American Well

American Well^™ is a new healthcare marketplace where consumers and physicians can come together online to acquire and provide convenient and immediate healthcare services. Using the latest technologies in Web communications and digital telephony, the company extends traditional healthcare services to the home setting. American Well is committed to supporting health plans in meeting consumer and employer demand for affordable, efficient, and immediate access to quality care.

Based in Boston, Massachusetts, American Well was founded in 2006 by Drs. Roy and Ido Schoenberg, and is the founders' third venture in the healthcare technology field. The founders, together with their executive management team, have successfully built and implemented large-scale, mission-critical enterprise solutions for healthcare consumers, providers, and payors in both U.S. and international markets.

FiReSpotter: Investment Management Group: Jeb Terry, CEO, Aberdeen Investment Management, Inc.

Global Solar Energy

Global Solar Energy is a solar-industry leader that manufactures highly efficient thin-film solar cells for glass module or flexible material products. Global Solar is the only Copper Indium Gallium diSelenide (CIGS) manufacturer in full-scale production on a flexible substrate and has achieved 10% average solar-cell efficiency. Its thin-film CIGS strings are not dependent on silicon and instead use highly available raw materials that are easily integrated into a wide range of applications for use in commercial, residential, utility-scale, and government products.

Global Solar has developed a proprietary process for manufacturing thin-film CIGS photovoltaic (PV) cells and modules. Global Solar is the only company reliably producing CIGS that can be encapsulated in traditional glass modules or in a flexible substrate. CIGS creates more electricity from the same amount of sunlight than do other thin-film PV technologies and therefore has a higher "conversion efficiency," leading to lower cost. CIGS conversion efficiency is also extremely stable over time, meaning its performance continues unabated for many years.

FiReSpotter: VC Partner: Rodel Foundations

Hawaii Oceanic Technology Inc.

Hawaii Oceanic Technology Inc. is developing an environmentally responsible open-ocean aquaculture system. The company's intellectual property is a hybrid ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) power plant and an 82,500-cubic-meter aquaculture vessel called the Aquasphere^™ that is capable of growing 2,000 tons of seafood.

The Aquasphere is not tethered to the ocean floor, will stay on station in the deep ocean to avoid any possibility of impacting shore and coral reef environments, and will allow efficient dispersal of effluents. The company's business model is to license this technology and to operate an Ahi farm in the pure clean waters off of Hawaii. Ahi is the Hawaiian word for Big Eye and Yellowfin tunas. World demand for fish protein exceeds what the ocean can sustainably produce, and many species of wild fish stocks, such as Bluefin tuna, are rapidly being depleted.

Aquaculture is a $60 billion global industry composed of inland-based shrimp and freshwater fish farms dominated by Asian producers whose products do not always meet U.S. food and safety standards. Aquaculture products from Asia make up 50% of U.S. imports, which exceed $12 billion per year. Federal legislation is being considered that will allow open-ocean aquaculture in the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone to address this seafood security threat.

Successfully deploying a next-generation aquaculture system capable of operating in deep ocean waters can create a new, economically viable capability for industrial-scale ocean fish farming to meet the world's insatiable demand for fish protein. The company is committed to environmentally responsible aquaculture and ocean stewardship and has designed the Aquasphere with this in mind.

FiReSpotter: VC Partner: Michael Pfeffer, Managing Partner, Kolohala Ventures

High Throughput Genomics

High Throughput Genomics Inc. provides quantitative Nuclease Protection Assay (qNPA^™) technology and services for the life sciences industry, addressing current unmet needs and enabling a new era of drug discovery and diagnostics. The company's qNPA technology platform enables the accurate, sensitive, reproducible, and repeatable measurement of molecular signatures through the multiplexed measurement of RNA expression levels, DNA, and protein levels and function.

qNPA data measure how drugs act and how diseases are mediated at the level of whole cells, tissues, or organisms. These measurements enable researchers to focus their resources by rapidly obtaining higher-quality results than are possible with other methods in days rather than months, saving time and cost while addressing critical unmet needs. Privately held, HTG is based in Tucson, Arizona. Investors in the company include Solstice Capital, Merck Capital Ventures, Valley Ventures, and Village Ventures

FiReSpotter: VC Partner: Rodel Foundations

Imaginatik

Imaginatik is a software and professional-services company specializing in innovation and idea management. For over 10 years it has worked with the most demanding companies in a wide variety of industries, delivering tangible return on investment through the use of its services and its software, Idea Central. Imaginatik's customers include companies such as Pfizer, Georgia-Pacific, W.R. Grace, Bayer, Cargill, Henkel, Hallmark, and Chevron.

Imaginatik has offices in the U.S., the U.K., Spain, and Germany, and a network of partners around the world. Its main offices are in Boston, Massachusetts, and Winchester, U.K.

FiReSpotter: Bruce Harned, Strategic Innovator

Open Labs

Open Labs encompasses the three key elements of creative expression: providing the integrated environment to create, empowering the creator with expressive tools, and providing a way to encourage broad collaboration, all in an "open" work environment. Some of Open Labs' customers are Prince; Faith Hill's producer, Jimmy Nichols; Maroon 5; and Timbaland.

Open Labs manufactures world-class musical instruments, develops custom musical and creative software, and provides unique tools for creative expression. Open Labs is the only "open system" provider of these types of devices and software, and its creative tools extend to the musical and video ecosystems most exploited by today's social networks. The company will provide these tools for the broad collaboration the current system does not allow for, and it has unique and patent-pending ways to make all the creators and collaborators participants in the revenue models it provides.

The collaborative piece rivals the ringtone and surpasses it, because music can be sold in "stems," tracks, multiple tracks, or "split stems," and mixed, remixed, mashed, or looped. Open Labs provides the integrated environments for creation, expression, and collaboration. It provides hardware, software, and Internet portals to allow its users to accomplish their vision. It is unique in that respect.

FiReSpotter: Investment Management Group: Jeb Terry, CEO, Aberdeen Investment Management, Inc.

Seeo Inc.

Seeo is an early-stage battery venture based in Berkeley, California. With a team of world-class scientists and engineers, and funding from Khosla Ventures, Seeo is moving full speed toward revolutionizing electricity storage and delivery.

Today's high-performance lithium ion batteries are based on an inherently unstable platform. Stability and lifetime limitations prevent lithium ion cells from addressing key applications. Efforts to increase performance while minimizing cost have exposed the vulnerability of this system to catastrophic failures and explosions that are taking their toll on the industry and consumers alike. Seeo is developing a novel materials platform that provides the inherent safety and stability needed to enable a new generation of high-performance batteries.

FiReSpotter: Khosla Ventures

Transonic Combustion Inc.

Transonic Combustion Inc. is a research & developmentÐphase company focused on developing a suite of technologies which is projected to enable conventional automotive engines to run at ultra-high efficiency on gasoline and on bio-renewable flex fuels. The company was founded by an inventor/entrepreneur with patents in fuel cells, batteries, electronics, and computer/communications architecture. The startup management team has a track record of establishing strategic partnerships with automotive, computer, and wireless communications companies.

FiReSpotter: Khosla Ventures

uBoost

uBoost is a web-based rewards and recognition platform for K-12 students whereby points are awarded for academic achievement and redeemed for relevant rewards and recognition. Rewards aimed at all constituencies (students, parents, and teachers) are necessary to create the system of collaboration that motivates and supports students. uBoost is designed to improve the way students feel about their education, enable parents and educators to encourage their progress, and ultimately drive positive student learning outcomes.

• Premium Rewards - In addition to over 100,000 unique rewards which include free and discounted merchandise and digital assets, uBoost has added on-line educational games, music and other digital downloads. Students can convert their points into cash for their college savings account, gift awards to their friends, and donate points to a charity in support of their favorite cause.
  
  
• Community/Corporate Sponsorship - An increased selection of rewards such as scholarships, laptops, and school funding will be provided by private individuals, corporations and foundations.
  
  
• Parent Engagement - The parent desktop application (widget) and toolbar will communicate student performance data through rss feeds, text and email messaging. Parents are awarded 25% of all points earned by their child and those points can be used reward their child's achievement.
  
  
• Social Networking - Students spend an increasingly large percentage of their time online interacting in social networks. uBoost offers a controlled virtual environment to redeem points and interact with peers. Each student will have a home page displaying awards, academic results, reward wish lists, filtered-chat, feedback and award ranking.
  
  
• Auction Site - Relevancy and engagement will be greatly enhanced with the opportunity to use uBoost points to bid on a large selection of premium rewards.
  
  

FiReSpotter: VC Partner: Michael Pfeffer, Managing Partner, Kolohala Ventures

vlingo Corporation

vlingo Corp. delivers a voice-powered interface for mobile phones. Leveraging a new technology called adaptive "Hierarchical Language Models" (HLMs), vlingo's approach allows carriers and mobile application providers to quickly and inexpensively voice-enable any application - without custom engineering or in-house speech expertise. Unlike conventional voice recognition technologies that require individual purpose-built applications and rely on constrained grammars and scripted interactions, vlingo's open approach eliminates a costly and intensive manual effort and scales to tasks as broad as open mobile search. As a result, consumers get quick, easy, and accurate access to mobile applications, which translates into new revenue streams.