NXTPLabs Newsletter #3 -- First Companies Selected for March 2012 Class

Infographic on Silicon Alley vs Silicon Valley

From our friends at MBA@UNC:

For decades, Silicon Valley has been synonymous with innovation. It is difficult to dispute this claim given that it’s the home to technology and Internet giants such as Apple, Google, and Facebook. While it hasn’t lost its staying power, other hotspots for entrepreneurship and technology have emerged over the past ten years, in particular, New York’s “Silicon Alley”.

Although cities like Chicago, Austin, and even our own Research Triangle have produced a number of web-based businesses in recent years, New York’s startup scene is growing exponentially. The amount of capital and seed funding continues to rise as well as the success of local companies like foursquare, Gilt Groupe, and Tumblr. The city’s ecosystem also has the support of Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who recently appointed Rachel Sterne as the city’s Chief Digital Officer along with Steve Rosenbaum, the city’s first Entrepreneur at Large. There’s no shortage of debates in the blogosphere as to whether one coast has the advantage over the other. Regardless of what side you’re on, many would agree that there’s no better time to be an entrepreneur. Organizations and incubators like the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), Startup America, Y-Combinator and Tech Stars are providing an unprecedented level of resources and support. In a recent TIME article, the YEC’s Scott Gerber even posited 2012 as “The Year of the Entrepreneur”.

Interested in seeing the growth that has been present on both coasts over the last 5 years? Interact with the graphic below to explore some noteworthy companies in both Silicon Valley and Silicon Alley, quotes from stakeholders, as well as the rise in Seed Funding from 2009-2011.

Via MBA@UNC: Online MBA

PALcapital to represent Olapic in accessing Newspaper Market

PALcapital is proud to anounce that it has signed an agreement to advise Olapic.com to represent the company in selling their cloud-based photo sharing and display service to newspapers in the United States.

Olapic is a photo sharing service that brands, teams and publications can use to automatically upload, curate and display user-generated photos on ther site, driving user engagement and increasing organic pageviews.

Clients in clude: The New York Daily News, FC Barcelona, The Dallas Mavericks, Mashable and the Chicago Tribune.

Read more about this New York-based company here.

PALcapital Client GoChime raises $630k

PAL client GoChime, a graduate of TechStars:SEATTLE, just announced they raised $630k from a solid set of investors in their Series "A" round. 

Excerpeted fro the TechCrunch article:

GoChime uses semantic search of news and status postds by individuals on the leading social media platforms  to deliver relevant offers to people based on the real needs they’ve expressed across their social media profiles.

GoChime matches each desire expressed with products or solutions provided by the corresponding brands when and if that expression is contextually relevant. GoChime matches relevant brand promotions in its database and passes it off to brand loyalists, who then decide if the expression is relevant to the matched promotion. Those that aren’t relevant are skipped, and those that fit the bill are then used by the brand evangelists to start a conversation with the person, with the incentive of a discount, coupon, etc. being dangled in front of that potential customer.

Investors include Geoff Entress, who has invested in companies like Hootsuite and Cheezburger, Walter Winshall, an investor in Harmonix (Guitar Hero), Co-founder of Feedburner and former Googler, Matt Shobe, Dave Carlson (investor in Socialthing, Daily Burn), and Founder and CEO of Bigdoor Keith Smith — to name a few. PALcapital affiliate, PALgenesis Fund is a founding investor in GoChime.

Read the entire article on TechCrunch here.

NXTPLabs announces upcoming inaugural DemoDay!

NXTPLabs, the internet-media company acellerator coufounded by PALcapital in Buenos Aires has announced their inaugural Demo Day on December 14th at 8:30am in Buenos Aires. Presentations will be made by the 15 participating companies, all of which have already secured funding for their seed rounds and which are now seeking Seris A investments.

Please click on the imabe below to lean more about the companies. Contact james@palcapital.com to learn more aboout the event.