Highlights from Launch 2013: Boxbee, Zillabyte, Navisens and more!
This past week in San Francisco the Launch conference featured over 50 new companies trying to make a splash in the startup world. Every year many new and exciting players take the stage, and it’s an inspiring spectacle to watch.
One thing that was mildly disappointing about this year was that despite the addition of a second Enterprise-focused award, there was still an apparent lack of Enterprise focused startups. Where are they all? Last fall, Fred Wilson from Union Ventures made a post titled “What Has Changed,” which took a look at how VC investment in consumer-facing startups was slowing. His assessment was that as VCs began to realize the challenges that faced the oversaturated consumer app space they began to put the brakes on the funding, turning their focus toward the Enterprise space. Maybe we’ll start to see signs of this shift happening soon.
Watch the Videos from this Year’s Launch Conference
Here are some of the winners and favorites:
Boxbee – BEST OVERALL STARTUP
Boxbee takes your storage problems away, quite literally. This service will drop off boxes to your home, give you some time to pack them with your excess storage, and will then pick up the boxes and store them at one of their own facilities. The best part is that they will come to you in under 2 hours, and their rates start at just $3/box/month. Awesome!
Synata – BEST ENTERPRISE 1.0
Synata is a service which enables Enterprises to search across all their cloud services, such as SalesForce, Dropbox, Google Drive, and many more. The user simply connects their accounts to Synata, and the search algorithms do the rest.
Zillabyte – BEST ENTERPRISE 2.0
Zillabyte is a service which claims it can help B2B SaaS companies find their ideal customers. Described as a “Pandora for Leads,” this service is promising a lot. They were certainly the crowd favorite, gaining more “likes” through the Launch Live app than any other company at the conference. If they can do as they promise, this company has a true potential to be wildly successful.
Navisens – BEST TECHNOLOGY
This company is transforming location-based services by removing the need for wifi or GPS. The service can locate personnel indoors or underground using one of their patented sensors. Check out the video to learn more:
HomeDine.In – WORTHY MENTION
This service is the “AirBnb” of the dining world, allowing people to turn their kitchens into restaurants! Their pitch is simple, HomeDine.In connects you to home cooked meals in your neighborhood. You simply go to their site, and search for the type of meal you’d like. The results range from free meals for the homeless to full-on gluten free cooking classes. It’ll be exciting to see where this one goes.
And there are many, many more companies. Check out the full list.
