Booster Fuels, which operates a mobile gas station that functions via smartphone, on Tuesday announced a $20 million round from existing investors like Conversion Capital, which led the round, along with Maveron, Madrona Venture Group, Version One, Perot Jain LP, and RRE Ventures. New investors include Stanford’s StartX Fund, BADR Investments, and U.S. Venture Inc. Total funding to date is now $32 million.
Going out to the world with your product and building awareness is one of the most important things in building a startup, especially a b2b one.
MIDEMLAB is very industry focused and it’s hosted at MIDEM the leading music business conference in beautiful Cannes.
It’s very important for startups to attend these kind of events, but it’s even more important to choose wise – those industry focused that really matter. For me it’s music, video, tv, esports, research and big data. I don’t attend every event I get invited to, especially the massive ones about startups or business in general. You need to have a business focused approach to these conferences and use them to schedule meetings with potential corporate clients and partners that visit these industry focused events – it’s often the only way to get to talk to them as calls don’t work too good with enterprises as a first meeting.
Many early stage startups or aspiring entrepreneurs make the mistake and go to every conference possible, they of
Artem Zhiganov is CEO at Geobeat, an app that lets users hear different tracks that change with how they are moving, where, and under what weather. Users can tell the app how they are moving, either walking or by car or bike, and any time they cross from an area to another, represented by hexagons, music will change.
«We have a few layers, at the moment, and we launched a landing page for producers who’d like to take part in the project. Many producers have already contacted us and some are willing to do something for free. We want to have at least 15 or 20 soundtracks in every city with a strong electronic music scene, we have a road map for Berlin, London, Los Angeles, Amsterdam and maybe Tokyo before the end of the year».
Pierre Rannou is CEO and founder of Flat, an online tool for music composition which, in a few words, could be compared to a Google Docs in the music sector. Users need to sign up on the website before they can create their first music sheets, compose and, if they want, invite friends to be able to compose in real time together.
«Of course you can create on your own, otherwise if you want to collaborate in real time with your friend you can just send a direct link to your composition and they’ll be able to share it with you.
Stuart Berwick is the cofounder of Kombie, an app mostly aimed at younger users. It lets them record and mesh themselves to any video. «It’s a really simple concept but it actually does a number of things. With Kombie you can record yourself in and out, and it loops around, so it’s really engaging. With other apps you record yourself on some music and then you share it. We have the video too, so it’s much more powerful. You can do comedy as well, or take any video you like from your camera».
After everything got digitalized, from movies to music, there seems to be a new interest in physical products. Vinyls are making a comeback, while at the same time streaming services like Spotify allow users to listen to music they do not even need to download.
Startup Qleek positions itself right inbetween these two worlds. Their products are called Qleeks, small hexagons that are linked to a specific playlist on a streaming service. They can be played on a special player or just by taking a shot of their QR code. For anyone who made a mixed tape in the 80s or 90s, the allure is easy to see.
Even when the economy seems to slow down, there are two fields in which people keep spending: kids and pets.
Carl-Michael Herlöfsson, founder and CTO of Moodelizer, explains in this interview the new technology his company developed and how it can be applied to more products. Here is a tutorial to understand how the app works.
At the moment you have two products, a studio version directed to professionals besides the app?
«There is a free version of the studio with limited themes, but besides that it’s a subscription service. If you work with Final Cut or other products you export your edits and then get a customized soundtrack that you can insert into the timeline of your editing software. It’s a deceivingly simple interface that allows to do very powerful things.
