Dogpatch Labs

Run, Dogpatch, Run

Noel Ruane — Mon, 17 Sep 2012 18:49:28 +0000

GUEST POST BY JEREMY SKILLINGTON, TRIMOD THERAPEUTICS.

The Irish summer finally kick started in the early days of September. This terrible weather we suffer through is only one of the reasons we have such a vibrant Dublin start-up community – it keeps us all in doors to get the important work done.

The generally shy sun decided to show its face on Thursday Sept 6th where 16 Dogpatch pups representing 8 start-up companies, hit the roads around Dublin’s docklands to compete in the Grant Thornton 5K Team Challenge. With 358 teams and 1595 competitors the mood was festive and the competition intense.

The only downside was the realization that Noel, our fearless Dogpatch Labs Europe leader, would not be able to compete due to the recurrence of an old injury. With this loss of incredible talent and inspiration some did not want to continue but, ever unselfish, Noel made a personal request (via text) for everyone to soldier on and do it for him (or else you will be evicted).

In perfect conditions for running – a flat course, little wind and well marshaled – the Dogpatchers ran like their tenancy depended on it. An impressive 12 of the 16 runners ran under 25 minutes and the ‘Run, Dogpatch, Run!’ team led the way coming a credible 37th out of the 400 teams.

After the race it was straight back to Dogpatch to ~~work~~ refresh with beer, pizza and banter. A good night had by all but the niggling feeling remained – if only we had Noel on the team we could have been so much stronger. Next year maybe – if we wrap him in cotton wool.

Rumour has it summer in Dublin next year will be on a Thursday.

Dogpatch companies represented: TriMod, Boxever, ConnectedTrips, Keelvar, SeenBefore, Scrazzl, Hypertiny, Logentries.

From L to R: Des O’Shea (Scrazzl), David Kavanagh (Scrazzl), Gary Cremen (Keelvar), Mick Sheey (Connectedtrips), Mauro Iovino (Scrazzl), Aoife Walsh (Connectedtrips), Ger Kelly (Connectedtrips), Giustina Mizzoni (Dogpatch), Dan Hunt (Scrazzl), Alan Giles (Boxever), Jeremy Skillington (TriMod Therapeutics), David Tuite (SeenBefore), Paul Campbell (Hypertiny), Alan Wyley (Connectedtrips), Dermot O’Conner (Boxever), Missing from photo: Trevor Parsons, Logentries.

6 x US$1m raises, IBM Global Entrepreneur of the Year, an International Coding Movement and some …….

Noel Ruane — Thu, 10 May 2012 15:54:52 +0000

..and we’re just 6 months old! For those of you who missed Mike Butcher’s piece on TechCrunch a few weeks back, suffice to say, ‘The Pound’ in Dublin is doing great.

But rather than me extolling the virtues of the place I thought I’d let the resident companies chime in … they seem to like it too :

“Connectedtrips were three months old when we moved into Dogpatch. It’s fantastic, the place is so well run, the team are incredibly supportive with introductions and networking and to be together with so many bright, talented, fun people is a blast. No matter what you need, someone in Dogpatch has some smart inputs, great advice or useful introductions. It is a truly amazing community and it’s just brilliant to be based here”

Alan Wyley, Founder & CEO, Connected Trips

“Dogpatch has opened a lot of doors for us…and we have made amazing progress in the few months we have been here. Happy and proud to be called a ‘Dogpatcher’”

Stephen O’Reagan, Founder and CEO, BalconyTV

“It’s no secret that DPL Dublin has quickly become the place for the best startups……an awesome collection of people. And the Dartboard’s great too”

Trevor Parsons, Founder and CEO, LogEntries

“Dogpatch Labs provides us with a fantastic work environment which lets us stay focused on what really matters: building great software”

Des Traynor, Co-Founder, Intercom

So, all’s going well in Dublin. @noelruane

Busy Winter at Dogpatch Cambridge!

gusweber — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 16:34:25 +0000

It’s been a busy winter at Dogpatch in Cambridge! In addition to seeing the 2012 Techstars class join our community we’ve had a bunch of great accomplishments by our residents, a few move into their own space and a couple join our growing family.

We’re proud of and super excited about the community that is Dogpatch Labs and with Dublin and Palo Alto running at full strength, the Dogpatch community has never been stronger. If you’re in or around Kendall Square, don’t hesitate to stop up to the 6th Floor of 1 Cambridge Center and say hello!

A couple of noteworthy announcements:

FiveSpark was Acquired by LifeCycle Mobile

Shareaholic announced their Series ‘A’ funding

Relay Technology Management announced their Series ‘A’ funding

Bison was selected to join the TechStars Boston Class.

Kibits announced their seed raise and launched product!

A few new folks have joined the Dogpatch Cambridge Family! (and a couple of stealth ones we can’t share yet!)

Apptopia is the largets mobile app exchange. Apptopia’s exchange helps broker the sale of mobile apps.

ByteLight has developed an optical communications system embedded within LED lighting. By simultaneously providing energy efficient smart lighting and high speed mobile data access

Curisma: a new way to discover products you love through people like you.

MediaMob is redefining how gamers and brands interact with one another. Our first product is a first-of-its-kind monetization platform for mobile and social games

Neemware is a simple, yet powerful way to help you get actionable mobile feedback from your mobile customers.

Spill is a nationwide peer support network made OF and FOR college students. You can vent here, confidentially, about whatever is bothering you. Within 24-48 hours, we’ll give you feedback from a handful of trained peers who can relate to your problem.

Ticlr is a gift-giving engine. You choose or design a great idea, add a condition for motivation then Send and enjoy the reaction.

Dogpatch Palo Alto — All Settled in!

gusweber — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 16:08:29 +0000

Back in the fall, we learned that we were going to be losing our awesome home at Pier38 and that Dogpatch was moving down to Palo Alto. Over the past few months we’ve been busy getting our new home in Palo Alto up and running and getting our first batch of DPL’ers settled in. We’re excited about our new home in Palo Alto and psyched to welcome 9 new companies to the Dogpatch Family.

If you’re in Palo Alto, stop in and say hi! We’re right off University at 151 Lytton Ave (corner of High Street).

Here is the list of our first residents who call Dogpatch Palo Alto home:

Alzeca: Alzeca Biosciences is developing a proprietary imaging agent to enable early stage diagnosis of Alzheimer’s Disease.

Motiv.es: Motiv.es is an online destination for artists to share their work with one another and the world.

Open Home Pro: Open Home Pro is a platform for real estate agents to convert more leads and communicate more effectively with each other.

PostRocket: Making it dead-simple for Facebook Page marketers to succeed. Marketing on Facebook is difficult and we make it extremely easy for Facebook Pages to achieve maximum fan reach, engagement and virality out of every single one of their posts.

Snapette: Snapette is the mobile destination for fashion lovers on the go. Discover and share the best shopping finds and stores, from around the corner or around the world.

Shoptiques: Get access to members-only boutique inventory. Hand-selected styles. Never look like anyone else.

Tailored: Find your bridal style with Tailored. Browse wedding products selected just for you, create lists, and find people who share your style.

Tinfoil Security: Our SaaS solution, routinely monitors and checkes your site for vulnerabilities using a scanner that’s constantly updated. Using the same techniques as malicious hackers, we systematically test all the access points, instantly notifying you when there’s a threat and giving you step-by-step instructions, tailored to your software stack, to eliminate it.

Tiny Review: Instagram for Yelp reviews. The fastest and funnest way to say what you think about a place..

Creating an Early-Stage Pitch Deck

RyanSpoon — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 22:29:28 +0000

Note: This article originally appeared on TechCrunch (“How To Create An Early-Stage Pitch Deck For Investors”).

It is the first in a series of posts / decks that I will be doing on those questions I get asked most commonly. Of course we will start with the question I get most: how to create a great pitch deck!

When raising capital, a combination of your company’s product, vision, team and execution are what ultimately attract investment. And while the pitch deck is ultimately less important than vision and product, it exists to convey both elements and get investors hungry for more.

Like other investors, I come across hundreds of pitches each month — some in person, others in email; some as PowerPoints, and others as full-fledged business plans. Your goal is to craft a deck that is both:

- crisp: succinct enough that it is easily digestible (in person, email, etc)

- and complete: thorough enough that it conveys the big vision and current traction

I looked back on many of the pitches I reviewed over the last couple years (good and bad) and compared it to public pitch decks of familiar, successful companies like Airbnb, Foursquare, and Mint. The output is this guide to creating an early-stage pitch deck. It’s intended for companies seeking seed and series A investments.

There are five core themes followed by a suggested structure:

1. Have a great one-liner
2. Know your audience
3. Keep it to 10-15 slides
4. Beware of the demo
5. Expect the deck to be shared

And remember: it’s the story and the conversation that is important – not the imagery and colors. If you can convey the passion that drives you (and your users / customers!), you will have created a powerful pitch deck.

Why Dublin is probably the best place in Europe to launch your startup

Noel Ruane — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 18:57:17 +0000

fat loss factor When deciding where to ‘do’ a startup………you’re looking for: Human capital, financial capital, an established tech community combining both the most successful tech companies in the world and early stage peers. An environment that’s pro-business . A location that’s easily accessible and somewhere that’s vibrant, energetic and where you have a great quality of life. Across any and all of these measures……….Dublin is that location.

Human capital – whether that’s management or top tier graduates, they can be found in Dublin. There’s a cadre of management in Ireland with global experience across all functions whose skills have been honed leading and building out both Europe-wide and global operations for companies like Microsoft, Google, Ebay, Paypal and more recently Facebook and Linkedin – all here in Dublin. On the more junior side, Ireland ranked first in the world for most-highly employable graduates according to a European Commission Study of international recruiters last year.
The presence of companies like Google, Facebook, Linkedin, Microsoft and Twitter means emerging companies who are developing on their platforms or looking to partner with them in some shape or form can access key personnel easily – they’re all located within a couple of miles of each other and most of them within walking distance.
From an investment and financing perspective, there’s never been a better time for early stage teams forming a business to locate in Ireland. There’s over US $250m available in seed funding in Ireland at present. Again that’s US $250m! This is comprised of four dedicated seed funds totaling US $145m, further matching funding from Enterprise Ireland of $80m, add in initiatives such as the Competitive Start Fund, angel funds from structured groups such as HBAN and private investment from high net-worth individuals and……………………well as I said you’ve got a quarter of a billion US dollars available in seed funding in Ireland right now. For a country with a population of 4.5m people……..that’s a lot of money and non-Irish entrepreneurs should take note and perhaps re-think where they’re going to launch their next business.
In addition to the above, there’s a bunch of other supports available here. There’s more than five Y-combinator inspired accelerator programs in Dublin alone, including Propeller, Startupbootcamp, Create, Launchpad and Hothouse that provide the classic 3 month program with mentors and funding by way of stipend. For companies further down the track, there’s the opportunity to potentially be part of Dogpatch Labs Europe.
Less than 10 days ago, one of Europe’s largest tech events, the Dublin Web Summit drew an audience of over 1500 people over 2 days. In tandem with that, F.ounders for the second year running brought 150 of the worlds’ most prestigious and successful tech founders to Dublin – including the founders of Netflix, Rovio (Angry Birds), Linkedin, Skype and Paypal – on an invite only basis for an intimate get together. F.ounders has since been lauded by the Wall Street Journal, Techcrunch, Mashable and more as amongst other things “the best event I have ever attended”.
Dublin is a vibrant and energetic city – those who move here love living here and comment frequently about the great quality of life. In addition to that, one can hop on a plane and be anywhere in Europe in less than 2 hours. And NYC/Boston is a pretty short hop in the other direction. In fact one of my colleagues from NYC who was over here last week noted that it was a quicker flight for him than heading out west to California.
So again, I think by any measure Dublin is a phenomenal location to launch and grow a startup and the question that founders from across Europe and further afield should ask themselves isn’t why would l locate in Ireland………… it’s why would I not?

Dia dhaoibh Europe!

Noel Ruane — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 14:34:41 +0000

As many of you know, Dogpatch Labs are established communities in the major tech hubs across the US: New York City; Cambridge, Mass; and the Bay Area in California. The latest Dogpatch Labs in Dublin, Ireland, is our first non-US outpost and henceforth will be known as Dogpatch Labs Europe. For those of you this side of the Atlantic not familiar with the concept here’s the quick skinny:

Each Dogpatch Labs is a community of like-minded, like-driven startup teams that work side by side in open-plan spaces…… share ideas, refer connections, have banter, play pool, ping-pong, darts……but most importantly support each other and help each other out in whatever way they can as they build great companies.

In Dublin, we provide free desk space for teams of up to 5, connectivity, meeting rooms, lots of espresso, beers, free lunch and pizza a couple of times a week and networking events with domain experts, serial entrepreneurs and investors.

Beyond each immediate community, teams that are resident in one of our Dogpatch Labs are part of a network of communities that now span two continents. For emerging European startups we hope that Dogpatch Labs in Dublin can serve as a gateway into the US market by helping plug teams into our already established communities there. So whilst not a traditional accelerator, we hope to assist early stage European teams accelerate their growth through facilitating connections both in Europe and the States.

In just over 2 years in the US over 300 companies have had their origins in one of the Dogpatch Labs communities. Just under 120 of these have raised between $100k to $10m, with a total combined raise of almost $150m. Companies like Instagram, Jibe, Formspring and Turntable.fm are US Dogpatch Labs Alumni.

We’re just 4 weeks in at Dogpatch Labs in Dublin but already 12 companies are resident here including Intercom, Logentries, Profitero , CoderDojo and Trimod.

So, whether you’re in Madrid, London, Copenhagen, Bucharest, Prague…. wherever, if you’ve got the guts of a great team, have a scalable proposition that you believe can compete or lead on the world stage and or even define a new category or vertical, we’d love to hear from you. Get in touch: dublin@dogpatchlabs.com

Cheers, Noel

Dogpatch Cambridge Hiring like Crazy!

gusweber — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 15:03:55 +0000

I posted an update last week about some of the successes that our residents are celebrating, and about the awesome community that makes Dogpatch such a vibrant place to come and build your company. One thing that struck me was the sheer number of open jobs that our residents are trying to fill — over 35 of them! If YOU want to be part of an awesome community working on the ground level with some disruptive and innovation companies — then check out the partial list below of who is hiring at Dogpatch (and our neighbors at TechStars too!). Impressive companies to say the least!

Take the Interview:

Ginger.IO

YesWare

Localytics

Web Designer

Promoboxx

PHP Developer

Practically Green

GrabCAD

Azavea:

Software Engineer

Labtiva

Relay Technology Management

UI Web Developer

Shareaholic

Software Engineer

Locu

Evertrue

Kinvey

Dogpatch Cambridge is Rocking & Rolling!

gusweber — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 20:36:00 +0000

In some places, summer means relaxing on the cape, traveling around the country, or perhaps just working your standard 35 hour work week. Not in DPL Cambridge — here is means cranking on product, fundraising and hiring! It’s been an amazing summer for the Dogpatch Cambridge community, and I wanted to share some of the awesome accomplishments and progress that residents are making. Folks here are here in Dogpatch every day and they’re killing it. It shows in the successes listed below, it shows in the energy at the ping pong table, but most importantly – it shows in the strength of the community. That community is the backbone of Dogpatch and the source of amazing amounts of energy. Ask any resident, they’ll tell you. Everyday I’m more amazed at the generosity of our community and to the commitment that they’ve made to each other to help everyone hit the next milepost in stride!
With the addition of Dogpatch in Dublin, the Dogpatch community now extends across 4 cities (and 2 continents!), and at any given time there are over 75 collective companies actively participating in the Dogpatch community (with over 300 participating as alumni!) So what’s been happening you ask? A ton! Here’s the rundown in Cambridge, in no particular order:

Take The interview closed a $775,000 seed round!

Peer Transfer closed a $7.5mm series A round.

Practically Green launched their business product (Practically Green for Business) and was selected to power the SxSW eco-challenge.

YesWare officially launched their Product and closes a $1mm seed round.

Get Privy was named a Mass Challenge top 26 finalist

Locu closed a $600k seed round

Art Venue launched product and was named a Mass Challenge top 26 finalist!

Boundless Learning graduated from Dogpatch and moved into permanent space!

Crave Labs has launched its beta product!

Localytics won IBM smartcamp!

OnChip Power graduated from Dogpatch, and moved into permanent space!

We’re also thrilled to welcome a few new members of the Dogpatch Community: (there’s also a bunch we can’t talk about yet!)

Arcbazar is a first-of-its-kind crowd-sourcing platform for small to medium scale design projects. It allows an easy and fast interface between clients, designersand contractors.

BISON is the Boston Illiquid Security Offering Network. A web-based platform designed to promote fundraising and capital formation for alternative investments.

Locu is founded by MIT graduates and computer science researchers, Locu is creating the world’s largest semantically-annotated repository of real-time small-business data.

ParElastic is an elastic database middle-ware that creates a virtual elastic relational database from a collection of unaffiliated, free-running, industry standard relational databases.

Shareaholic is the the home of the most insanely easy-to-use sharing tools on the web. Reaching over 200 million users. Are you plugged in yet

If you’re in Kendall Square, feel free to swing into 1 Cambridge Center (6^th floor) and say hello! If you’re interested in joinging the awesome Dogpatch community, You can apply here.

Awesome Week in Dublin!

gusweber — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 19:49:45 +0000

In case you missed it, last week we officially announced the opening our 4th Dogpatch in the European Tech Hub of Dublin (in the amazing Grand Canal’s neighborhood).

We’re just back today from spending the week in Ireland at the official launch & grand opening, and all I can say is — WOW! What an amazing place to to launch our European presence.

In addition to much of theDublin community, we were thrilled to have Enda Kenny, TD, Ireland’s Taoiseach (Prime Minister) attend the grand opening and meet with each of the first companies to comprise the DPL Europe community.

While we were there, we also had the opportunity to meet the inaugural class of DPL residents, that is group of creative and talented entrepreneurs with diverse backgrounds (PhD’s, IBM, Google, etc).

And they’ll be led by a the newest member of the Dogpatch Team, Noel Ruane. Noel, a previous entrepreneur himself, embodies what it means to be part of a community, and is one of the main leaders of the broader European start-up community.

Back in the States, we’re excited to welcome Noel and the first Dogpatch companies to the collective community of over 300 companies that currently comprise the Dogpatch community. Once Noel gets settled in the new digs, we’ll do a proper introduction to each of the Dublin companies.

Read more on Dave’s blog, Ryan’s blog, or the Polaris Venture Partners Blog