Newark Venture Partners Inaugural Accelerator Class Presents Company Milestones at First Annual Demo Day

On Dec 12, 2016

Newark Venture Partners, a venture capital firm focused on attracting sophisticated technologists and entrepreneurs to Newark to catalyze the local technology ecosystem, showcased its inaugural accelerator class at Demo Day at the Prudential Center recently. Nine companies, selected from a pool of 650 applicants to the NVP Labs inaugural class, took the stage in the arena to present distinctive successes and future plans developed during an immersive 12-week program in the NVP Labs accelerator.

Highlights from participating companies’ presentations to an audience of potential investors, Newark community leaders and other supporters and mentors included Barkly’s launch of its on-demand dog-walking service in the New York market, Dream Forward’s 401K customer win with Barnum Financial Group, the successful completion of Navinata’s physician engagement platform pilot, and Sales Huddle’s achievement of $1M + of 2016 contracts.

“In 2007, Audible came to Newark to embrace the city’s renaissance as a defining principle for the company,” said Don Katz, founder and CEO of Audible and founder of Newark Venture Partners. “Newark Venture Partners was founded to be a seedbed for a new generation of young growth companies in Newark and to accelerate the comeback of a great American city by tethering Newark to the elements of the economy that are growing sustainable jobs and taxable revenue. The NVP accelerator Founders benefit from a focused curriculum and a network built to help companies develop and scale led by NVP’s Limited Partners, including Audible.  At Audible we encourage our employees to be mentors for the accelerator start-ups, and have seen a significant collaboration develop.”

Demo Day for the inaugural accelerator class underscores Newark Venture Partners’ commitment to attracting best-in-class start-ups to Newark to grow the local technology ecosystem on behalf of an urban comeback story. Newark Venture Partners’ anchor limited partners include Audible, Dun & Bradstreet and Prudential Financial, as well as noted individual investors. Newark Venture Partners aims to connect Newark to the burgeoning NYC-area startup and innovation hub and to the sectors of the economy generating real job growth and wealth through technology-driven innovation.

Housed rent-free in a state-of-the-art 25,000-square-foot tech space with 10 gigabit fiber-to-the-desktop, and downstairs from Audible’s global headquarters, the NVP Labs Founders benefited from a focused curriculum and a network built to help companies develop and scale. The network is spearheaded by NVP’s corporate Limited Partners who opened up their employee rosters to be mentors for the accelerator start-ups, and supported by an on-site team of ‘In-Residence Experts’ including developers, designers, business associates, and sales consultants.

“We’re excited by the quality of the nine companies in our inaugural accelerator class, and proud of the Founders who all chose to be pioneers by making the City of Newark home for their companies,” said Newark Venture Partners Managing Partner Dan Borok.

Accelerator company Founder Sam Caucci of Sales Huddle said, “Newark Venture Partners has given us access to a range of fantastic resources, including over 200 Audible employee-mentors.”

Presenting members of NVP Labs’ inaugural class at Demo Day include:

• Alphachannel – connects brand marketers with curated production partners to create innovative, technology-based marketing content.
• Barkly – Barkly is a service for pet owners to arrange on-demand pet care in a few taps. Using their smartphone application, pet owners can access local, highly-trained and vetted dog walkers in as little as 60 minutes notice, 365 days a year.
• Bowtie – Bowtie is a plug and play chatbot solution for any business on any messaging platform. Bowtie bots allow users to order food, book appointments or purchase items from SMB’s seamlessly over SMS, Facebook Messenger and voice enabled communication channels.
• Dream Forward – Dream Forward is a 401(k) platform with new A.I. technology designed to help employees work through their challenges and stay on track for retirement.
• KiDCASE – is a parental control solution for the Apple iPad.
• NativeTap.io – Nativetap.io helps developers code more and debug less. Developers that use nativetap fix bugs up to 70% faster.
• Navinata Health – Navinata Health is re-building the broken connection between Pharma Brands & busy Physicians.
• Sales Huddle – Sales Huddle is increasing employee performance with its mobile game platform for employee training.
• UpChannel – UpChannel connects smartphone manufacturers with their customers, enabling recurring relationships and data-driven insight through a native mobile app.

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