We received more than 100 applications from companies in Southern California and beyond to “showoff” their products at Twiistup 4. Keeping with Twiistup tradition, we were going to select ten local start-ups. Due to the overwhelming interest, we expanded the list of featured companies to 11, including seven of Southern California’s best and brightest and four ‘crashers’ from Texas, Vancouver and the Bay Area.

Criteria focused on six core strengths: business model; experience of the executive team; technological advantages and innovation; sector focus; funding status; and competitive environment. The showoff finalists cover a broad range of technology’s hottest sectors and industries, including advertising, media, music, social networking and video. One of the showoffs will be chosen ‘Best of Event Showoff’ by popular vote.

The judging panel, responsible for choosing the showoffs, included, Pete Cashmore of Mashable, Frank Addante from Rubicon Project, Mark Suster of GRP Partners, Andy Oliver from Lewis PR Inc., Krisztina “Z” Holly, Vice Provost for Innovation at the University of Southern California and executive director for the USC Stevens Institute for Innovation and Mike Macadaan, Twiistup Founder.

We want to thank all the companies that applied and to our sponsors, Adisn, AOL Developer Network, USC Stevens Institute of Innovation, Rubicon Project, ThisNext, Userplane, Mail Room Fund, Chi.mp, Heavybag Media, Qtask and Media Temple for making this the biggest Twiistup yet. (link love below)

And finally, the Twiistup 4 Showoffs…

Bigstage / http://bigstage.com

South Pasadena – Big Stage is a media company whose breakthrough technology allows users to easily create and integrate a life-like 3D avatar of themselves into everything from famous movie scenes, TV shows and video games, to music videos, short video clips, virtual worlds, still images, user-generated content, instant messages, emails, social networks and more – instantly.

BookRenter / http://bookrenter.com

San Jose – BookRenter is the first online book rental service. BookRenter.com replaces traditional bookstore sales with online book rentals for students at schools throughout the nation.

Compulsion / http://compulsion.tv

Venice – Compulsion is a simple, easy to use tool that makes video clickable. The clicks become links that turn the video into an entire interactive universe of your design. You can offer or sell those links for click and shop, gossip, trivia, news, music, more video, or anything you can imagine.

Loud3r / http://loud3r.com

Los Angeles – The LOUD3R Enthusiast Network is made up of in depth topic oriented websites.The sites are designed for the enthusiast as well as the curious who want to find the best, richest content about a specific topic quickly.

Minggl / http://minggl.com

Austin, Texas – Minggl is a social interaction manager. The Minggl toolbar makes it easy to manage information, communication, and navigation across social networks.

Musicshake / http://musicshake.com

Los Angeles – Musicshake, Inc. is the world’s first on-line UGM (User Generated Music) creation solution that provides music composing solutions aimed at the general public (a.k.a. music dummies) without previous musical knowledge or expertise.

PhoneVite / http://phonevite.com

San Jose – Phonevite is the new, fun and simple way to send announcements and reminders over the phone, in your own voice.

Seethroo / http://seethroo.us

Los Angeles – Seethroo’s smart targeting technology allows advertisers to connect with individual social website users, creating more relevant ads and higher revenues for everyone.

Strutta / http://strutta.com

Vancouver, BC – From grassroots scrappers to all star pros, Strutta brings players together from around the world in the spirit of true competition.

Tools To Life / http://toolstolife.com

Santa Monica – Tools To Life is the world’s first free online self help site with real programs and support from community.

Twiddla / http://twiddla.com

Los Angeles – Twiddla is a free, real-time online collaboration tool. Its beauty is in its simplicity and accessibility: no plug-ins, installs or downloads, no need to work around complex firewalls, no advanced scheduling.

Congratulations and looking forward to seeing you at Twiistup 4 on July 17!

***OUR AWESOME SPONSORS***

Adisn: http://adisn.com
AOL Developer Network: http://dev.aol.com
USC Stevens Institute of Innovation: http://stevens.usc.edu
Rubicon Project: http://rubiconproject.com
ThisNext: http://thisnext.com
Userplane: http://userplane.com
Mail Room Fund: http://mailroomfund.com
Chi.mp: http://chi.mp
Heavybag Media: http://heavybagmedia.com
Qtask: http://qtask.com
Etchstar: http://etchstar.com
(mt) Media Temple: http://mediatemple.net

One Comment

  1. Roy (Magento)

    Congrats to all the selected showoffs! I look forward to checking you guys out at the event.

Leave a Reply

Who's Speaking

  • Peter Guber

    Peter Guber

    Chairman and CEO, Mandalay Entertainment

    Peter Guber

    Peter Guber

    Founder and CEO of Mandalay Entertainment, the visionary multimedia venture spanning movies, TV, sports, and new media, Peter Guber is among the most successful executives in the entertainment and communications industries. Films he personally produced or executive produced, including "Rain Man," "Batman," "The Color Purple," "Midnight Express," "Gorillas In The Mist," "The Witches of Eastwick," "Missing," and "Flashdance," have earned more than three billion dollars worldwide and garnered more than fifty Academy Award nominations.

    Tapped for his wisdom and expertise, Guber appears as a media and entertainment analyst on numerous network and cable shows. He can be seen as co-host of In the House, a half-hour news and interview show focused on industry trends in pop culture. Guber can also be seen on the NBC-owned Los Angeles outlet KNBC, as co-host of Show Business with Bart and Guber. This weekly show features discussion and analysis specifically designed for Los Angeles’ showbiz community.

    Peter Guber is a noted author and in December 2007 wrote the cover article for the Harvard Business Review titled,” The Four Truths of the Storyteller.” He has since authored op-ed pieces for the New York Times and the San Francisco Chronicle. He is currently writing a business book to be published by Crown Publishing Group in the Fall of 2010. Guber is a full professor at the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television and has been a member of the faculty for over 30 years.

    Mandalay Entertainment Group

  • Paul Graham

    Paul Graham

    Founder of Y-Combinator

    Paul Graham

    Paul Graham

    Paul Graham is an essayist, programmer, and programming language designer. In 1995 he developed with Robert Morris the first web-based application, Viaweb, which was acquired by Yahoo in 1998. In 2002 he described a simple statistical spam filter that inspired a new generation of filters. He’s currently working on a new programming language called Arc, a new book on startups, and is one of the partners in Y Combinator.

    ycombinator.com

  • Richard Rosenblatt

    Richard Rosenblatt

    Co-Founder, Chairman & CEO, Demand Media

    Richard Rosenblatt

    Richard Rosenblatt

    As a serial entrepreneur and Internet visionary, Richard co-founded Demand Media in May 2006, and currently serves as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. Through Demand Media, Richard is redefining the next generation of new media companies.

    Richard has built, operated and sold numerous Internet media companies with a combined value of more than $1.3 billion. Most recently, he served as Chief Executive Officer of Intermix Media, Inc., and Chairman of Myspace.com. He joined Intermix in March 2004 and led a successful turnaround of its existing business. Specifically, he helped grow Myspace.com from an unknown website to one of the most popular properties on the Internet and developed a number of new online properties, significantly increasing shareholder value. During his eighteen months as CEO of Intermix, its public market capitalization grew from $70 million to over $650 million, until acquired by News Corporation in October 2005.

    As Founder, Chairman and CEO, Richard sold iMALL in 1999 to Excite@Home for $565 million. iMALL was one of the first Internet companies to recognize the power of user-generated content. It offered users a suite of tools that enabled them to build their own eCommerce stores and conduct transactions over the Internet.

    Richard is actively involved in a number of private Internet companies and serves as non-executive chairman of iCrossing, a leading digital and natural search firm. Richard is a Southern California native, with a BA from UCLA and JD from USC Law School.

    Demand Media

  • Om Malik

    Om Malik

    Founder Giga Omni Media

    Om Malik

    Om Malik

    Om Malik is the founder and senior writer for GigaOm. Before launching his own publishing venture, Om was a senior writer for Business 2.0 magazine covering telecom and broadband stories. He is also a Venture Partner at True Ventures.

    gigaom.com

  • Lisa Stone

    Lisa Stone

    Co-Founder and CEO of BlogHer

    Lisa Stone

    Lisa Stone

    Lisa Stone is the co-founder and CEO of BlogHer the leading participatory news, entertainment and information network for women online, reaching more than 15 million women each month via annual conferences, a Web hub, and an publishing network of more than 2,500 qualified, contextually targeted blog affiliates.

    BlogHer.com

  • Eric Ries

    Eric Ries

    The Lean Startup

    Eric Ries

    Eric Ries

    Eric Ries is the author of the blog Startup Lessons Learned and the lean startup methodology. He is a frequent public speaker. He previously co-founded and served as Chief Technology Officer of IMVU. He is the co-author of several books including The Black Art of Java Game Programming (Waite Group Press, 1996). While an undergraduate at Yale Unviersity, he co-founded Catalyst Recruiting. Although Catalyst folded with the dot-com crash, Ries continued his entrepreneurial career as a Senior Software Engineer at There.com, leading efforts in agile software development and user-generated content. In 2007, BusinessWeek named Ries one of the Best Young Entrepreneurs of Tech and in 2009 he was honored with a TechFellow award in the category of Engineering Leadership. He serves on the advisory board of a number of technology startups, and has worked as a consultant to a number of startups, companies, and venture capital firms.

    StartupLessonsLearned.com

  • Bambi Francisco

    Bambi Francisco

    Founder and CEO, Vator.tv

    Bambi Francisco

    Bambi Francisco

    Bambi Francisco is founder and CEO of Vator.tv, a leading platform for entrepreneurs and innovators to broadcast and communicate with industry professionals, and VatorNews, a video business network. Prior to Vator, Bambi was an award-winning columnist and correspondent at Dow Jones MarketWatch, where she had 400,000 subscribers to her newsletter. She was a morning business anchor for KPIX, the CBS affiliate in San Francisco and made frequent appearances as an expert on Internet investments and trends on CNBC, Fox Business News, and CBS.

    Wikipedia

  • Leila Chirayath Janah

    Leila Chirayath Janah

    Founder and CEO, Samasource

    Leila Chirayath Janah

    Leila Chirayath Janah

    Leila first developed the idea behind Samasource while working as a management consultant at Katzenbach Partners (now Booz & Co.), where her clients included global leaders in the outsourcing and telecom sectors and a number of prominent non-profits. Along with Professors Thomas Pogge and Aidan Hollis, she founded Incentives for Global Health and helped produce a plan for incentivizing the development of new drugs for neglected diseases. As an undergradudate, Leila authored background papers for the World Bank's Development Research Group and Ashoka on equity and social rights. Leila is a recipient of the Rainer Arnhold and TEDIndia Fellowships, and serves on the San Francisco board of the Social Enterprise Institute. She is a former Visiting Scholar at the Stanford Program on Global Justice and the Center for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at Australian National University. When she's not running Samasource, Leila blogs on Social Edge and tries to keep up with her Twitter account. She holds a B.A. from Harvard University.

    Samasource.org

  • Robert Scoble

    Robert Scoble

    Technology Blogger

    Robert Scoble

    Robert Scoble

    Robert Scoble is a blogger, technical evangelist, and author. Scoble is best known for his blog, Scobleizer, which came to prominence during his tenure as a technical evangelist at Microsoft.

    Scobleizer.com

  • Dave McClure

    Dave McClure

    Seed stage investor for the Founders Fund

    Dave McClure

    Dave McClure

    Dave McClure is a Silicon Valley tech entrepreneur, startup investor, and blogger. He currently works for Founders Fund and coordinates FF Angel LLC, a seed-stage investment program; as well as fbFund REV, a micro-seed incubator program for Facebook-related startups.

    Dave is an investor in over 30 startup companies including: Mint (acquired by Intuit), SlideShare, Twilio, Credit Karma, UserVoice, Bit.ly, CrowdFlower, KissMetrics, TeachStreet, RichRelevance, Mashery, and Simply Hired, among many others.

    From 2005-2006, Dave launched and ran marketing for job search engine Simply Hired. From 2001-2004, Dave was Director of Marketing at PayPal (acquired by eBay in 2002), where he started & ran the PayPal Developer Network program. Prior to PayPal, Dave was a database consultant & programmer for several companies, including Microsoft and Intel. In 1994 he founded Aslan Computing, an internet and e-commerce firm later acquired by Servinet/Panurgy in 1998.

    Dave is the co-founder of Startup2Startup and Finance4Founders, two monthly dinner series for Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and investors. He has been chairperson and organizer for several tech and startup conferences including STARTonomics, Graphing Social Patterns, and Web 2.0 Expo (SF). He has been a visiting lecturer on social networking platforms and applications at Stanford University. Dave has been an advisor to microfinance organizations Unitus & Kiva, and co-founder of the Silicon Valley Microfinance Network. He graduated from The Johns Hopkins University in 1988 with a BS in Mathematical Sciences Engineering.

    Dave McClure

  • Rick Heitzmann

    Rick Heitzmann

    Managing Director of FirstMark Capital

    Rick Heitzmann

    Rick Heitzmann

    Rick Heitzmann, is the Managing Director of FirstMark Capital, a $2 billion VC fund focusing on investments in the emerging media & advertising and data & analytics sectors. Prior to founding FirstMark Capital, Rick was a Partner with Pequot Ventures. Rick led Pequot’s investments in StubHub (Acquired by eBay), First Advantage (NASDAQ: FADV) and US Search. Rick has led and sits on the board of 4 FirstMark portfolio companies, including Clickable, Weplay, Live Gamer and Riot Games.

    FirstMark Capital

  • Brian Solis

    Brian Solis

    New Media Author and Consultant

    Brian Solis

    Brian Solis

    Brian Solis is globally recognized as one of most prominent thought leaders in new media. A digital analyst, sociologist, and futurist, Solis has influenced the effects of emerging media on the convergence of marketing, communications, and publishing. He is principal of FutureWorks, an award-winning New Media agency in Silicon Valley, and has led interactive and social programs for Fortune 500 companies, notable celebrities, and Web 2.0 startups. BrianSolis.com is ranked among the top of world's leading business and marketing online resources.

    BrianSolis.com

  • Alex Quilici

    Alex Quilici

    Co-founder of Quack.com, CEO of YouMail

    Alex Quilici

    Alex Quilici

    Alex Quilici was the co-founder of voice-portal company Quack.com (acquired by AOL), and is currently CEO of YouMail. Quilici is also a member of the board of directors of NeoEdge Networks and a member of Tech Coast Angels. Quilici received a PhD in computer science from UCLA, and from 1991-1999 was a faculty member at the University of Hawaii.

    Wikipedia

  • Additional Speakers
    Coming Soon

Friends

When? Where?

Twiistup 007 – Casino Royale
February 9th-10th, 2011

View event schedule

Twiistup! Where venture capitalists and entrepreneurs come to find the next big thing

Skirball Cultural Center
2701 N Sepulveda Blvd,
Los Angeles, CA 90049

Sponsors

  • Public Relations

  • Media

Get involved