Founder and CEO John Frei can’t wait for the new year to start.
It’s shaping up to be SpeechTrans’ most exciting year yet, says John. He and Co-Founder Yan have planted numerous seeds. Next year, they expect many will blossom.
One example: their current deal with African mega-telecom company MTN. As many as 50 million users will gain access to SpeechTrans’ services in 2015, as a result.
Another partner, Intel, is also stepping up its cooperation. It is now bringing its partners into the fold. Intel is preloading its software onto 1 million to 2 million devices this year and SpeechTrans expects to see 40 million devices carrying its software next year.
It’s clear that SpeechTrans has won Intel over. That’s quite an achievement. The benefits are already accruing for SpeechTrans.
For example, Intel is loaning its engineers to help SpeechTrans enhance the software used in Intel’s Realsense Camera feature. SpeechTrans wants the hearing impaired to be able to more easily translate sign language.
SpeechTrans has also won over HP. Why else would HP have made the speech translation company its first global reseller of the MyRoom online conference service? SpeechTrans will also be providing HP’s telephone conference bridge service.
I want to be clear here. These aren’t step-by-step advances. They’re more like leaps, and they’re being done in concert with some of the most powerful companies in the world.
This is incredibly encouraging. More to the point, it should lead to a significantly higher valuation.
Little SpeechTrans is thinking big. Here’s another example: SpeechTrans’ deal with telecom company MTN. It’s just the beginning of a major marketing initiative, says John. There are over 800 telecoms worldwide. At some point, he says, most will hook up with a translation service. Every device, PC and landline will have a translation service by 2020, according to the Automation User Society.
The implications for SpeechTrans’ growth potential are obvious and pleasant to contemplate. Of course, it’s still very early, but so far I like what I’m seeing…
Market demand is crystalizing at just the right time. SpeechTrans’ technology is better than that of its rivals. Its chief products are much improved. And its relationship with its powerful partners have deepened and expanded.
And one more reason John is looking forward to next year…?
The company is establishing a location in Silicon Valley. It’s a good move. They’ll be closer to their partners, Microsoft, Intel, HP and Epson. And the SV location will make their Series B round fundraiser much easier.
Apploi: 2,500 employers on board.
I bumped into founder and CEO Adam Lewis last week. He was in Baltimore (where I work), launching the company’s first city partnership. “The first of many,” Adam vowed.
Adam introduced me to several local employers at the event. PayPal, Rue21, Target, Coach, Macy’s, Sunglass Hut, and Catholic Charities all had good things to say about Apploi.
After the event, Adam flew to Denver to launch another new partnership. This one was with Denver Pavilions. But Adam was even more excited over an old partnership – with Westfield Mall Retail. Westfield had just greenlighted plans for Apploi to install its kiosks in every one of its malls across the U.S.
In the meantime, the awards keep coming…
- It won the runner-up trophy at the Web Summit in Dublin. Apploi distinguished itself against the world’s top 200 startups of 2014.
Apploi’s winning team in Dublin.
You can check out its pitch in the competition final by clicking right here or clicking on this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysDg1A50KQU
- It won the Tabby Awards for best iPad App in the Business & Services category of 2014.
- It won two Global Business Excellence Awards. The first was for “Outstanding New Product / Service.” The second was for “Outstanding Community Initiative.”
In the last month alone, nearly 500 new companies have listed on its site. Apploi has now signed up nearly 2,500 employers. They include Old Navy, Bath and Body Works, Armani Exchange, Burlington Coat Factory, Urban Outfitters, and Claire’s.
To me, this is the most encouraging news…
Some of its customers with national franchises are now extending their usage to cover its entire domestic operations. Cinnabon is a recent example, and more are coming, Adam assured me.
Appvance: Faster and Cheaper testing platform “winning accounts.”
Big news from the Appvance: It released its new and improved platform, Appvance Performance Cloud (APC) in October.
Founder Kevin Surace says it’s “much faster, better and cheaper than the incumbent.” In fact, it’s reported to be up to 20 times faster than longtime market leader Hewlett-Packard’s LoadRunner.
APC is for “serious testers,” emphasizes Kevin. It offers more control over simulated users… new support for the IBM Softlayer cloud… and new AWS (Amazon Web Services) machines… plus a large upgrade in customized reports.
And revenue traction is building. The third quarter generated a record of about $450K in billings. Appvance’s net burn rate is only $20K a month. That’s impressive, made possible by its healthy revenue stream. “We don’t have to worry about this company spending too much,” Kevin says.
While its solid cash position should extend into 2015, Kevin says he may opt for another new round to accelerate growth in the first half of 2015 (at a higher valuation, of course).
Kevin’s other noteworthy comments…
“Pipeline continues to grow well… though there is much more work to do.”
“We continue to win major accounts, proof points that we have a winning product/team/strategy.”
“We continue to work with a major cloud provider (nameless for now)on an initiative to onboard their major customers in 2015,”
“There are many accounts moving down the funnel.”
Next quarter is shaping up as a critical period. Appvance’s APC2 needs to continue to pull in new customers.
Side note: Last week, New Relic announced its intentions to do a $100 million IPO. The app monitoring company was founded in 2008. So it took them almost seven years to reach this point. Appvance was founded in 2012. So far so good. Kevin has done a great job. But we should remember that it’s a relatively new company. It has a ways to go.
Other Portfolio News
Ansa: The privacy texting app company recently signed up Lebanese celebrity singer Yara. Ansa has been making a big push in markets outside the U.S. and now has more users globally than domestically.
Ansa is also working on a new Android design for its app to give it a whole new look and feel.
The company is getting noticed globally. Ansa was featured in an article in the UK’s Daily Mail this past September. I bet Co-Founder Natalie Bryla wasn’t thrilled how the article started off…
“If you’ve ever sent a text to the wrong person, or regretted texting someone while drunk, then the Ansa app could offer some piece of mind. It works in a similar way to Snapchat… However, unlike Snapchat, Ansa lets you also delete messages remotely, from another person’s device, before they get a chance to read it.”
Well, not exactly how I’d put it. But at least the author “gets” Ansa and that it provides more versatile and robust privacy capabilities than the better-known Snapchat.
And, if you’re curious (like I was) who this Yara singer is, here’s a picture.
Medical Surgical Technologies (MST for short): The surgical company just opened its first American site in Boston.
It will also be doing a bridge convertible note round in the near future. Online portal OurCrowd will be participating. So, what’s a bridge loan?
They’re modest fundraisers “to bridge” a startup’s finances from one round to the next. It serves a couple of purposes. The obvious one: It gives a company money when its financial needs aren’t great yet need to be addressed.
And the not-so-obvious one: It also gives a company more time to create greater value and get a higher valuation before it undertakes the next full round.
An important note: Those of you who invested in MST during its last round in December 2013 will be invited to participate if you want to. OurCrowd will send you an individual pre-emptive rights notice form.
OurCrowd has assured me that you will get first dibs. Only after you’ve been given a chance to participate will the convertible note be made available to the general public.
By the way, these rights were written into the original terms of your investment to prevent your stake from becoming diluted. If you like the company… and if you expect its valuation to rise, then it may make sense to buy more shares.
For this reason, at the time of the invitation, we will update our recommendation to you with a new “Buy” or “Hold” set of instructions. And, as we approach the date, we’ll be sure to give you more details on the process itself of re-upping.
Liquidity Nanotech: We recommended Liquidity this past September. But in early October, the company unexpectedly switched plans. It decided to accept a smaller bridge loan from two of its current investors.
It was at this point that Onevest (the sponsoring portal) delisted them.
Now, every now and then a startup will change its mind on its fundraising strategy, even midstream. We can’t prevent these things from happening. But what we can do is make sure that when they do occur that our members are promptly informed and refunded.
That is exactly what we did in this case. To its credit, Onevest did a nice job of immediately reaching out to our investors.
That’s it for this month. As you see, we don’t cover all our holdings in a single update alert. We focus on those that have new developments to report. You’ll get your next update in a couple of weeks. And most (if not all) the companies you’ll hear about will be different from these ones.
Invest early and well,
Andy Gordon
Startup Investor Portfolio
