Web Developers
The Coresight Research team attended the ERA Summer 2018 Demo Day. ERA is New York City’s largest retail accelerator program that has over 400 investors, technologists, product specialists, marketers, customer-acquisition strategists and sales executives from all major sectors. To date, ERA companies have raised more than $250 million in investor capital. Each company receives $100,000 in initial investment and there is potential of follow-on funding from ERA.
All accelerator companies are required to be located in-house for the duration of the program. Located in New York City, ERA provides cohort members with an intensive four-month program with the goal of helping early-stage companies progress into viable, venture-scalable businesses.
The companies receive benefits including webhosting credits from Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform and Softlayer. Cohort members also receive support from other sponsors including PayPal, Stripe, Dentons Law Firm, TriNet Benefits Provider, Phone.com and Silicon Valley Bank, and services from Shutterstock, WithumSmith+Brown, ZipCar, HubSpot, RelateIQ, RJMetrics, InVision, FreshDesk and ZenDesk.
Founded in 2016 by Jay Bhatia (Cornell, BASF) and Dave Grimes (BASF), Agilis is a B2B e-commerce platform for the chemical distribution industry. The platform aggregates supply and demand, acting as a middleman to facilitate transactions between chemical producers, distributors and buyers. The company seeks to digitalize the chemicals selling and buying processes, provide chemical producers with the necessary tools and analytics to manage and optimize the complex value chain of the chemicals distribution sector.
Founded in 2018 by Israel Krush (Cornell Tech) and Rom Cohen (Cornell Tech), Airbud is a voice platform that allows companies to add voice capabilities to their websites and mobile apps. Airbud uses natural language processing to make any website voice accessible. The company announced that it had signed a major pilot deal with a hospital based in New York City, and, among other voice-enabled features on the hospital’s website,a visitor can use a voice command function to ask for the phone number of any medical care unit. Airbud’s clients benefit by receiving a new customer engagement tool, collecting data on consumer engagement and reducing the cost of customer support.
Founded in 2017 by Abhinav Kapur (BOA Merrill Lynch), Deepti Sharma (FoodtoEat), Mathieu Dalmau (Heartbeat Experts – acquired, Unisys), and Shandeep Sharma in New York,Bikky is a customer-analytics platform for restaurants. According to Kapur, on an average, restaurants receive feedback from 1% of the customers who place online orders for delivery. Platforms such as DoorDash, Grubhub and Postmates often operate at the backend and receive all of the customers’ valuable analytics. Bikky aggregates restaurants’ data across online ordering channels to give them analytics into their customers’ preferences. Restaurants can then use the data to proactively engage diners, increase customer retention and maximize lifetime value. Bikky is live at over 60 restaurants across the US and they expect this number to rise to 200 by the end of 2018.
Founded in 2017 by Byran Dai (Harvard, John Hopkins, Quartet Health), Daivergent is a technology platform that helps technically-skilled autistic people get employment. The company helps its clients meet the demand for skilled individuals to perform complex and repetitive data tasks such as identifying images or aggregating customer chatbot data. Individuals with autism are particularly well-suited to perform these jobs, according to Dai, but are typically excluded from the labor market. The company’s software provides the training, management and workflow functions to help unlock the value of this underutilized workforce.
Founded in 2008 by Phoebe Yu in Australia, Ettitude is a DTC bedding and homewares brand. The company prides itself on stylish, comfortable, sustainable, and ethically produced bedding and sleepwear at a much lower cost than that of silk and luxury cotton. Ettitude uses its proprietary supply of organic bamboo lyocell fabric to manufacture soft, cooling, odor-absorbent and hypoallergenic products. The company is currently talks with an airline for providing in-flight bedding and pajamas and is at a $2 million annual run rate.
Founded by Andrew Stroup, LVRG is an AI-driven vendor relationship management platform that streamlines enterprise-wide external engagements. The tools on this platform provide better communication and allow for more informed, collaborative purchasing decisions to drive organizational efficiency while enabling ongoing cost-savings.
Founded in 2018 by Mai Vu (Deutsch, Northwestern, Bronx Science), Maivino is a DTC wine subscription service that delivers high-quality wines in propriety bags. The company is targeting the millennial wine drinker who represents roughly 42% of wine consumption market in the US where the boxed wine market is growing at a rate of 20% annually and is a $5 billion market at present, according to Vu. The propriety bags of Maivino keeps wine fresh for 32 days after opening, giving consumers the freedom to drink wine at their own pace and preference. The company sources and curates undervalued wines to make them more accessible.
Founded in 2017 by Erik Fogg (MIT), Daniel Widing, and Wilson Funkhouser III (Northwestern), ProdPerfect is a platform that automatically builds, runs and maintains quality assurance regression tests for web applications. The software analyzes live user traffic to build test cases based from behavior patterns, providing engineering teams comprehensive testing coverage that continuously updates as new features are added.
Founded in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania by Zeiad Hussein and S. Michael Caverly, Rocket Cloud is an online marketplace for industrial suppliers. The marketplace connects manufacturers and suppliers to online customers for buying and selling electrical, plumbing and HVAC equipment. The company also provides its users with business intelligence and data tools to help assist and optimize their online commerce performance.
Founded in 2017 by Amar Sehic, Krenar Roka, and Tommaso Montagni, Rubik is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) data platform for real-estate investors. The company provides pricing analysis software for residential apartments by using artificial intelligence to determine optimal asking prices for residential units based on several factors such as comparable property features, as well as macroeconomic and local market trends. According to Sehic, Rubik has financial data on 70 million single family homes in the US and this helps investors instantly find properties that match their investment criteria.
Founded in 2017 by Curt Barnard (In-Q-Tel), Threshing Floor Security is a cybersecurity company, that integrates with widely-used enterprise security products, enabling security teams to find the alerts that matter in their network. The company said that many enterprises have strong security systems in place, but they often report many false positives which makes it difficult to better evaluate which alerts should be taken more seriously. Threshing Floor Security collects, aggregates and analyzes those cyber-alert threats, including authentication attempts, network scans and webs scrapers.
Founded in 2016 in Toronto by Rajiv Chatterjee and Puneet Malhotra, Triyo provides the financial industry a secure project collaboration platform. The tool offers teams in financial services and other regulated industries—where Google Drive and Office are often unregulated—the ability to work together on documents, presentations, spreadsheets and projects more efficiently. Triyo is unique in that it satisfies internal compliance and regulatory demands by integrating with existing workflow processes to provide an audit trail. The company announced that it is working with a major investment bank in New York which will provide 500 users accounts.
Founded in 2016 by Adam Rawot (UPenn) in Philadelphia, Woveon is a customer engagement platform for enterprises that aggregates conversations from channels including CRM, phone calls, email and social media into a single dashboard. The company uses artificial intelligence to surface the information that is most relevant for managing and resolving customer inquiries and improving consumer interactions. Unlike its competitors, Woveon provides a single customer view across all different communication channels, allowing companies to identify valuable customers, help personalize messages and prioritize important customers.
13 ERA Companies Presented Solutions Spanning Nearly Every Industry
These 13 companies presented their solutions, which included marketplaces and on-demand platforms, at Demo Day.Several of the solutions were geared toward enterprise software solutions such as more efficient internal project collaborations, communication with vendors and customer analytics. Three of the participating companies offered marketplaces, of which two were for facilitating industrial transactions and the third was for procuring chemicals from vetted suppliers. For products, one participating company offered a DTC wine subscription service and another offered a DTC bedding and homeware products made of proprietary bamboo fabric that is organic and ethically produced. Given below are brief descriptions of all the 13companies that participated in ERA Summer 2018 Demo Day:
Founded in 2016 by Jay Bhatia (Cornell, BASF) and Dave Grimes (BASF), Agilis is a B2B e-commerce platform for the chemical distribution industry. The platform aggregates supply and demand, acting as a middleman to facilitate transactions between chemical producers, distributors and buyers. The company seeks to digitalize the chemicals selling and buying processes, provide chemical producers with the necessary tools and analytics to manage and optimize the complex value chain of the chemicals distribution sector.
Founded in 2018 by Israel Krush (Cornell Tech) and Rom Cohen (Cornell Tech), Airbud is a voice platform that allows companies to add voice capabilities to their websites and mobile apps. Airbud uses natural language processing to make any website voice accessible. The company announced that it had signed a major pilot deal with a hospital based in New York City, and, among other voice-enabled features on the hospital’s website,a visitor can use a voice command function to ask for the phone number of any medical care unit. Airbud’s clients benefit by receiving a new customer engagement tool, collecting data on consumer engagement and reducing the cost of customer support.
Founded in 2017 by Abhinav Kapur (BOA Merrill Lynch), Deepti Sharma (FoodtoEat), Mathieu Dalmau (Heartbeat Experts – acquired, Unisys), and Shandeep Sharma in New York,Bikky is a customer-analytics platform for restaurants. According to Kapur, on an average, restaurants receive feedback from 1% of the customers who place online orders for delivery. Platforms such as DoorDash, Grubhub and Postmates often operate at the backend and receive all of the customers’ valuable analytics. Bikky aggregates restaurants’ data across online ordering channels to give them analytics into their customers’ preferences. Restaurants can then use the data to proactively engage diners, increase customer retention and maximize lifetime value. Bikky is live at over 60 restaurants across the US and they expect this number to rise to 200 by the end of 2018.
Founded in 2017 by Byran Dai (Harvard, John Hopkins, Quartet Health), Daivergent is a technology platform that helps technically-skilled autistic people get employment. The company helps its clients meet the demand for skilled individuals to perform complex and repetitive data tasks such as identifying images or aggregating customer chatbot data. Individuals with autism are particularly well-suited to perform these jobs, according to Dai, but are typically excluded from the labor market. The company’s software provides the training, management and workflow functions to help unlock the value of this underutilized workforce.
Founded in 2008 by Phoebe Yu in Australia, Ettitude is a DTC bedding and homewares brand. The company prides itself on stylish, comfortable, sustainable, and ethically produced bedding and sleepwear at a much lower cost than that of silk and luxury cotton. Ettitude uses its proprietary supply of organic bamboo lyocell fabric to manufacture soft, cooling, odor-absorbent and hypoallergenic products. The company is currently talks with an airline for providing in-flight bedding and pajamas and is at a $2 million annual run rate.
Founded by Andrew Stroup, LVRG is an AI-driven vendor relationship management platform that streamlines enterprise-wide external engagements. The tools on this platform provide better communication and allow for more informed, collaborative purchasing decisions to drive organizational efficiency while enabling ongoing cost-savings.
Founded in 2018 by Mai Vu (Deutsch, Northwestern, Bronx Science), Maivino is a DTC wine subscription service that delivers high-quality wines in propriety bags. The company is targeting the millennial wine drinker who represents roughly 42% of wine consumption market in the US where the boxed wine market is growing at a rate of 20% annually and is a $5 billion market at present, according to Vu. The propriety bags of Maivino keeps wine fresh for 32 days after opening, giving consumers the freedom to drink wine at their own pace and preference. The company sources and curates undervalued wines to make them more accessible.
Founded in 2017 by Erik Fogg (MIT), Daniel Widing, and Wilson Funkhouser III (Northwestern), ProdPerfect is a platform that automatically builds, runs and maintains quality assurance regression tests for web applications. The software analyzes live user traffic to build test cases based from behavior patterns, providing engineering teams comprehensive testing coverage that continuously updates as new features are added.
Founded in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania by Zeiad Hussein and S. Michael Caverly, Rocket Cloud is an online marketplace for industrial suppliers. The marketplace connects manufacturers and suppliers to online customers for buying and selling electrical, plumbing and HVAC equipment. The company also provides its users with business intelligence and data tools to help assist and optimize their online commerce performance.
Founded in 2017 by Amar Sehic, Krenar Roka, and Tommaso Montagni, Rubik is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) data platform for real-estate investors. The company provides pricing analysis software for residential apartments by using artificial intelligence to determine optimal asking prices for residential units based on several factors such as comparable property features, as well as macroeconomic and local market trends. According to Sehic, Rubik has financial data on 70 million single family homes in the US and this helps investors instantly find properties that match their investment criteria.
Founded in 2017 by Curt Barnard (In-Q-Tel), Threshing Floor Security is a cybersecurity company, that integrates with widely-used enterprise security products, enabling security teams to find the alerts that matter in their network. The company said that many enterprises have strong security systems in place, but they often report many false positives which makes it difficult to better evaluate which alerts should be taken more seriously. Threshing Floor Security collects, aggregates and analyzes those cyber-alert threats, including authentication attempts, network scans and webs scrapers.
Founded in 2016 in Toronto by Rajiv Chatterjee and Puneet Malhotra, Triyo provides the financial industry a secure project collaboration platform. The tool offers teams in financial services and other regulated industries—where Google Drive and Office are often unregulated—the ability to work together on documents, presentations, spreadsheets and projects more efficiently. Triyo is unique in that it satisfies internal compliance and regulatory demands by integrating with existing workflow processes to provide an audit trail. The company announced that it is working with a major investment bank in New York which will provide 500 users accounts.
Founded in 2016 by Adam Rawot (UPenn) in Philadelphia, Woveon is a customer engagement platform for enterprises that aggregates conversations from channels including CRM, phone calls, email and social media into a single dashboard. The company uses artificial intelligence to surface the information that is most relevant for managing and resolving customer inquiries and improving consumer interactions. Unlike its competitors, Woveon provides a single customer view across all different communication channels, allowing companies to identify valuable customers, help personalize messages and prioritize important customers.