We cover a lot of emerging startups here at BostInno.
There are first-looks at early stage companies on a daily basis, and while the ones we write about have all, for one reason or another, piqued our interest, there are some that we just have an inkling are going places. Maybe it’s because they have seasoned people involved, or maybe it’s because their product is something we’ve simply never seen. Yeah, it helps if they raised a funding round in the millions from well-known Angel investors — but truth be told, sometimes we can’t put our finger on it. We’re just confident that their business will take off.
As we move into summer, here are a handful we think should be on your radar:
DraftKings
It’s no secret that DraftKings has been on fire over the last year. The daily fantasy sports juggernaut, which generated revenue of $30 million in 2014, is now expected to raise $250 million from Disney at a $900 million valuation, according to the Wall Street Journal — a deal that is not done but reportedly closing in the near future. DraftKings raised $41 million last August, and has raked in a whopping $75 million total since being founded in 2011. Backers include Atlas Venture, The Raine Group, Redpoint Ventures and GGV Capital.
In April, DraftKings announced that it would now be the “Official Daily Fantasy Game” for Major League Baseball. The multi-year deal means greater promotion of DraftKings across all elements of MLB media, including MLB.com and MLB TV. What sets the company’s offering apart from rivals is that the competitions can last as little as a day, as opposed to traditional fantasy sports, which typically run for an entire season. Additionally, users can play for real cash.
Bridj
By analyzing big data, Bridj can devise routes that are more direct and efficient than say, the MBTA. For example, the company can determine when there’s a particularly high volume of commuters at a certain time or going to a specific location, and schedule pick-ups/drop-offs accordingly. The startup is just coming off a pop-up trial from early April, in which it introduced trips from the South End to Downtown Crossing, the Financial District and the Seaport, as well as from Southie to Copley Square and Prudential. But here’s the big news: In February, Bridj announced plans to expand to Washington D.C.
The startup has raised $5 million to date: the first $1 million coming in August and another $4 million rolling in by September from Atlas Venture, NextView Ventures, Suffolk Equity and Freshtracks Capital. Angel investors Jill Preotle, Andy Ross and Peter Aldrich also participated in the round. Back in January, a source told BostInno that Bridj was in the process of raising a Series A Round worth $10 to $15 million, which could give the company a $60 million valuation.
Driftt
Last summer, two local tech vets, David Cancel and Elias Torres, left their respective positions at HubSpot and Performable to start Driftt: A Cambridge company that seeks to “do for collaboration what Dropbox did for storage.” And by January, the startup had already banked a $15 million Series A round to create new ways for people to collaborate on documents via a variety of mobile devices. CRV led the round, investing $10 million, with General Catalyst Partners contributing $4 million and the remaining $1 million coming from two local venture firms and a handful of Angels (seven HubSpot execs were among them). Other VC firms that have backed Driftt are Founder Collective and NextView Ventures.
Then, in April, we discovered that Driftt acquired Fetchnotes, a Techstars Boston alum. Driftt announced that it would keep Fetchnotes – a life organization app that allowed people to organize and share notes using hashtags and other social networking conventions — up and running, but would be eventually integrating the technology into a new product.
Dockwa
We were already psyched about the concept for Dockwa, a startup that was working on bringing the on-demand economy to boaters, in mid-January. But now that we’re approaching the launch date – and welcoming warmer weather — it’s a company we think boaters and marinas alike should definitely keep their eyes on.
Basically, the app allows users to make dock and mooring reservations with one tap, while also giving marinas free advertising and better inventory management, among other perks. Co-founders Matt Fradette (a senior sales manager at HubSpot) and Mike Melillo told me they’re currently gearing up for their beta launch, which is still on track to be available in major destinations such as Boston Harbor, Newport, Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket and Block Island, by this summer.
If the app sees success in New England, the team plans to expand to marinas in the Carolinas, Florida and the Caribbean by late 2015. Dockwa has raised a $400,000 seed round from unnamed individual investors in Boston and Rhode Island, and the Newport-based startup is aiming to open an office in Boston in the coming months. The team told me they're currently in the process of closing out a new round of funding, which will be announced in the coming weeks. Right now, they'e laser focused on the launch and building out an engineering team since their third co-founder, John Nagro (former Director of Engineering at HubSpot), came on board.
Freight Farms
Since launching in 2010, Freight Farms has been working on a unique system that supports commercial agriculture in new places: It upcycles old shipping containers and transforms them into hydroponic farms for for growing produce year-round, even when there’s limited water access.
The systems — which connect to the cloud for remote monitoring and control, and leverage LED lighting, crop-monitoring software and vertical growing systems — can be housed anywhere a normal shipping container would go. In December, Freight Farms raised a $3.7 million funding round led by Spark Capital for its farm-in-a-box, bringing the total the startup has raised to date to $4.9 million. Other investors have included Morningside Venture Investments Limited, LaunchCapital and Rothenberg Ventures.
The company’s customers have included Tasty Burger and the Courtyard Marriott in Concord, New Hampshire. At the end of last year, CEO Brad McNamara said that Freight Farms expects strong growth in 2015: "I think we are going to get a real clear picture on the impact that we can have on the mainstream food system.”
Circle
Launched by Brightcove founder Jeremy Allaire in 2013, Circle is arguably Boston’s most prominent Bitcoin startup.
And at the end of April, the company announced it raised a $50 million Series C round co-led by Goldman Sachs and IDG Capital Partners to expand its consumer accounts. Others that participated in the latest round included existing investors Breyer Capital, General Catalyst Partners, Accel Partners, and Oak Investment Partners.
As of now, the Boston-based company has banked a total of $76 million since its founding. Last September, Circle debuted consumer bitcoin accounts for easier conversion, storage and transfers. Now, consumers can use the service for regular U.S. dollars while reaping all the rewards of digital currency — namely, making instant, secure and free payments to anyone in the world.
Help Scout
While this startup has been flying pretty much under the radar since graduating from Techstars Boston in 2011, Help Scout has been quietly growing a profitable business of providing Web-based support desks to several thousands of paying customers across 70 countries, including GrubHub, CrossFit, Buffer and AngelList.
And despite the fact that co-founder/CEO Nick Francis is a self-proclaimed “bootstrapper at heart,” the company announced in March that it had closed a $6 million Series A round led by Foundry Group with CommonAngels Ventures also contributing. Foundry’s managing director Ryan McIntyre and CommonAngels venture partner David McFarlane simultaneously joined the Help Scout board. Francis has said that revenue last year reached the millions.
Additionally, HelpScout, which employs about 20, aims to double its team over the next year.
Rocketboard/Rocketbook
We first caught wind of this startup when it presented at WebInno in January, and it seems to be gaining steam. Rocketboard is an app that allows users to share whiteboard sessions in real-time over the Web, meaning it could be a game-changer for remote collaboration.
Already, the company has an impressive roster of users: Google, Ticketmaster, Disney, Dropbox, Capital One, Dow Jones, P&G and Accenture, among others. Then in March, cofounder Joe Lemay launched an Indiegogo campaign for a new product: Rocketbook, a special paper notebook that users can upload notes from into the cloud by simply pointing their phone at the pages and flipping through them. And as a quirky twist, users writing with Pilot FriXion pens can erase their entire Rocketbook by heating it in the microwave.
The crowdfunding campaign — which ends this weekend — raised $10,500 in less than 24 hours and has since far surpassed its $20,000 goal with $681,000 from over 17,000 backers.
Wanderu
This Kayak-esque service enables users to compare prices for ground travel companies, and it has partnered with some of the biggest names in the business since being founded in 2012, such as Peter Pan Bus Lines, Greyhound and Megabus.
Recently, Wanderu announced a new agreement with Amtrak that would allow users to book train tickets in more than 60 cities across 14 states via the search engine. Included in that deal are Amtrak’s Lake Shore Limited (New York/Boston–Chicago), Silver Star (New York–Tampa–Miami), Silver Meteor (New York–Miami) and Palmetto (New York–Savannah) lines, but Wanderu says it will be adding more routes in the coming months, eventually encompassing the rail service’s complete network.
According to CEO and co-founder Polina Raygorodskaya, the company now has ground transport coverage across 90 percent of the U.S. Back in February, the company released an iPhone app for users to book bus and train tickets on the go. And when Raygorodskaya presented Wanderu to Richard Branson on his private island that same month, the British businessman/investor named Wanderu his favorite of all startups that pitched.
The company raised a $5.6 million Series A round in November from a number of investors, including former Greyhound CEO Craig Lentzsch and Techstars cofounder Brad Feld, who is also a Foundry Group venture capitalist.
Feeling out of the loop? Get up to speed on what these companies have been doing:
Images via Bridj, DraftKings and Rocketbook.
