On Wednesday, June 2nd, the final four of the over eighty companies who applied for the 2010 GRA/TAG Business Launch Competition will compete for a $50,000 cash prize and their split of over $300,000 in services donated by a variety of companies. Here’s a look at the four finalists:
Khush
Khush develops intelligent music applications, using artificial intelligence to help people make music. The company’s first product, LaDiDa, is a reverse karaoke technology currently available on the iPhone, iPad and iTouch. You sing into LaDiDa, and it will analyze your voice and compose music to match. LaDiDa is a Top 50 Music app in the iTunes App Store and has received over 6 million views on YouTube.
The patent-pending reverse karaoke technology was developed by Dr. Chordia at the Georgia Tech Music Intelligence Lab (GTMIL). Dr. Chordia is an NSF-funded scientist whose research focuses on building intelligent music systems; he is the founder and director of GTMIL. Prerna Gupta, Khush’s CEO, is an experienced technology entrepreneur, with a focus in viral marketing and social media product management. She previously founded Yaari, an Indian social media company, which she grew to over 2 million active users. Prerna studied Computer Science and Economics at Stanford University, where she graduated Phi Beta Kappa. Alex Rae, Khush’s Creative Director, has a master’s degree from GTMIL, and his work focuses on computational creativity and generative rhythm models.
SolidFire
SolidFire is a next-generation storage platform for cloud computing providers and other enterprises that need scalable, reliable storage for thousands of servers. Existing enterprise storage systems are poorly suited to the large scale storage needs of cloud computing. SolidFire offers a price/performance ratio orders of magnitude better than legacy systems while reducing operational costs including power, cooling, and management. Founded by cloud computing veteran Dave Wright and joined by distributed systems experts from Georgia Tech and Cornell, the company has completed an advanced prototype of their system and is entering the final stages of development.
Prior to starting SolidFire Dave founded Jungle Disk, a cloud storage service, which was acquired by Rackspace in 2008. Since 2008, Dave has worked with the Rackspace Cloud, helping build a storage service that supports tens of thousands of customers. This experience allowed Dave to understand the storage challenges faced by Rackspace and other cloud providers around the world and directly led to the creation of SolidFire. Prior to Jungle Disk, Dave helped found GameSpy Industries in 1998 and led the engineering team at the company through its merger with IGN Entertainment and eventual acquisition by News Corp in 2005. While at News Corp, Dave worked with several divisions including MySpace to solve large scale storage and content distribution challenges.
Toomah
Toomah’s InterviewPlus is a Saas-based interview management platform which streamlines and simplifies the hiring process for high volume interview environments, such as Call Centers and Staffing organizations. Leveraging voice-to-web technology and business process intelligence, this cutting-edge solution dramatically reduces hiring costs by automating the scheduling, conducting and voice-recording of phone interviews, allowing this information to be reviewed, accessed and shared “on-demand” via the web.
Toomah’s management team is a diverse blend of seasoned corporate executives including President and CEO Joe Gruca, who has led national sales and marketing teams in the enterprise software and technology space, and COO Mark Hopkins, a 33+ year UPS veteran with tremendous operational, IT development and eVenture expertise. The two original founders include visionary Jay Forman whose extensive background in building start-up sales teams drove him to create Toomah, and Rob Forman a “whiz kid” technologist whose cloud communication and web application expertise brought the vision to reality.
Transaction Tree
TransactionTree, Inc. is an event driven digital receipt and marketing delivery system. They provide a unique solution with our innovative paperless receipts delivery system, eReceipts. Their technology recognizes purchase events, validates customer email addresses and emails the transaction receipt in real time. They are a green company providing simple and eco-friendly solutions by utilizing advances in today’s digital technology, and through continued focus on environment impacts their team is contributing to break new ground for a true Green culture. With their fully integrated digital receipt delivery solution that replaces the antiquated ink and thermal paper receipt system, retailers now have the opportunity to turn everyday occurrences into actionable events that add value to the customers shopping experience, while adding value to the bottom line. Their customizable eReceipts solution and PowerTree service allows retailers to instantly capture and send purchase information to the consumer electronically. Within this high-tech, high-touch retail market, TransactionTree aids retailers in exceeding current eco-standards, as well as increasing company exposure. Their goal is to improve existing systems by using modern technology and trends to innovate, cut costs, and set market standards.
Founded by a team of green innovators, their services easily streamline your shopping experience by incorporating new eco-practices into everyday consumer activities.
So there you have it. Please join us at IBM Hillside on June 2nd for a great event, beginning with an all star VC panel moderated by Noro-Moseley Partners' Allen Moseley, and featuring Tom Crotty, Managing Director, Battery Ventures Boston; John Glushik, General Partner, Intersouth Partners; Hooks K. Johnston, General Partner, Valhalla Partners; Mark Koulogeorge, Managing General Partner, MK Capital; and Alan Taetle, General Partner, Noro-Moseley Partners.
The event will end with the presentation of a giant check to the winner!
