Betaspring introduces new companies at open house

By Emily Greenhalgh
PBN Web Editor
Twitter: @EGreenhalgh

PROVIDENCE – In a full house that included investors, entrepreneurs and lawmakers, startup accelerator Betaspring introduced the 13 fledgling companies of its inaugural Fall session on Thursday night at its Knowledge District headquarters.

At the Betaspring Open House, CEOs of the 13 companies presented themselves and their businesses after their first six weeks of the 12-week mentorship-driven program.

The event kicked off with Betaspring’s founder and managing partner Allan Tear and moved onto speeches by U.S. Sens. Jack Reed and Sheldon Whitehouse, U.S. Rep. David N. Cicilline and Gov. Lincoln D. Chafee, all of whom praised the program.

After the introductory speeches and updates from Betaspring graduates, including Sproutel, the makers of Jerry the Bear – a stuffed animal focused on helping children with Type I diabetes – and Splitwise, which developed a program to help with expense-sharing, CEOs from the fall 2012 session took the stage.

For the fall session, the startup accelerator accepted applications from teams in the fields of Web/mobile, physical technology and gaming.

The makers of AutoBike discussed their comfortable automatic shifting bicycles and their desire to make biking fun again.

The Crunchbutton team pitched its one-click food buying system, which allows consumers to have their favorite foods paid for and delivered with just one click on their computers or mobile devices.

The group at WorldBrain talked about its desire to help teachers and parents bring learning outside the classroom and its solutions to help educational travelers explore the planet.

The other fall 2012 teams included:

• Greentape – A system that brings merchants additional revenue streams through the use of plug-and-play sensors and a smartphone application that gives customers walk-in rewards and delivers product stories to their mobile devices.

• HealthID Profile – The makers of medical ID bracelets that infuse fashion and technology.

• Kuratur – A system that allows marketers to see the best Web content and share it with prospects and customers rather than bombarding them with information.

• Pennant - A program that brings the power of desktop advertisements to mobile devices.

• Plandree - A collaborative vacation planner that eases the planning process and helps users discover new experiences.

• Rootless - A ridesharing community that connects drivers and passengers in order to make sharing rides easier.

• Scholrly - A research search engine that makes it easy to explore connections between related work and domain experts.

• TennisHub - A social platform that helps tennis players of all skill levels find partners, book court times and enroll in group events.

• TouchVu - A system that allows small businesses to instantly convert their Facebook business pages to mobile device-friendly websites.

• Umbie DentalCare - A Web-based management solution for dental practices that provides functionality while meeting HITECH law requirements.