| Portfolio companies highlight their products and services at Castile Innovation Showcase
Castile Ventures’ portfolio companies recently gathered to demonstrate their award-winning products and services. Attendees experienced each company’s offerings first-hand and learned more about how they are benefiting businesses and consumers around the world. The event featured game-changing offerings in some of the hottest emerging technology sectors including advanced wireless applications, Internet business enablers, cutting-edge software and next-generation communications products.
Two aspects of advanced mobility were highlighted. Agito Networks showed how enterprises can save money by carrying employee cell phone traffic over their own networks. Attendees were able to hear the high quality of calls via WiFi and experience the seamless handoff between an enterprise phone systems and the mobile network. Funambol demonstrated how the company’s carrier customers synchronize contacts and emails across PCs and mobile phones. The company’s “special sauce” is one of the world’s largest open-source communities for mobile applications. This community ensures that the company’s software can be used on many hundreds of different cell phone models.
Alongside these mobile offerings was a new class of office phone system. Whaleback Systems piqued attendees interests with its demonstration of the “crystal blue” clarity of their managed VoIP service for small businesses, and also with the monthly savings that customers can reap.
RatePoint is pioneering the new field of online reputation management. They showed off their ground-breaking service that can boost customer loyalty by 18% or more With thousands of users now posting reviews, RatePoint is fast becoming the “go-to” service for small and medium-sized businesses to manage customer feedback.
Showcasing their video lead generation platform was VisibleGains. Their newly announced solution enables their customers to shorten sales cycles and increase sales leads. Another Internet pioneer exhibiting was Heath Guru, whose engaging health-related interactive video and information is making them a sought-after venue for advertisers targeting 18 to 40 year olds (story below). The Enquisite team showcased how their predictive modeling tool allows digital marketers to dramatically improve organic search and SEO performance and demonstrated how their powerful analytics engine helps users get the highest rankings on keywords.
Award-Winning Enterprise Applications
ChosenSecurity showed various applications enabled by their core technology – from protecting cable providers to producing digitally signed judicial orders for the federal government. As an emerging market leader in Governance, Risk and Compliance, Agiliance reviewed how companies can better evaluate and manage IT risks that can affect their entire organization. They shared how they have helped their customers cut compliance costs by 50-70%. Optiant highlighted the Fortune 500 companies using its supply chain optimization software. Based on technology originated at MIT, the company's PowerChain software improves the performance of supply chains and increases ROI on inventory management.
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Sandbridge's Joe Gonzalez (l) explains the horsepower behind
the 4G chip to Jim Giarrusso
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And for those who wanted to ‘touch and feel’ products – the Showcase didn’t disappoint. Aurora displayed its 50-pound metal encased optical node that is used by eight of the world's ten largest cable operators to increase bandwidth and services to homes. The Aurora team showed how its products improve performance and reduce costs. Across the aisle from Aurora, was Sandbridge, who described how the horsepower its fingernail-sized 4G chip will provide to the next generation of mobile devices. At Ahura Scientific’s display area, attendees tried to outsmart the award-winning substance detection device, TruDefender, with a number of unidentified liquids. While not in the same dangerous conditions as most of the product's users, participants appreciated how Ahura protects hazmat and security personnel by enabling them to instantaneously determine the identity of chemicals in the field.
Visionary Market Leaders
Most visionaries are also early adopters, and it’s no surprise that many of our CEOs and senior execs are as excited about our portfolio company’s technology as their own. Neal Creighton, co-founder and CEO at RatePoint, has been beta testing North End Technologies’ soon-to-be-released tele-presence product with his sales team. Neal’s enthusiasm was quickly shared by the attendees who had the chance to 'test-drive' the new product themselves that day.
Summarizing the energy in the room was Karil Reibold, CEO of Whaleback: “What an incredible collection of companies. After this event, we will be exploring further how we might benefit from some of the products and services on show - as well as following up on some strong interest in our services.” Castile thanks all of the portfolio company executives for their contributions and passion and the attendees for their enthusiasm and participation.
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