Market Gap Startups

AMP Live, founded by Eddie Vaca in 2014, is a live video distribution platform that connects broadcasters with audiences in real time. The company generated $1.3M in revenue in 2015 and was on track to reach ~$3.9M in 2016 by selling audience delivery services to major brands like Microsoft, Salesforce, Martha Stewart, and Home Depot. Eddie bootstrapped the company with a small $100K friends and family round and built it into an enterprise direct-sales operation using outbound sales tools.

Bridgecrest Medical is a B2B SaaS company founded by 25-year-old Nathan Clair that uses wearable technology and IoT analytics to predict worker fatigue and prevent accidents at heavy industry sites like mining, trucking, and oil and gas operations. Launched in late 2015 after raising $1.3M, the company has grown to 10-20 employees with 10-20 enterprise customers paying five to six figure annual contracts with zero churn. The business demonstrates strong product-market fit with multi-year contract commitments and partnerships with industry majors like Barrick Gold.

Select is a premium membership community founded by Carlo Cisco that provides access to exclusive events, savings, and perks at thousands of premier partner locations globally. Launched around 2013, the company charges $250/year per member and reached just over 9,000 paying members by March 2016, generating approximately $700,000 in 2015 revenue with a 75% annual retention rate. The company was projecting $2.5-3 million in revenue for 2016, demonstrating strong year-over-year growth.

Nexar is an AI-powered dash cam app that uses smartphone sensors and machine learning to detect driving behavior, capture license plates, and create driver scores. Launched 9 months prior to this interview, the app had already captured approximately 80,000 license plates daily across Tel Aviv, San Francisco, and New York. The company raised $4 million in Series A funding led by Olive VC and is building a valuable crowdsourced road mapping data asset that surpassed Google Street View's coverage in just nine months.

Bitfusion is an enterprise SaaS company founded in January 2015 by three ex-Intel/Dell/Samsung engineers that pools idle compute resources in data centers to create supercomputer-level performance. After raising $1.5M in seed funding through Y Combinator's SAFE framework in April 2015, they launched their product in November 2015 and acquired 6 pilot customers and 2 signed contracts within 3 months by strategically targeting enterprises with short sales cycles. With 9 total employees and customers ranging from cloud service providers to Shell, they generate between $100k-$500k in annual revenue per customer.

Mojio is a connected car platform launched in 2012 and backed by Deutsche Telekom and Amazon that enables existing cars to connect to the internet. Kenny Hawke, who previously took iGo public in 1999, took over as CEO in fall 2015 and has landed major contracts including rollouts with Deutsche Telekom in Europe and a North American carrier. The company operates on a revenue-share model with telecom operators and projects to have millions of units installed within 2-3 years.

Boost and Co. is a venture debt fund founded by Lance Myserbo-Witch that finances early-stage high-tech companies in Europe through loans rather than equity investment. The firm has completed 25 deals totaling $120 million in capital deployed, sitting between traditional bank lending and venture capital with 8-12% interest rates, 1-2% fees, and warrant packages. With $150 million in assets under management backed by pension fund LPs, Boost and Co. offers entrepreneurs a way to preserve equity while accessing growth capital.

AstroPrint is an IoT platform for the 3D printing industry, often called the "Android of 3D printing." Founded in 2013 and pivoted in 2014, the company makes 3D printers easy to operate and connects them to a cloud-based app store ecosystem. With $150,000 in 2015 revenue and $400,000 raised, they're pursuing a B2B licensing model targeting printer manufacturers and major brands, projecting $500,000 in 2016 revenue.

BrewPublic is a craft beer curation and delivery service founded in 2014 by 26-year-old Charlie Mulligan. The company uses an algorithm to match customers with personalized beer selections from 3,000+ craft beers, serving both offices and consumers across Charlotte, Raleigh, Nashville, and San Francisco. In 2015, BrewPublic generated $275,000 in revenue with 35% net margins, and projects $1-2 million in 2016 after raising $500,000.

Cellink is a Swedish bioprinting company founded in 2015 by Eric Gattonholm and Hector Martinez that manufactures affordable 3D bioprinters and provides custom tissue printing services. They've sold 40 bioprinters at $5,000 each with 87% gross margins, and project $4 million in total 2016 revenue by combining printer sales with high-margin services for cosmetic and pharmaceutical testing. The company aims to democratize bioprinting technology globally while working toward their long-term vision of bioprinting functional human organs for transplantation.

Venture Pact is a SaaS platform launched in 2012 that helps businesses source and manage vetted software development teams. Founded by Randy Reyes, a former private equity analyst at Silver Lake Partners, the company operates on a hybrid model combining transaction fees (basic plan) and monthly subscriptions (premium plan). By 2015, Venture Pact had over 100 customers, was bootstrapped with 31 employees, and generated revenues in the seven figures.

RJ Metrics is a business intelligence SaaS company founded by Robert Moore in 2008 that helps mid-market companies make data-driven decisions. The company grew profitably from its attic-based origins to $1M in revenue by 2012 with just 8 employees, and has since raised $22M across multiple rounds. With approximately 400 customers paying $10K-$100K annually, RJ Metrics generates at least $4.8M+ in annual recurring revenue with customer lifespans of 3-4 years.

Vincenzo Villamina left private equity in 2009 during the financial crisis and moved to South America, where he discovered an untapped market: US expatriates needing tax preparation services. He built Online Taxman to serve this niche with expertise in expat-specific tax rules and compliance. By January 2016, the business was generating $20-30k monthly during tax season and was on track to do nearly $1 million in annual revenue.

YouStake is a marketplace where fans can buy equity stakes in professional poker players competing in live tournaments. Launched in June 2015, the platform has processed $2.8 million in stakes from 335 poker players and attracted 1.4 million in pledges from 2,700 users, generating approximately $70,000 in revenue through an 8% commission (5% to YouStake, 3% to payment processors). The team is targeting 50,000+ users and 20% month-over-month growth to hit a Series A by end of 2016.

Blab is a live conversation platform launched in January 2016 that allows users to broadcast live discussions where audiences can comment, chat, and call in to join conversations. Founded by Sean Peary after experiences in sushi, biotech, and an idea lab in San Francisco, Blab achieved millions of watch minutes per week with daily active users watching for over an hour per day, competing with Netflix and traditional TV by offering niche content from everyone ranging from basement creators to major brands like ESPN, UFC, Adobe, IBM, and Cisco.

Electric Styles sells light-up clothing including LED shoes, hoodies, ties, and flower headbands primarily targeting the EDM and music festival scene. Starting with light-up bras on Etsy, the company scaled to over 100,000 units sold across 65,000 customers, generating $1.25M in revenue last year and tracking toward $2.5M this year through a mix of marketplace and direct-to-consumer sales.

Borrowell is a Canadian online marketplace lender connecting borrowers with lenders through a proprietary platform. Founded about a year before this interview (circa 2015), the company raised $5.4 million in seed funding and was approaching a significant Series A round. Their growth strategy centers on an innovative product-led approach using a rate-checker widget as their primary customer acquisition tool, exemplifying the "engineering is marketing" principle.

Vroom is an online used car retailer founded by Alon Block in August 2013 that sells cars directly to consumers, buys cars from consumers, and facilitates financing entirely online. By January 2016, just 2.5 years after launch, the combined business (which acquired Texas Direct Auto in late 2015) generated $900 million in revenue with approximately 500 employees, growing from essentially zero through operational excellence, software-driven reconditioning processes, and a focus on high-volume, efficient business model similar to Amazon and Costco.

Bundle is a location-driven mobile app that aggregates local news as users move around their city. Kelvin Lockwood left a £35k account management job in the UK to build the app, which had 50 beta testers in the UK and 20 in the US at the time of this interview. The business model relies on mobile advertising, with projections of £25M annual revenue from 6 million users based on a £5-7 CPM.

Jay Bean founded FreshLine in 2014 after leaving his Chief Strategy Officer role at Deluxe Corporation. FreshLine helps local service-based businesses attribute marketing spend to actual transactions and automatically re-engage past customers. With a couple hundred direct customers paying $150-400/month, FreshLine is projected to hit $250K in the first full year, with plans to scale to $4-5M through partner relationships.