One of the more exciting developments in entrepreneurship is the rise of angel investors, however good data on that subject can be hard to come by. To remedy that, The Angel Resource Institute (ARI), Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) and CB Insights last week published the first ever Halo Report, based on data from 573 deals totaling $873.3 million dollars.
Here are the top findings from the report:
- California leads in deals and dollars among individual states
- 79% of angel group investments were in companies outside of California
- 70% of total funding was invested outside of California
- Median angel group rounds size grew to $700,000, an increase of 40% over 2010
- 58% of angel group investments were in healthcare and internet companies
There are a few other items of local interest in the report, including that New England deals were more diverse across sectors than national and California deals (though 45% were still in healthcare and internet.) And you can see from the map above that 14% of deals were in New England, third behind California (21%) and the Great Lakes (15.9%). For more info, check out the slidedeck below:
from BostInno http://bostinno.com/2012/03/13/new-england-trails-california-great-lakes-in-a...
Thanks to the efforts of 13,000 volunteers worldwide, Twitter is now available in Arabic, Farsi, Hebrew and Urdu, according to a company blog post. Twitter had been working on translating and localizing these right-to-left languages since January 25.
These languages posed unique challenges for Twitter. To overcome technical barriers, Twitter’s engineering team had to build a new set of special tools to ensure that these tweets, hashtags and numbers would behave as their counterparts in left-to-right languages.
Not only that, but some of these languages are spoken — and therefore will be tweeted — in locations where Twitter is officially blocked.
Twitter was a recognizable force in the Arab Spring — but given that there wasn’t yet an Arabic interface, most of the users who tweeted from those regions did so in non-native languages.
And Twitter’s numerous volunteer translators for these right-to-left languages —from Lebanese teenagers to Egyptian college students to IT professionals in Iran and Pakistan, among others — live in these areas as well. “Their efforts speak volumes about the lengths that people will go to make Twitter accessible and understandable for their communities,” the company said in its blog post.
SEE ALSO: Twitter Will Become Available in Right-to-Left Languages This Spring
Arabic, Farsi, Hebrew and Urdu join Thai as the only right-to-left languages in Twitter’s translation center. Their incorporation means the service is now available in 28 languages.
What do you think of the addition of these languages? Do you think more people from the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia will start tweeting? Let us know in the comments.
More About: Arab Spring, languages, Twitter For more Social Media coverage:
from Mashable http://mashable.com/2012/03/06/twitter-arabic-farsi-hebrew-urdu/
The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here.
Name: Grande Labs
Quick Pitch: Grande Labs makes an app called Dish Freely that sorts gluten-free restaurant items by dish or restaurant.
Genius Idea: Making it simple to eat out gluten-free.
 Gluten-free eating just got a whole lot more interesting and easier for iPhone users.
Often, gluten-free eaters feel restricted when eating out. They go to the same restaurants that are gluten-free certified and don’t enjoy the spontaneous restaurant choosing of non-gluten-free eaters. Dish Freely, an iOS app that helps connect gluten-free eaters with amazing food, is hoping help gluten-free eaters branch out.
People with Celiac Disease or a gluten intolerance can’t properly digest gluten, a protein in wheat, rye and barley. Three million Americans have Celiac Disease, and the Center for Celiac Disease in Maryland reported one out of seven people will have a gluten intolerance in their lifetime. The gluten-free food market has exploded as more and more people are diagnosed with gluten allergies.
“If you’re not gluten-free, Dish Freely is not for you,” said David DeRemer, CEO of Grande Labs.
Most gluten-free eaters use Yelp or rely on bloggers to find gluten-free restaurants. But Grande Labs creators DeRemer, Roger Wong and Luke Freeman said Dish Freely offers a better discovery experience for gluten-free people when they are going out to eat.
The Dish Freely app allows gluten-free eaters to submit and rate gluten-free dishes that they ate while dining out. Users can search for specific dishes — say macaroni and cheese — and the app will pull up reviews of the best gluten-free macaroni in the city. A user can also search by restaurants to find the best gluten-free dishes at a particular venue. The dish reviews are completely user generated. Users can upload photos of the dish, add comments about the dish and check into Foursquare while eating the dish.
“From what I know, we are the only gluten-free app out there that you can look for a specific dish and rate the dish,” DeRemer said.
Since the app launched on Feb. 22 in New York City, more than 500 people have downloaded the app. The creators of the app are working with Foursquare to gather location information for restaurants and nightlife already recognized for gluten-free items. Over the next few months, Dish Freely could be available in cities nationwide.
In January, Foursquare teamed up with SinglePlatform to provide its users with more than 250,000 menus and pricing information. Dish Freely plans to use SinglePlatform’s menus to identify gluten-free items.
The startup isn’t profitable yet, but DeRemer says they do have a revenue model in mind. Grande Labs plans to allow brands and venues to purchase subscriptions in order to gain more advanced control over menu listings. DeRemer said he wants brands to add their own gluten-free dishes to the app. In addition, venues can sponsor listings to promote their venue or a particular gluten-free item. It also plans to charge brands, venues and service providers for API and data access.
“One of the biggest challenges for brands is telling customers where their product can be found,” DeRemer said. “Dish Freely can help solve that problem.”
Gluten free eaters — have you tested out the app? What do you think of it? Tell us in the comments below.
Series Supported by Microsoft BizSpark
The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark, a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today.
More About: apps, bizspark, gluten free, spark of genius series
from Mashable http://mashable.com/2012/03/06/dish-freely/
Did you know that Somerville, MA is the 17th most densely populated incorporated region in the United States? I love to drop this little-known fact at parties – it’s often shocking even to people who live in the Boston area. At 17,776 people per square mile, Somerville is more jam-packed with residents than any part of San Francisco, Chicago or Miami, and even neighboring Cambridge (24th on the list).
With this surprising fact in mind, I came to TEDxSomerville looking to see if any ideas would inspire me about the future of shared living. What wisdom did Somerville’s thinkers have to offer a world increasingly struggling to share urban living space and keep cities clean, healthy, prosperous and fairly governed?
Quite a bit, as it turns out:
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Daniel Hadley from the City Of Somerville / ResiStat presented the result of his city-wide happiness survey, which he claims is the first such survey in America. Among the fascinating findings, he observed that aesthetics and tree-density correlate with happiness.
- Erza Glenn demoed Interactive Somerville, an experiment in community-based participation in the planned Green Line MBTA expansion. Personally, it looks to me like the interface needs some more polish, but the code is open-source, which means it can be improved easily and could be of value to other cities.
- In the same vein, Ruth Allen talked about the value of open government in Mongolia and Brazil, and using it to make sure that the most marginalized people have a say in decisions that affect them.
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Lenni Armstrong wants to turn the pavement in front of fire hydrants into gardens, to let more rainwater percolate into the ground. Clever.
- Wig Zamore highlighted some interesting research showing the potential impact of hyper-local pollution on people who live or exercise near highways and busy roads. These local pollution levels are not widely measured and are currently unregulated in the US. One preliminary finding of concern (among many) was a 50%-100% increase in childhood asthma in children exposed to this kind of particulate pollution.
- I found Aatish Salvi’s vision of financial coaching for the poor inspiring. The results and case studies he related were very impressive.
- A rebroadcast of Graham Hill’s excellent TED talk on the value of minimalism in a tightly packed urban environment really impressed me. This is the future of luxurious living in 420 square feet.
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Jessie Banhazl and Brendan Shea‘s lessons from growing roof-top gardens seemed relevant and important (though the details of the gardening were, I confess, not interesting to me).
Quite a bit to chew on, but such is the nature of TEDx: a long day of talks with many gems interspersed. Some of my favorite talks didn’t have to do with shared living specifically; I probably enjoyed Sam Sommers discussion of context and Mike Norton‘s experiments on the value of labor most of all. They reminded me of true TED talks: universally appealing and widely applicable, while focusing on a specific enough examples to be defensible. And apparently, these two dudes were college roommates and are now professors in the same field- pretty cute.
If you want to check out more from the event, the #TEDxVille twitter hashtag is jam-packed with the most quotable nuggets. Probably the most retweeted was Mayor Joseph Curtatone’s message to Cambridge: “Our freaks are better than your freaks!”
Editor’s Note: Jon Bittner is the CEO and co-founder of Splitwise, a Cambridge and Providence based start-up tackling issues of shared living, roommates, and financial fairness issues through web and mobile apps.
from BostInno http://bostinno.com/2012/03/05/the-densest-population-in-ma-ideas-from-tedxso...
Like his buddy Richard Dawkins, the evolutionary biologist who wrote the Afterward to his book, physicist Lawrence Krauss does not have a ton of patience for theology. Or American schools. Or God. Krauss seems totally unimpressed by deities in general.
In 2009, Krauss gave a lecture entitled "A Universe from Nothing" for the Atheist Alliance International Conference. It became a YouTube sensation, with over a million hits. His book is essentially a transcript of the talk; it has the same quotes, the same jokes, the same disparaging remarks about religion. But the talk loses something in translation. Online, the figures are in color, whereas in the book they are in black and white, and Krauss has a speaking style that many find compelling. If you like seeing things in print, or want to underline them and review them over and over, read the book; if you are more of an oral learner, or only have an hour to devote to the subject, watch the video. But be warned that Dr. Krauss is wearing a shirt that is the exact same color as the wall behind him, which is kind of disconcerting—like his torso is transparent or something.

Read the comments on this post
from Ars Technica http://arstechnica.com/science/reviews/2012/03/a-universe-from-nothing.ars?ut...
While everyone’s gearing up for South by Southwest this week, 32 people will already be on their way there. Departing at 6 a.m. tomorrow is Boston’s own StartupBus, and in 72 hours this team of strangers will be expected to conceive, build and launch different startups, all while traveling 60 miles per hour on their way to Austin, Texas.
The idea for the hackathon originated in 2010, after founder Elias Bizannes wrote a blog post joking that him and his friends were taking a road trip from San Francisco to SXSW in Austin. Their end goal was to have launched a startup upon arrival. After a few unexpected blog posts, and several random emails, the joke turned into something serious, and Bizannes had to scramble to find a bus with WiFi, sponsors and people he’d later call “Buspreneurs” who’d be willing to ride along with him.
There were 25 people who decided to hop on board, and it was then they created an annual tradition. Six functional prototypes were built after those three days on the road, and the team who had the best pitch was offered funding to turn their prototype into an actual business. Last year, the StartupBus expanded into a larger competition, and now teams are departing from New York, Los Angeles, Silicon Valley, Cincinnati, Florida, Louisiana, Mexico, Las Vegas, Washington, Mexico and, of course, Boston.
Leading Boston’s bus will be a co-founder of Calorie Count, Igor Lebovic, who was a member of last year’s winning team, Tripmedi. “I really appreciate last year’s experience so much more right now,” Lebovic says, referring to his switch from “buspreneur” to “conductor.”
Since his experience on the StartupBus, Lebovic admits it’s become a benchmark he’s been trying to measure himself against ever since. Whenever he’s with his Calorie Count team — comprised of three people from his SXSW experience — and someone says a project will take seven days, he has to ask, “Really?” Thinking back to his time on the bus, they had half the time and launched an entire venture. When he brings this up to his team, they tend to nod in agreement, admitting, “You’re right, we have to be able to do this quicker.” This experience is “going to stretch [participants] expectations of themselves and everyone else,” Lebovic says.
So who’s headed to SXSW this week? Out of the hundred calls Lebovic made in the past few weeks, here are some fun facts about 11 of the final 31 buspreneurs, who could probably be best described as spontaneous, competitive and ready to work.
 Christine Liu
Christine Liu — Currently the online managing editor at America’s Test Kitchen in Brookline, Liu’s the one who spearheaded the Boston Food Truck Festival in 2010. Even better, she became a local community manager for HowAboutWe in 2011. Not only has she then helped us fall in love with food trucks, but she’s helped us fall in love with each other.
Todd Miner — A native of Westwood, Mass., Miner has over 10 years of experience in international development and nonprofit organizations. He’s worked with the World Bank, United Nations, the Center for International Earth Science Information Network and the New York Mayor’s Office of Long Term Planning and Sustainability. More impressive — that’s not even the half of it.
Ravi Singh — So, Singh is the co-founder of three different companies: Toodalu, Answer Underground and Code Mountain. If that’s not enough, he’s also won eight different hackathons, including Best Retail App iOS DevCamp 2011 and the ATT Morningstar Hackathon First Place for Mobile 2011.
Alexandra Askot — After graduating from Boston University in 2008, Askot bought a dog on the Internet and decided to move to San Francisco on a total whim. Since, she’s shuffled from San Fran to New York City, where she now works as an art director at MRMWorldwide.
Avinash Dabir — Dabir’s also a graduate of Boston University and still has ties to his former employer: Boston’s m-Qube tech mafia. After mQube was acquired, Dabir moved to New York City to work in digital media for NBA and NBCUniversal.
Teddy Worcester — Currently in his fourth year at Wheaton College, Worcester is working on the marketing team for SaveUp, a personal finance startup out of San Francisco that rewards people for saving and paying down their debt. (We love the sound of that.)
Jordan Wolf — While he says he’s no Willy Wonka, he admits he is “making the world a little tastier with the ever-lasting gobstopper of plastic – PolyFlav flavored plastic.” Wait — what? Just look up Add the Flavor.
 Brandon Passley
Jarrett Goetz — The co-founder of Four Elements Media, Goetz was once an MIT Sloan Fellow and holds an MBA from MIT, an MPA from Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and a BBA from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Brandon Passley — A Chicago-based entrepreneur, Passley is the co-founder of Vokal Interactive, a mobile design, development and strategy agency, which services clients ranging from startups to Fortune 500 companies, two of which call Boston home.
Tiffany Wilson — After catching the entrepreneurship bug and starting her first company in college, Wilson’s gone on to work for other early stage startups in New York, including CassaDecor, Edit.com and Spaceworks Real Estate. She’s now gone back to starting her own venture, set to launch within the next few months.
Michael Cox — After spending six years as a CTO in Washington D.C., Cox moved back to Boston to set his own path and work as an independent contractor. These days, he said he’s “fallen in love again with JavaScript,” meaning node.js, backbone.js and CoffeeScript. “So much prettier. So much better,” he says.
You’ll be able to track the bus online, both on the site and via Twitter. Following stops in North Carolina, Louisiana and San Antonio, Texas, the Boston StartupBus is expected to arrive in Austin on Friday afternoon around 3 p.m. Keep your eyes peeled for their demos. Winners can even go party with the Streetwise Media team later at South by Streetwise. Get ready to hack (and party)!
from BostInno http://bostinno.com/2012/03/05/meet-11-of-the-buspreneurs-wholl-be-hacking-th...
kodiaktau writes "Slashdot founder and long time cat herder Rob Malda joins the Washington Post per an announcement today. According to the press release, he will be the Chief Strategist and Editor-at-Large working for WaPo Labs."
Rob has a more detailed description of the job on his blog: "Don Graham is trying to accomplish something that is a bit of a cliche these days: A startup inside an established corporation. A group that can exist at a nexus between newspapers, websites, cable networks, and TV stations and think about the big picture and the future without the normal burdens associated with a business operating at a large scale. ... They are actively iterating and experimenting in many directions, with strong support from the top of the organization. ... Washington Post executive editor Marcus Brauchli assures me that I'll also be working with the newsroom where I can contribute words, ideas, and tools that will improve the experience of the journalists doing work that I personally believe transcends the bottom line." Read more of this story at Slashdot. 
from Slashdot http://news.slashdot.org/story/12/03/05/202206/rob-malda-cmdrtaco-joins-the-w...
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