{"id":752899,"date":"2013-05-23T16:31:38","date_gmt":"2013-05-23T20:31:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gigaom.com\/?p=648876"},"modified":"2013-05-23T16:31:38","modified_gmt":"2013-05-23T20:31:38","slug":"tippy-top-stars-of-techstars-demo-day-boston-edition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/752899","title":{"rendered":"Tippy top stars of Techstars Demo Day (Boston Edition)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Techstars Boston Demo Day was in a glitzy new setting (the House of Blues withing spitting distance of Fenway) and also drew some surprising (non-tech) star power.<\/p>

Here are my highly subjective highlights:<\/p>

1: David Ortiz.<\/h2>
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A (very fuzzy) David Ortiz at TechStars Demo Day.<\/p><\/div>

There was a bona fide Big Papi moment on stage as the Red Sox superstar and Boston superhero, in general, as David Ortiz strode on stage to greet Fancred<\/a>\u00a0CEO Kash Rassaghi. This startup is building a “social platform” to connect sports aficianados with like-minded fans. Ortiz demanded that Rassaghi “get the Yankess off my cell phone.” (I dropped my phone but recovered in time to get one sub-par shot at left.)<\/p>

Is there really room for a sports fan platform? Doubtful. But, hey, I’ve been wrong before. And did I mention DAVID ORTIZ???<\/p>

2: A platform for sustainable, local food<\/h2>

I love the idea behind Freight Farms,<\/a> which takes shipping crates and retrofits them with water, electricity, \u00a0internet access and LED lighting to convert them into compact hydroponic gardens.<\/p>

The elegant idea is to “take the very structure that makes the global food supply chain possible and make it into a platform for producing local food,” said Brad McNamara, Freight Farms CEO.<\/p>

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Freight Farms CEO Brad McNamara.<\/p><\/div>

They are remotely controlled and, because they are stackable, they take up less real estate. Freight Farms has signed several customers including Katsiroubas Brothers, \u00a0a 100-year old Boston-based produce wholesaler, which is looking for better ways to cut transport costs and offer customers more local product.<\/p>

“There is nothing better than fresh local food, but the reality is food distribution is a long complicated supply chain — most goods travel 1,500 miles on average to get to your table,” said McNamara.<\/p>

Freight Farm-grown crops require less water, no pesticides or herbicides. My question: Will a their tomatoes taste like other hot-house tomatoes (i.e., like cardboard) or like an actual tomato? If it’s the latter, I’m totally sold.<\/p>

3: DIY clothing design<\/h2>

In a nod to the burgeoning “maker market” or do-it-yourself crowd, Mary Huang was to hand to talk up Constrvct,<\/a>\u00a0her startup that’s building service that lets you design 3-D clothing onscreen, tweak the size and styling with easy slidebar controls, preview your design on an onscreen maniquin and then make your clothes to order.<\/p>

\"Mary<\/a>“Makers are underserved in the do-it-yourself market — they’re stuck at the same starting point as their grandmothers,” Huang said. Interest in home-designed clothes is rising thanks to Pinterest and Project Runway, she said, quoting a surprising stat: 3 million sewing machines sold last year, double the number from ten years ago.<\/p>

4: Fixing manufacturing<\/h2>

LinkCycle<\/a> says it can use its own data science — and existing data — to help manufacturing plants drastically cut their energy costs.<\/p>

These facilities — many of them rust belt relics — are notorious for wasting energy and to remedy that many spend millions installing meters and hiring auditors to help. Most of that spending is also a waste, according to LinkCycle CEO Sahil Sahni.<\/p>

“Why spend so much time gathering data when companies are already sitting on heaps of it?” he asked.<\/p>

LinkCycle instead takes two exisitng data streams from the ERP systems already running these companies — electricity consumption and total production output. “We developed our own algorithms to take that data and use math — not meters — to save money wihtout having to set foot in the plant,” he said.<\/p>

Wow, that sounds so easy it makes you wonder why someone else hasn’t done it. Well except for that algorithm part anyway.<\/p>

So, the new venue was fab but it suffered the same woe as past Techstars events — a lack of reliable connectivity. We soldiered through with personal hotspots and (finally) some intermittent Wifi connections but can’t one of these deep-pocketed sponsors finally figure out how to get reliable broadband into these events? (I’m \u00a0looking at you \u00a0Microsoft, Rackspace, Verizon and Softlayer.)<\/p>
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