Audiodraft launch the sound of Tim Ferris contest

Tim’s new book “The 4-Hour Chef” is coming soon. Now you have a chance to do the sound design for the teaser video. Go nuts! Any kind of styles, genres or moods are welcome. Be creative and you’ll be noticed. Vast amount of likes and shares for your entry doesn’t hurt either.

Read more at the Audiodraft contest page and on Tim Ferris blog.

Mancx Secures $3 Million In Financing and Opens US Headquarters

Our portfolio company Mancx Secures $3 Million In Financing and Opens US Headquarters.

SAN FRANCISCO AND STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN, June 12, 2012 — Mancx, the only trusted community for business answers that allows for private individuals to securely buy and sell their knowledge with others, announced today it has secured $1.65 million in financing led by Almi Invest and Chalmers Innovation Seed Fund bringing the total money raised to $3 million. The money will be used to expand the world’s first community for paid business answers through social networks such as LinkedIn and Viadeo. The patent-pending Mancx platform matches incoming questions with the right person’s expertise while managing all aspects of the transaction. This ensures that the questioner gets the information he or she needs while the answering party gets fairly paid for his or her efforts.

“Mancx is there when you need the right business answers,” said Henrik Dillman, Mancx CEO and Founder. “Most Q&A websites only provide advice, opinion or self-promotion. Some of the answers are even too old to be useful. Our research shows that professional business users prefer answers they can trust from a community that can deliver ‘industrial strength’ information quality that is fresh and calibrated to their specific needs. Mancx matches users with the right people to answer their questions,provides an easy pricing model and lets users pay easily on the spot – similar to PayPal – so that they can be very efficient at every step of the process. It is perfect for executives, entrepreneurs, sales professionals and anyone who needs tailored information that either cannot be obtained by routine online searching or would take too much time to find. For business professionals, time is money.”

Unlike other services, Mancx offers the following benefits:

  • Handles answers in almost any form, from picture, sound files and cad/cam-drawings to .doc and .xls files. This is necessary since many business answers don’t come in just plain text
  • Allows for full anonymity both for buyers and sellers, while enabling them to contact each other for more information detail as needed
  • Automatically matches profiles and distributes by email
  • Manages the negotiation of price and expectations
  • Provides money-back guarantee and quality assurance

“Mancx is a great place to get business answers,” said Tim DeBenedictis, founder of the astronomy app SkySafari. “Whether I need detailed business intelligence, tailored information – basically anything I would bet my job on – I got to Mancx and get the answers I need.”

“Mancx Business Answers™ is the next generation of Q&A tools,” said Mattias Guilotte, Mancx CMO and Founder. “It is the first service with a global payment solution and a trusted community for businessanswers you can’t find anywhere else.”

About Mancx

With dual headquarters in San Francisco, CA and Stockholm, Sweden,Mancx.comis the only trusted community for business answers that allows for private individuals to securely buy and sell their knowledge with others. Winner of the “Hottest Startup in the Nordics/Baltics” at the Arctic15, Mancx is the world’s first network for business questions and answers through networks such as LinkedIn and Viadeo. The patent-pending technology behind the Mancx Business Answers™ community matches incoming questions with the right person’s expertise while managing all aspects of the transaction. This ensures that the questioner gets the information he or she needs while the answering party gets paid for their efforts.

Read more about Mancx on blogs and Media today

Startup Sauna and BootstrapLabs Demo Day

Come and experience the Northern European and Russian startup scene right in the Bay Area! The stars of the day are Startup Sauna early-stage teams from Finland, Russia, Lithuania, Estonia, China, Canada, Latvia and Italy that are going to pitch and demo their products!

We have drinks and snacks available, awesome guests and a special treat that most of the world hasn’t tasted before: Finnish Lake Water 😉

When: Thursday, May 24, 2012 from 6:00 PM

Venue: Rocketspace (181 Fremont Street, San Francisco), that BootstrapLabs and friends also call home in San Francisco

PROGRAM

  • 6:00pm – 6:30pm Doors open
  • 6:30pm – 6:35pm Welcome to the Startup Sauna & Bootstrap Labs
  • 6:35pm – 6:50pm From Northern Europe to the Valley – Zerply & Prezi
  • 6:50pm – 7:50pm Demo time!
  • 8:00pm Feedback, announcing of the winner
  • Networking

Startup Sauna, founded in 2010, is the open source seed accelerator that is kicking early stage startup-ass in Northern Europe, Baltics and Russia. Our startups have raised over $15 million in seed funding – most recently $1,4 million for Ovelin (SV DemoDay Fall 2011) from TrueVentures.

BootstrapLabs has helped European Technology startups, such as Prezi, Zerply, Witsbits, Mancx and Audiodraft to connect and relocate to the Silicon Valley eco-system since 2008. Today these startups are valued at $100M+ and employ more than 90 people.

Teams attending:

  • Adduplex – the leading cross-promotion network for Windows Phone apps. Serving already +60 million impressions per month. (Lithuania)
  • Advacam – the future of non-invasive X-ray inspection. Advanced color X-ray imaging camera for light weight material inspection. (Finland)
  • Campalyst – Manage all your social media profiles, measure online sales and optimize your communication strategy to increase ROI – all from a single dashboard. (Latvia/Lithuania)
  • Goalshouter – A crowdsourcing service helping supporters and football teams of any level, to collect and share stats and emotions during the game and using them afterward. (Italy)
  • Goodbuzz – provides tools that automates social marketing for small business that can’t afford to hire experts. Results are guaranteed. Advertisers don’t pay if they don’t get better marketing result. (Lithuania)
  • iJudgeFights – a co-viewing app and scoring platform that lets fans of Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) score fights round-by round in real-time and share and compare with friends and insiders, anywhere in the world. (China/Canada)
  • Infogr.am – provides a super-easy tool for making interactive infographics. One of the most beautiful products we’ve seen. (Latvia)
  • MNE Creations – the Pixar of mobile educational games. We create fun, innovative games around the social sciences; our first game will be used to raise awareness for endangered species. (China/Canada)
  • NordicHug – the first natural disinfection company! We develop disinfection products for modern smartphones, tablet computers and medical equipment. Our innovative formula, which is based on 15 years of research, is natural, effective and safe for devices and their users. (Finland)
  • Omyconf! – makes business events digital’ with its cloud platform for organizers and visitors. We help organizers save cost and time of managing events, and visitors benefit from powerful networking and planning tools. (Russia)
  • Zennis – a complete solution (hardware+sofware) to revolutionize the tennis playing experience – tracking and providing data about the player + ball movements and automating refereeing. (Finland)

RSVP

Sign-up to attend here:

http://startupsaunasiliconvalley2012.eventbrite.com/

Audiodraft Marketplace goes public!

Fresh from Audiodraft:

Audiodraft has launched a new featured called Marketplace!

Marketplace is an online store of exclusive music! All the tracks are produced by the talented worldwide Audiodraft sound designer community and handpicked by music professionals to ensure the great quality. Marketplace is offering only exclusive licenses so a single tune can be sold only once. Marketplace is a solution when you need high quality audio immediately but you do not want to risk others using the same audio somewhere else.

All tracks on Marketplace are:

Immediately available – Listen and buy
Exclusive – All the tracks on Audiodraft Marketplace are sold with exclusive licenses only!
These tracks are not available anywhere else. Once you purchase a license the track is not available for anyone else. You will have an exclusive license to the production!
Flexible – All licenses on Audiodraft Marketplace are worldwide and all inclusive (covers all media).
High Quality – All the tracks on Audiodraft Marketplace are handpicked from the selection provided by the Audiodraft community of tens of thousands of sound designers and musicians. We make sure the quality is top notch!

Even though Audiodraft Marketplace is now up and running, it’s still developing day by day. We are more than happy to assist you on your audio needs and answer any possible questions. Please don´t hesitate to contact us:

sales (at) audiodraft.com

or

Arto Tolonen
arto (at) audiodraft.com
+358 45 200 3881

Start browsing Marketplace here!


Read more…

Audiodraft launches marketplace

Audiodraft that just joined the BootstrapLabs portfolio is today launching it’s marketplace. The marketplace allows purchasers of custom audio to find a large pool of custom and unique audio content instantly.

The Marketplace also allows audio designers on the Audiodraft platform to monetize their audio portfolios.

Read more about the Marketplace here!

Audiodraft joins BootstrapLabs

We are exicted to announce that Audiodraft joins BootstrapLabs.

Advertising agencies, production companies and game studios in the US are pouring $5B into custom audio through an outdated process. Audiodraft is disrupting this market by creating the global marketplace for custom audio.

The creative production industry is struggling with complicated procurement and licensing to get custom audio. Audiodraft has created an efficient process and simplified licensing by connecting any company in need of custom audio to thousands of talented sound designers across the globe. Audiodraft offers an effortless marketplace to crowdsource custom audio production, through a contest model.

Big brands and agencies love Audiodraft:

To “Audiodraft” is already starting to become a verb in audio production.

Audiodraft emphasizes the meaning of audio branding. With Audiodraft you can get custom made music and sound design easily whether you need background music for a TV commercial, Online Video and content, theme music for a mobile game, or an audio logo for your company.

By coming part of the BootstrapLabs portfolio, Audiodraft will now accelerate it’s presence in San Francisco/Silicon Valley where Teemu Yli-Hollo, CEO/Co-founder of Audiodraft is already based. This means Audiodraft will accelerate the US market roll-out and Silicon Valley funding to capture the global market for custom audio.

BootstrapLabs is today also launching an Audiodraft contest to crodsource the audio branding of BootstrapLabs, check it out here!

Read more about Audiodraft…

Video synchronization is finally here!

Fresh from Audiodraft:

As you’ve probably already noticed, AudioDraft has been testing a video player feature which is making your audio acquisition even easier! AudioDraft video synchronization is a solution when you want the audio to be a perfect match for your video clip.

Using the video player is easy from a contest holder’s point of view: Just set up a contest on AudioDraft, upload your video clip to our service, launch the contest and evaluate all tracks in the contest automatically synchronized with your video. See an example how the video player works from a custom contest by Pro Sound Effects. (Video player is on upper right corner, audio suggestions below it. Just push play button to change the audio tracks.)

Also sound designers are able to preview their tracks before submitting them to the contest page. In this way it’s possible to do changes to syncing before submitting if needed.

The video player is just one new functionality on AudioDraft during this spring, so new cool stuff will be introduced soon!


Read more…

Mancx joins BootstrapLabs

We are happy to announce today that Mancx joins the BootstrapLabs portfolio of startups that we accelerate from Europe to Silicon Valley.

Mancx vision is to make any and all information available at the right price. With a patent-pending knowledge trading platform and connections to the largest business networks in the world Mancx gives you new opportunities.

Mancx connects people looking for answers with those of who have them. Some users of Mancx are in search of that particular little piece of information that will change a business forever. Others are looking for leads to reach their next sales quota or maybe looking for that intriguing piece of knowledge to boost next morning’s presentation to the board of directors. No matter what your needs are, Mancx is the place to find what you are looking for. Mancx offers crowdsourcing of the most valuable information.

Read more about Mancx and sign-up to give Mancx a spin her!

BootstrapLabs founder lunch in Berkley – How to Build and Accelerate Startups That Last

How to Build and Accelerate Startups That Last

Date: Wednesday, March 14

Time: 12-1:30 p.m.

Location: Berkeley Rep Theater, 2020 Addison, in Downtown Berkeley.

Join us for a lunch and discussion with Nicolai Wadstrom, a serial entrepreneur, who after starting and selling several tech companies, decided to incubate a whole bunch at once. Nicolai is the Founder and CEO of BootstrapLabs in Silicon Valley that is home to startups such as Prezi, Zerply and Witsbits. Come learn about how he builds and accelerates startups that last.

RSVP to if you’d like to order an organic, Berkeley-style lunch from The Bread Workshop for $15 (payable at the door), or just come and bring your own lunch.

BootstrapLabs founder join the Board of Directors for SACC San Francisco

The founder of BootstrapLabs, Nicolai Wadstrom, has been nominated and accepted to the board of directors for SACC San Francisco. Nicolai Wadstrom will through SACC continue his work and ambition to build a bridge and help Swedish entrepreneurs tap into global entrepreneurial eco-system that is San Francisco Bay area and Silicon Valley.

Read more about SACC San Francisco/Silicon Valley

Introducing Prezi U – a community hub for everything Prezi in education

Fresh from the Prezi blog:

Based on many discussions with our edu users we’ve been working to create a community site where teachers and students can talk, share and learn how to use Prezi in education, from the smallest grade school classroom to the biggest Harvard and Stanford auditoriums. We are now pleased to introduce Prezi U, a dedicated community site for all things Prezi in education.

Visit Prezi U for access to diverse content on using Prezi in education for all levels– from Kindergarten to University and beyond.
Prezi U is a hub for your prezis, ideas and experiences. A channel to submit your own content and receive feedback, engagement and new skills from other Prezi U members.

On Prezi U you can:
1. Submit your own educational prezis to the dynamically growing edu library, which covers diverse topics and subject areas categorized by schools and curriculum.
2. Engage with others in the forums, or search for answers to your questions about Prezi in education.
3. Submit articles about your experiences using Prezi in education.

Visit Prezi U today.  We look forward to meeting you in our new community, and we can’t wait to see what you create!


Read more…

Prezi zooming where no one has zoomed before – with $14M from Accel Partners

During the past 3 years (our portfolio company) Prezi have reshaped how we share ideas. Sharing of ideas just to be a sequence of squares. Prezi have been challenging this 350-year-old format, not because it’s old, but because it’s how people enjoy exploring spaces, rather than slides. We hear presenters and audiences describe how they are taken on a visual journey, and lean forward to share the experience.
Accel Partners is now joining the mission with a $14M investment into Prezi, and also taking a board seat. Which means that Prezi is zooming on at an accelerated pace.

Read more on the Prezi blog, TechCrunch and Gigaom.

 

Prezi Night Tokyo II

Fresh from the Prezi blog:

Prei Night Tokyo II

The second annual Prezi Night in Tokyo took place on Saturday, Dec 3, hosted by an awesome Japanese Prezi user community.

The fun event was a chance for Japanese users to meet each other and share experiences using Prezi. There were even Prezi quizzies and Prezi Karaoke. Check out more photos here and here.

The organizers allowed Prezi CEO Peter Arvai to show off his Japanese skills in his message to the community:

We look forward to Prezi Night Tokyo III – let us know if you’re interested in hosting your own!


Read more…

Build Hybrid Clouds with Witsbits

Fresh from the Witsbits blog:

Yesterday we snuck out a new major release* of Witsbits! We are very exited about it, please check it out and send us your comments about it!

A major upgrade is the Hosted Private Cloud feature. You can now rent servers from your favorite service provider directly from within the management console.

*If you already use Witsbits you don’t need to do anything, you are already upgraded.

USE WITSBITS TO BUILD:

  • Private Cloud (on-premise) – your own servers – no software!
  • Hosted Private Cloud – rent the servers you need directly from a service provide of your choice!
  • Hybrid Cloud – combine on-premise servers and hosted/rented servers!

CHECK IT OUT
Log in to Witsbitsand the setup wizard will get you going in just a few minutes.HOSTING PROVIDERS
Are you a Hosting Provider? Please contact me if you would like to offer your servers through Witsbits.com. It’s very easy to set it up.Stay Snappy,
Mikael* If you already use Witsbits you don’t need to do anything, you are already upgraded.

Read more…

European Demo Day in San Francisco with Startup Sauna

Come and meet some of the most exciting European startups here in San Francisco!

Together with our friends at Startup Sauna and I/O ventures we are organizing a demo day, so please join us and experience the Northern European and Russian startup scene right in the Bay Area! The stars of the day are Startup Sauna early-stage teams from Finland, Sweden, Russia, Lithuania, Estonia and Poland that are going to pitch and demo their products!

We have drinks and snacks available, awesome guests and a special treat that most of the world hasn’t tasted before: Finnish Lake Water 😉

Venue: I/O Ventures (780 Valencia St. – between 18th St & 19th St)

Program

  • 6:00pm – 6:30pm Doors open
  • 6:30pm – 6:45pm Tribute to the most awesome keynote ever
  • 6:45pm – 7:30pm Demo time
  • 7:45pm – 8:00pm Feedback, selection of the winner
  • 8:00pm -> Networking and aaaafteerrparttyy!

The startups presenting

  • Antslab – Application that helps people with diabetes track their condition by automatically downloading their glucose levels from their glucose meter to their mobile phone (Lithuania & Spain)
  • InBelly – Crowd sourced online- and mobile guide to educate consumers about food additives. (Lithuania)
  • Linkedviews – Small device which turns the mobile phone into a TV remote. (Finland)
  • Maxygen – 10 minute, 10$ DNA test with disposable cartridges. (Russia)
  • MobileBrainBank – A huge mobile developer community. (Finland)
  • Qminder – Mobile queue management app. (Estonia, winners of mini Seedcamp Prague)
  • Yodiz – Project management software for developers focusing on SCRUM and AGILE -methods. (Finland)
  • Zonear – Created Boilerbuild, which builds, optimizes and deploys HTML5 apps with one click. (Finland)
  • Ovelin. Creator of the educational real life guitar hero game WildChords. No. 1# Music App in 27 App Stores (Finland)
  • Zerply – The professional network for the Twitter generation (Bay Area, originally from Sweden & Estonia)
Looking forward to see you there!
More information and RSVP here!