On October 12, 2011, we held another successful DukeGEN Angel Pitch Event, our fourth overall, and the second one in New York City.
A slight drizzle in Manhattan didn't stop the attendees from coming out. The room was packed, the audience was energetic, the pitches were great, and the panel, again, did an excellent job.
About 80 Duke alumni came and filled up the room at DogPatch Labs.
Here's who pitched:
Showcase Company
• SimpleEnergy (Boulder, CO) - Justin Segall, Duke '05 (Business Partner: Yoav Lurie, Duke '05)
SimpleEnergy is changing how millions of people save energy by revolutionizing how utilities engage their customers. We leverage our experience in the energy industry and combine leading behavioral science and the tools of the modern, social web to engage customers and get the results regulators demand.
SimpleEnergy has recently raised their first round of financing and were invited by DukeGEN to showcase their company at this event, to help educate the audience members.
Pitch Competition
• myDrugCosts (Research Triangle Park, NC) - Dan, Pollard, Duke ‘92 - dan@mydrugcosts.com
myDrugCosts, Inc. operates a software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform based on a proprietary database of drug costs and savings options.
• ShelfRelief.com (Durham, NC) - Tito Bohrt, Duke ‘13 - tito.bohrt@duke.edu
ShelfRelief is a combination of Craigslist and Amazon. Connecting students within a university to let them sell their books to one another.
• CRE-DASHBOARD (Washington, D.C.) - Jill Homan, Duke ‘06 - jill.homan@gmail.com
CRE-DASHBOARD aggregates commercial real estate and economic data to create an investment dashboard for commercial real estate professionals to make better decisions - a super-charged Zillow for commercial real estate (CRE).
• CareProsper (New York City) - George Mathew, Duke ‘03 - george_mathews@hotmail.com
CareProsper makes Personal Health Records (PHR) work, by combining an incentivized PHR with a membership rewards program.
• Perfect Beauty (San Francisco) - Daisy Jing, Duke ‘11 - daiserz@gmail.com
Perfect Beauty creates a customized set of reviews for beauty products, so when a user searches for a review on a product, she can filter the results based on her profile so only those reviews that are relevant for her appear in the results.
• The Daily Muse (New York, NY) - Kathryn Minshew, Duke ‘08 - kmminshew@gmail.com
The Daily Muse brings smart content to young, career-focused women. We are not Cosmo; instead, we focus on the central needs of many highly educated, ambitious young women today.
And here's who was on the panel:
- Peter Flint, Polaris Ventures and Dogpatch Labs
- Rob Go '01, NextView Ventures
- Thomas Lehrman '95, Alta Investors
(Phin Barnes was also schedule and helped select the teams, but had an unexpected conflict the night of the event)
Audience voted and asked questions of all the teams:
Audience Choice went to:
The Daily Muse - Kathryn Minshew
Judges went to convene and came back to deliver the results:
Judges 2nd Runner Up:
My Drug Costs - Dan Pollard
Judges 1st Runner Up:
ShelfRelief.com - Tito Bohrt
Judges Winner:
The Daily Muse - Kathryn Minshew
Prize:
- Consultation with Josh Felser '86 '90, Co-founder at Freestyle Capital
- Send top pitches to to Naval Ravikant at AngelList for review
Thank you to our volunteers!
- Jason Begleiter, Trinity ‘09
- Jason Ethier, ‘10
- Shalav Gupta, Fuqua ’10
- Alex Guttler, Fuqua’11
- Can Kuterdem, Fuqua '09
- Tom Powell, Fuqua ‘09
- Niraj Tailor
Posted by Howie Rhee '04
Event run by Howie Rhee '04 and Jozef Krakora '10, Co-chairs of DukeGEN
