Four Memphis startup companies receive more than $385,000 in funding
MEMPHIS, TN (WMC) - Four start-up companies in Memphis received $387,000 in funding in order to continue moving forward.
Cabsolutely, eDivv, Graph Story and Pickle were the four startups and all participants of the Start Co. summer acceleration program.
The latest investment in companies adds to the more than $1.4 million total in 2014 this year.
President of Start Co., Andre Fowlkes, said in a press release to WMC Action News 5, "So far this year, seven teams received post acceleration funding, illustrating that the talent pool for startups here in Memphis is becoming robust."
All four businesses have taken advantages of their post-acceleration program by visiting during Friday office hours, participating in business development sessions, workshops and networking sessions.
CEO and Founder of Start Co., Eric Mathews said in a press release, "Having mentor and investor participation from day one enables the founders to build their business models quickly and correctly. Both the teams and the investors benefit from the early engagement during our accelerator programs, which builds confidence for supplying further investment after Demo Day."
Cabsolutely is a cloud-based dispatch platform for taxi cab companies, enabling them to compete with ride-sharing applications.
The company recently closed on a $75,000 investment and co-founders Virag Reti and Andras Simon plan to use the funding for application development and launch with initial customers in January, as well as consumer facing marketing.
The team entered into a partnership with Premier Transportation, Yellow and Checker Cab earlier this year to utilize its technology.
eDivv is an online marketplace for trading beauty products received $242,000 in funding.
Co-founders Casey Casterline and Jon Katz plan to use the funding for product development, marketing and scaling customer facing operations. ·
In addition to the $250,000 funding in August, Graph Story, a graph database as a service offering for small and medium businesses, has secured an additional $50,000 in funding, bringing its total investment to $300,000 since its founding.
Graph Story is a graduate of Start Co.'s inaugural Sparkgap accelerator. ·
Pickle, a platform for brand engagement via user-generated selfies, received $20,000.
Co-founders Evan Katz and Morgan Steffy raised additional funds to keep building out the public beta product.
If you're interested in participating in their 2015 summer acceleration programs applications open in mid-November.
The accelerators will again run through the summer in downtown Memphis beginning in May.
Entrepreneurs can find details to apply here through Start Co.'s website.
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