TickX revisited: A year in the life of gig, theatre and festival ticket comparison site TickX
TickX revisited: A year in the life of gig, theatre and festival ticket comparison site TickX. “If someone’s thinking of a ticket seller we want them to think TickX.
Both Coley and Pearce appeared on Dragon’s Den at the start of 2017, when TickX was hailed “the Uber of events” by multi-millionaire Peter Jones. “We actually filmed Dragon’s Den in May [2016] and when we said no to the Dragons we were looking for investment that that point.
This funding adds up to 10 times more than the £75,000 offered by the Dragons. “Upon closing that round we are now a team of seven and we will be going to 12 in the next three to four months,” says Pearce.
But now we’re seeing rapid growth every month,” he adds. “Another challenge is that we are working round the clock, you never stop thinking about it.
And TickX is no different.
You’ll be able to send a message to Facebook Messenger and it will show you all the events around you,” says Pearce.
“Angel fund” assists 10 North Louisiana start-up companies in drugs, media, oilfield, sports and other endeavors
North Louisiana-based angel fund New Louisiana Angel Fund 1 closed 2016 with 10 companies funded and three follow-on investments.
Sidecar investments, which are investments made by the fund’s investors outside of NLAF 1, total an additional $1.2 million at the close of 2016.
NLAF 1 is the first North Louisiana angel investor group and meets monthly to evaluate startups for funding.
The fund’s portfolio spans industries from biomedical to entertainment, and to technology, with applications in sports, business, medicine and oil and gas.
The group, which meets in Shreveport, has funded only companies that are resident in North Louisiana.
The companies funded have generated 66 jobs, and have brought $32.9 million in investment from outside of North Louisiana through grants, syndication with other angel funds or networks and other investments.
“Our young startups here in North Louisiana are in various stages of fundraising.
NLAF 2 will continue this effort and will begin evaluating more startups this year,” said George.
NLAF 1 companies: Embera NeuroThereaputics — Clinical-stage pharmaceutical company focused on smoking cessation, cocaine dependence and other addictions.
Swaybox Studios — Film and TV media technology studio that specializes in puppetry.
Germany-based funds Senovo, UVC back SaaS venture Loyalty Prime
Germany-based funds Senovo, UVC back SaaS venture Loyalty Prime.
Thinkstock Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform Loyalty Prime has secured a Series A round of funding from a consortium of investors, including Munich-based early stage fund Senovo, Unternehmertum Venture Capital (UVC) and angel investor Alexander Bruehl, the company said in a statement on Tuesday.
The firm runs cloud-based loyalty programmes for small, medium and enterprise clients, such as Fraport AG, TRW ZF and Preferred Hotels & Resorts, among others.
Before launching Loyalty Prime, Mohiuddin co-founded NetCarrots Loyalty Services in 2000, which provided loyalty and rewards-related services.
The company has an office in London as well.
“With the funding, Loyalty Prime will be able to accelerate market penetration and is well prepared to become the ‘Salesforce’ of the loyalty industry,” said Jan Boluminski, managing director of Envolved and co-founder of Payback, who is Loyalty Prime’s advisory board member.
The SaaS sector in India has seen a lot of investment interest recently.
SaaS startup Oi Media, a unit of OurInitiative Media Pvt Ltd, a platform for out-of-home (OOH) advertising, raised seed funding from early stage venture capital (VC) fund Quarizon last week.
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Getting money for a startup not always easy
Codelucida Announces Closing of a Syndicated Angel Investment Round Led by Desert Angels
Tucson-based company is a team of leading experts in error correction developing disruptive solutions for next-generation flash memories with broader applications in storage and communications The overwhelming interest in Codelucida across our syndication network is a terrific example of geographically distributed angel groups coming together,” said Wayne Rickard, deal lead and member of Tech Coast Angels and Arizona Tech Investors Codelucida recently announced the successful closing of a seed round of angel investment led by Tucson-based Desert Angels in syndication with Southern California-based Tech Coast Angels, Phoenix-based Arizona Tech Investors, and other private angel investors.
Codelucida develops cutting-edge error-correction algorithms, a pivotal technology used in every data storage or communication system, to ensure reliability in the data and prevent any data loss caused by errors introduced in the data.
We are excited to work with Dr. Planjery and his amazing team to bring this world-changing technology to market and improve the efficiency, speed and reliability of SSD memory and other communication technologies.” About Desert Angels: Desert Angels is a Tucson, Arizona based group of accredited investors that has emerged as one of the country’s leading angel investor groups, funding startups in Arizona and the Southwest.
Since 2000, Desert Angels has invested over $40 million in more than 95 companies.
Desert Angels was ranked as the third most active angel group in the nation in 2015 after investing over $6.8 million in 32 companies in 2014.
Desert Angels is a member of the Angel Capital Association.
TCA members are accredited investors who collectively invest in startup companies in the range of $250,000 to $2 million as a group.
About Arizona Tech Investors: Arizona Tech Investors (ATI) is an active community of accredited investors who invest in early-stage technology companies located in Arizona and surrounding states.
Since their first transaction in May 2007, ATI has invested in 49 companies, providing over $13.7 million in capital, making them the most active technology investor group in central and northern Arizona.
For more information, please visit http://arizonatechinvestors.com About Codelucida: Codelucida is an early-stage startup that develops error-correction technologies for next-generation storage and communications with initial focus on the flash-memory-based storage applications.
How 10 Brands Thoughtfully Chimed In on President Trump’s Inauguration
How 10 Brands Thoughtfully Chimed In on President Trump’s Inauguration.
While businesses generally consider it to be in their best interests to steer clear of politics, they occasionally feel inspired or even obligated to get involved.
Some support specific causes or policies, others take a more implicit approach in sharing their stances and some make light of the situation and simply seize the chance to share in the spotlight.
Check out these 10 brands that found a way to take part in the events surrounding the inauguration of President Donald Trump — and connect with people in the process.
5 Tactics That Haven’t Worked For Digital Marketers Until Now
5 Tactics That Haven’t Worked For Digital Marketers Until Now.
Mobile marketing.
Shopify.
It’s also the natural choice for businesses that keep a brick-and-mortar storefont in addition to the online platform.
Search-engine optimization (SEO) is among the most-scrutinized facets of digital marketing.
One day, it’s the face and future of the business.
YouTube ads.
Recently, though, YouTube has focused on contextual advertising.
In the future, YouTube ads will get smarter and more sensitive, so digital marketers and advertisers can better pinpoint potential customers.
In digital marketing, the future always is now.
How to Build Powerful Relationships with Influencers
How to Build Powerful Relationships with Influencers.
I’m starting a new kind of series on The School of Greatness.
It’s in response to questions you have been asking me for a while.
This way we can do deep dives into topics, and I’ll have time to pull back the curtain a little more on how I’ve learned to do what I do.
I wanted to start this series with one of the most important skills in business and life — relationships.
Nothing has made a bigger difference in my career and personal life than learning how to develop strong, real relationships with people who were a few (or many) steps ahead of me.
But I see a lot of people go about this the wrong way.
So in this first solo round on relationships, I’m covering the ins and outs of how to build relationships with influencers the right way.
Check it out below.
More from Lewis Howes
You Don’t Have to be Picture-Perfect to Succeed on Instagram
While Instagram is all the hype these days, a lot of small business owners are confused, or even lost, about the types of content they can publish.
Thus, they miss out on a huge opportunity to find new followers and engage their existing customers.
So, what do you do and what do you post?
When people fvisit your account the first time they (ideally) see a waterfall of images all telling the same story.
Showcase your products, people and processes.
You can show different angles of your business that will still make up for a cohesive narrative.
You don’t have to have a perfect business to be on Instagram.
Take five minutes out of your day to find something interesting.
But what’s more important is that in the stream of “perfectly-orchestrated” photos of fit women, she chose to share a not-so-flattering angle.
Candid moments make us human; and people want to do business with people.
The Pros and Cons of Incorporating in Delaware
You may have noticed that many companies are incorporated in Delaware — far more than are physically headquartered there.
Following are the key benefits and drawbacks associated with incorporating in Delaware to help you better understand what’s right for your company.
The benefits of incorporating in Delaware Incorporating in Delaware holds many advantages; here are the key ones: The Delaware court system is well established and highly respected.
This means that if your business is involved in litigation, you’ll get a judge with a lot of expertise in complex corporate law matters.
Delaware offers a lot of flexibility for structuring your corporation.
VC investors and investment banks typically prefer Delaware corporations above all other states and business structures.
Delaware offers some tax advantages.
While states like Wyoming and Nevada are rising in popularity due to their lack of state corporate income tax, Delaware has some business-friendly tax law.
Businesses that are formed in Delaware but don’t conduct business there do not need to pay state corporate income tax (though there is a franchise tax).
You’ll need to think about what’s right for your business.
5 Things Preventing You From Being Transparent
A December 2016 Betterworks survey of 1,000 employees found that 64 percent of respondents continued to feel that their company’s leadership wasn’t transparent in communicating top goals.
Information about how the company is performing or why decisions are made are deemed topics employees either aren’t interested in or have no right to know.
Do they believe that their work isn’t contributing to the team?
“If leaders trust their employees and employees trust their leaders, they should agree that each is acting in the best interest of the company.” 2.
“We also leave time at the end of each meeting for open discussion.” 3.
“Employers hold a death grip on any negative news; as if employees are so ignorant as to believe that only good things happen to this particular company,” said Joe Campagna, president and executive HR consultant at My Virtual HR Director in Parlin, N.J. “Even when directly questioned by employees, I have seen executives deflect, duck or even lie.
“I counsel executives that negative news is a great opportunity to gain employee trust and loyalty and to raise productivity behind a common cause.” 5.
That applies to transparent leadership, as well.
This reframes any problems as opportunities, making them seem less ominous to leaders and employees.
Understanding all the benefits that come with transparent leadership makes it easier to stay focused on that goal.
Eric Ries on 4 Common Misconceptions About Lean Startup
If you believe that lean startup methods lead to cheap products and companies, or that lean startup companies don’t think big, think again.
Here are a few of the misconceptions Ries described to me about how entrepreneurs still view lean startups.
Misconception 1: “Lean” means you’re cheap or not thinking big.
Customers often perceive early iterations of products as “cheap” or, at best, inadequate.
Measuring and learning early in the development process ultimately saves startups time and resources.
Uber is an example of a company that started with a lean MVP.
Misconception 2: Venture capital is unnecessary in the lean world.
The lean process can drastically reduce capital waste in the early startup stage, but capital is still necessary.
Ultimately, the lean process is a win-win for startup founders and VCs alike because it reduces investment risk and burn rates while shortening the path to results.
Misconception 3: Lean startups embrace failure.
Gerard Adams and Lewis Howes on Entrepreneurship, Success and Gratitude
Gerard Adams and Lewis Howes on Entrepreneurship, Success and Gratitude.
On this episode of Leaders Create Leaders, Entrepreneur Network partner Gerard Adams meets with entrepreneur and motivational speaker Lewis Howes to discuss success, entrepreneurship and expressing gratitude.
To Howes, constantly expressing gratitude has been a key to his success.
If you’re starting a new business, Howes recommends to launch as soon as possible so you can get feedback to improve.
A lot of millennials chase the money.
— which stands for fun, impact and profit.
If you do these three things on the highest levels possible, then you’ve found something you can sustain.
See more episodes of Leaders Create Leaders Season 1 and 2 on Gerard Adam’s YouTube channel.
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How to Boost Your Digital Marketing With PR
How to Boost Your Digital Marketing With PR.
How critical is it to capitalize on your PR team’s earned media in your digital marketing?
But it’s up to you to make sure those efforts are aligned.
Wrapping your head around the symbiosis Many people who start businesses are “product” people or “finance” people and don’t necessarily have marketing backgrounds.
Say you have $10,000 — which function should you invest in?
To avoid that issue, appoint someone either within your business or at an agency to make sure the digital team leverages the PR team’s efforts.
That’s how we came to upload a video of the Fox News broadcast to Facebook and run ads targeting similar like-minded people.
Leverage PR in your digital marketing.
Using that article and others, the brand centered all its marketing efforts on PR.
You’ve got a million things to think about when you’re running a business.
Ed-tech startup Cuemath secures $15 mn from CapitalG, Sequoia India
Math learning startup Cuemath on Monday said it raised $15 million (nearly Rs 102 crore) in its Series B round of funding from CapitalG (formerly known as Google Capital) and existing investor Sequoia India.
Cuemath offers technology-driven after-school math learning programmes for children from KG to grade eight.
Currently, the ed-tech startup is present in Delhi, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Chennai, Pune and Hyderabad, with around 300 math excellence centres in each of these cities.
Bangalore-based Cuelearn Pvt Ltd, which runs Cuemath, was founded in 2013 by the father-son duo of Jagjit and Manan Khurma.
The company ties up with homemakers to run home-based learning centres for students.
Jagjit has a PhD in chemistry from the University of Otago (New Zealand), while Manan is an alumnus of IIT Delhi.
“We believe technology can help solve the strong desire and need for quality education.
Cuemath has scaled with great unit economics and capital efficiency,” Kaushik Anand, CapitalG’s head of India Investments said in the press note.
In June 2016, the startup raised $4 million (Rs 26.7 crore) in a Series A round of funding led by Sequoia Capital.
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Google’s CapitalG leads $15 million financing round in education startup Cuemath
CapitalG, formerly known as Google Capital, has led a series B round of $15 million in education startup Cuemath.
Along with CapitalG, the investing arm of tech major Google, Cuemath’s existing backer Sequoia Capital has also participated in this round.
This marks CapitalG’s first bet in the Indian education startups which has attracted heavy investor interest in the recent past.
Cuemath, an after-school math tutoring programme for children in KG to grade 8, develops in-house content which is a combination of worksheets, tab-based exercises and mathematical puzzle cards offered to students through home-based centers.
Started in 2013, Cuemath claims to have over 2,000 centers educating more than 10,000 students across the country. “Math is the skill of the future.
Schools, by design, cater to only a limited subset of math.
Although many of them do a good job at it, our children need much more,” said Cuemath’s founder & CEO Manan Khurma.
Education technology companies have seen strong investor interests despite overall investor sentiments being cautious.
Unacademy raised $4.5 million in series A funds from Nexus Venture Partners recently.
This ex-Cisco exec’s startup kicked off 2017 by getting a $1 billion valuation that’s putting it in the spotlight (CSCO)
The new year has already been good to videoconferencing startup Zoom, a fast-growing competitor to Cisco’s ubiquitous WebEx.
Just last week, the San Jose-based company raised $100 million at a $1 billion valuation in a round led by legendary investment firm Sequoia Capital, making it Silicon Valley’s newest “unicorn.”
In other words, if you haven’t heard of Zoom yet, you probably will soon.
Business Insider sat down with Zoom CEO Eric S. Yuan (via a Zoom videoconference, naturally) to talk about where his startup came from, and where it’s going next.
Zooming out of nowhere Yuan served as the VP of Engineering at WebEx from 1997, staying in the role for years after Cisco’s $3.2 billion acquisition of the company in 2007. “That’s what the customer needs, it’s what the industry needs,” Yuan says.
Yuan’s thought was that if Cisco wants to go after huge enterprise contracts and sell them complex solutions to their videoconferencing problems, then Zoom could go after the largely-ignored market for smaller companies.
From a technology perspective, Yuan says, Zoom’s platform has been engineered for high performance, even when you have hundreds (or if you’re running a webinar, thousands) of people connecting from different devices.
Plus, Yuan says, unlike Cisco’s WebEx, you can share your iPhone or iPad screen on a Zoom call.
Yuan says.
How to become a tech investor: Tips and advice from angel investors in tech startups
And how do you go about becoming an angel investor?
Who are angel investors?
Why do people choose to become investors?
How do angel investors evaluate startups? “I evaluate the business model of the company to understand its viability and potential for growth. “I invest in companies that have a straightforward business model that make sense – you’d be surprised how many business models are not clear – and to whom I can bring more than just money,” says Colette Ballou, founder of Ballou PR.
One thing that is clear is knowing the right people is a crucial part of the process, so angel investors and startups would be well advised to get networking.
How do angel investors invest in a startup?
What makes a good angel investor?
What sorts of mistakes should angel investors avoid?