On Wednesday evening, 28 startups hailing from all over the world presented the fruits of their labor from the past three months at 500 Startups' Mountain View, Calif. accelerator program to investors and press.
Among the pitches at demo day were two Boston companies: ViralGains and Platejoy. We caught up with both teams to help you get to know the two startups.
ViralGains
Co-founded by Jay Singh, Dan Levin and Kate Willett in 2012, the company provides a viral marketing platform for YouTube and video content. ViralGains is perhaps best known as one of the five startups that took home the $100,000 prize at local accelerator MassChallenge's awards ceremony back in October 2013.
The startup caters to an impressive list of clients, and recently reported it has added 11 Fortune 500 brands, including Exxon, Campbell's, Lexus, Estee Lauder, to said list in the last year – deals that contributed to ViralGains 1,227 percent year-over-year growth rate and $1.1 million in sales in 2013. ViralGains raised a seed round worth $700,000 back in December from a number of local angels, including Joe Caruso, Semyon Dukach and Sheryl Schultz.
In the course of the last year, the ViralGains team has grown from the founding trio to 15 people. ViralGains’ CEO Singh told BostInno that though the company intends to keep headquarters in Boston, they also have plans to open a secondary office in either San Francisco or New York City.
PlateJoy
The startup aims to help people eat better and reduce waste by delivering healthy ingredients straight to their door. Rather than aimlessly grocery shopping, PlateJoy lets users shop directly for groceries by meal. From breakfast spreads to a full course dinner, all of the startup’s meals are designed to be simple and quick — between 10 and 30 minutes — to prepare.
TechCrunch reported that, at demo day, PlateJoy announced that more than half the platform’s customers were coming back to order for a second time. PlateJoy Co-founder and CEO Christina Bognet also told BostInno that it has secured fulfillment partnerships with Peapod and Whole Foods Market, as well as added two new hires to its team for marketing and operations efforts. The startup is currently working out of Cambridge healthcare incubator Healthbox.
Both startups received 500 Startups’ basic $50,000 in seed, the traditional amount dolled to the program’s participating companies. The accelerator also recently took first place as the most active venture capital investor in the last year, however, according to the Wall Street Journal. Founded in 2010 by Dave McClure, 500 Startups did 57 new deals and 77 deals total, beating out Andreessen Horowitz and Google Ventures for most new deals done in 2013.
Will ViralGains and PlateJoy be coming into some fresh capital post-demo day? Stay tuned to BostInno to find out.
Image via Katherine Taylor
