views, and eventually monetization.
Thinknum
Thinknum is a cloud-based platform that hosts financial models to rid back-and-forth emails with Excel attachments.
As a business student with a financial background, this product really resonated with me. Its idea seems simple (one of those “why didn’t I think of that?” companies) but it’s so impactful for the dated financial world by making analyses more shareable.
Honorable Mentions
Great pitches and really exciting ideas.
AbbeyPost: Clothing that fits every body (emphasis on plus sized women). Absolutely engaging pitch and some incredibly successful data points involving first-purchase and second-purchase data (the numbers are astounding! Sadly, I can’t share financial data)
JetBay: Travel research and booking in China. The pitch poked some hilarious fun at Chinese tourist groups that made me laugh out loud. The co-founders (who also founded the Groupon of China, 55tuan.com) are hoping to bring more notoriety to other undiscovered cities in China.
Stitch: Tinder for the 50+ Crowd. Brilliant and seamless pitch that started with the founder proclaiming “I love old people”. I was a bit skeptical, but the company has some great numbers to show for it.
Survmetrics: Advanced survey and analytics engine. Sexy product design
That wraps up my long summary. Overall, brilliant event and congratulations to all of the companies and the team at 500 Startups!
