Most Promising I.T. and Web 2.0 Companies Announced at
Rice Alliance Technology Venture Forum
Ten Texas companies awarded top honors at December 11, I.T. and Web 2.0 Venture Forum.
HOUSTON – December 15, 2008 -- The Rice Alliance announced the top ten most promising Information Technology and Web 2.0 companies at the 6th Annual I.T. and Web 2.0 Technology Venture Forum in Houston last week. Information technology and Web 2.0 companies showcased their new ventures for an audience of more than 400 attendees, including investors, venture capitalists, industry representatives, business leaders, advisors/mentors, service providers, and entrepreneurs.
The one-day event culminated in an announcement of the ten Most Promising I.T. and Web 2.0 Companies chosen from 50 competitors and judged by the Rice Alliance I.T. and Web 2.0 Advisory Board, based on the companies’ elevator pitch presentations. The exercise simulates meeting an investor on an elevator and having only 90 seconds to convince them to invest in your company.
Five of the ten most promising companies are based in Houston: My City Rocks, Plura Processing, QWebL, Vendor Safe Technologies and Wonder-space Mobile. The other five companies hail from the Austin, TX area.
In addition to the ten elevator pitch competition winners, five leading companies were chosen out of over 70 companies by the selection committee to present their full business plan to the audience. These five companies included two companies from Houston, two from the Austin area, and one from the Dallas/Fort Worth area:
- Rudder (Houston)
- Nutshell Mail (Houston)
- Gendai Games (Roundrock / Austin-area)
- Moximity (Austin)
- Net Watch Solutions (Richardson / Dallas Ft. Worth-area)
Rice Alliance Managing Director Brad Burke, announced the winners of the Most Promising I.T. and Web 2.0 Company awards at the event. “Every year the quality of companies improves. Several of the companies at this year’s event revolved around social networking and how to manage and monetize those models. Phenomena like Facebook and MySpace have invigorated the I.T. market.”
Top Ten Most Promising Companies, based on their elevator pitch presentations:
HourVille (Austin, TX)
HourVille is a marketplace and community where people can buy and sell virtually anything that can be priced by the hour – services, rentals, classes, spaces. Sellers' availabilities are online and in real time, and bookings are instant.
Less Networks (Austin, TX)
Less Networks provides an innovative method for deploying and managing low-cost, large-scale WiFi network infrastructure with a built-in mobile advertising platform to leverage large audiences of mobile users.
My City Rocks (Houston, TX)
MyCityRocks is a global brand focused on enabling and engaging people to celebrate community pride and spirit, enjoy local culture and entertainment, and give back to their local community. MyCityRocks uses technology to bridge the gap between online social networking and offline real-world activity in a way that is fun, innovative and exciting.
Newcinema.com (Austin, TX)
NewCinema specializes in advanced High Definition (HD) video compression and hosting technologies that enable media companies to stream high definition video content over IP networks.
Plura Processing, L.P. (Houston, TX)
Plura Processing combines Internet technology and grid computing to create a new, secure source of compute power for solving large computational problems.
QWebL (Houston, TX)
Quality Web Logistics (QWebL) is a proprietary software solution for affordable Home Automation.
Smooth-Stone, Inc. (Austin, TX)
Software & silicon solution to reduce nearly all of the power consumed by web servers.
Socialware, Inc. (Austin, TX)
Socialware, Inc. based in Austin is focused on building technology that will unlock the potential of public social applications such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and more for the enterprise.
Vendor Safe Technologies (Houston, TX)
Vendor Safe Technologies provides security solutions to brick and mortar merchants who process credit cards to keep credit card information safe.
Wonder-Space Mobile (Houston, TX)
Wonder-Space Mobile uses a mobile phone platform to deliver customized educational services.
The five business plan presenters were chosen by a selection committee composed of industry experts and successful entrepreneurs who elected the companies based on the viability of the business, size of the potential market, unique competitive differentiation, strength of the management team, and attractiveness of the investment opportunity.
Five Business Plan Presentation Companies:
Gendai Games (Round Rock, TX)
Gendi Games developed an open platform for user-created games, playable on mobile devices and shareable over the Web.
Moximity (Austin, TX)
Moximity integrates users' existing social networks with the places, events, and specials going on nearby, facilitating 3 components of everyday life - mobile, local and social.
Net Watch Solutions (Richardson, TX)
Net Watch Solutions predicts IT system downtime – before it happens -- through their asset, change and service management software that couples Web 2.0 social networking, behavioral heuristics, auto-discovery and system configuration data to improve IT service quality, lower costs and eliminate downtime.
Nutshell Mail (Houston, TX)
Nutshell Mail delivers a service that enables users to access, manage, and monitor multiple e-mail and social networking accounts through any designated e-mail account.
Rudder (Houston, TX)
Rudder is a money management utility that delivers intuitive updates of your finances – straight to your inbox.
The Forum was hosted by the Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship and co-hosted by the Jones Partners. The Forum was supported by Andrews Kurth LLP; Oracle; DataCert and ESX, Inc. with supporting organizations Greater Houston Partnership, Opportunity Houston and Houston Technology Center. Media sponsors include: Houston Business Journal and the BusinessMakers Radio Show.
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