Every year, both Venturebeat and Techcrunch partner up to celebrate the Annual Crunchies Awards. The Annual Crunchies awards is hosted with the aim to bring forward some of the best, most unique, most innovative startups, internet and technology innovations over the year.
The 8th Annual Crunchies awards was hosted on the 5th of February, Thursday. The event was held at the Davies Symphony Hall at San Francisco.
Winners are selected based on the votes cast by tech and entrepreneurship enthusiasts as well as the masses of the internet by large. Without further ado, let’s see how what the best innovations over the year were
Stella’s Solar Powered Car
The Crunchies Awards best technological innovation went to Stella. Stella is a four-seated solar power car which can store enough energy to travel 500 miles in one go. Finally the world can know think of having functional, clean energy cars that most people can use. No longer are do we have to dwell on demos or other concepts.
Stella has a single solar panel on the rooftop and can provide more mileage than Tesla’s longest running models. This car is the result of a partnership between the Eindhoven University of Technology and NXP Semiconductors. The car is capable of generating twice the amount of energy it consumes. The finish it off, Stella cars can communicate among themselves to figure out the best speed to keep traffic moving efficiently.
Here’s a video demonstrating the car
Hotel Tonight
Frequent travelers and last minute planners no longer have to worry about dumping a lot of cash for last minute reservations. Hotel Tonight is finally here to solve lodging expense woes. Hotel Tonight allows customers to make last minute reservations for reasonable prices. Furthermore, certain locations may even have discounts.
Hotel Tonight won the title of ‘Best On-Demand Service’ at the Crunchies Awards. There are two rate options. One, there’s the Rate Drop. In Rate Drop, the price of reservations start falling after 3-p.m. for same day reservations. Second, there’s the Bonus Rate, where offers are available for reservations made a week in advance.
Hotel Tonight Claims that the prices they offer can be upto 40 percent lower than prices offered on other sites. Furthermore, according to them, the system makes hotels choose their prices more carefully and pick out targets specifically. There’s no point in offering LA hotel offers to LA Residents. But a Bonus Rate can be aimed at couples planning for a weekly getaway.
Casper
Casper took the crown for the “Best E-Commerce Application”. Buying mattresses is not the best or the most exciting moment of a consumer’s history, and for good reason. Casper’s aim is to get rid of the middleman in the bedding and mattress industry and deliver direct to consumer.
But it’s not just about being B2C. Casper’s unique engineering process to make mattresses makes it super premium. To maximize comfort and convenience, manufacturers place the latex foam on top of the memory foam.
By getting rid of retailers and wholesalers, Casper can afford to price its mattresses at US $1,000. The same mattress could cost upto three or four thousand on retail.
Storehouse
Have great pictures and videos. Now, you can make a story out of it just by adding a few words. Storehouse won the ‘Best App Award’ This year at the Crunchies. The app business was founded by ex-apple employee Mark Kawano. Kawano was a key figure in Apple’s iPhoto. His team at Storehouse also boasts former employees from Apple and Facebook.
Storehouse gives users a nice and fluid UI in order to put their pictures and text together to make great presentations of their memories. The app is currently available only on Apple Devices. The company recently raised US $7 Million in Venture funding from SherpaVentures, True Ventures, Lerer Ventures, Designer Fund as well as a few angel investors.
Kawano says that funding will be sued to shore staff and keep the app free to get more users.
Yik Yak
In the startup world, growth matters. Yik Yak won the ‘Fastest Growing Startup’ award this year. It seems that social networking with everyone around you while maintaining anonymity is a concept that has caught fire. Yik Yak focuses on connecting people who’re close to each other. So that messages one random person sends out is relatable to everyone it gets to. Yik Yak’s services have been dubbed as an alternative to Whisper and Secret.
Theranos
Winning the ‘Best Health Startup’ title, Theranos was founded by Stanford Dropout and Health Entrepreneur Elizabeth Holmes. Theranos was founded with the aim of standardizing and expediting the process of blood tests. Not much is known about the startup. Top Brass in the company seem adamant on keeping it that way, even going so far to take three former employees to court for giving out trade secrets.
There are multiple patents issued for Theranos’ services and product. Their device draws a sample of blood and sends information wirelessly to a secure database. That information can be used to perform over 30 blood tests, the company claims.
Airbnb
Airbnb is a platform where people can rent out lodgings. Airbnb’s story is one of those where a simple idea that provided a small inflow of cash turned into a huge business opportunity. Founders Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia rented out their loft as a bed and breakfast to guests in order to be able to pay for their rent. With Airbnb, interested homeowners or property owners can rent out their spaces to travelers.
Airbnb has faced controversy regarding the outcome of some of their matchmaking processes as well as tax issues. It has worked with governments to figure out tax structures for their business and has started implementing them. Airbnb took the award for ‘Best Design’
Meadow
Meadow is a medical marijuana version of uber that delivers the ‘plant based’ medical prescriptions to your doorsteps. Their service is called MarijuanaMD. Customers can send in a message to a doctor working in the service. In a while, the doctor diagnoses the patient and offers the proper strain and quantity to the patient based on diagnosis.
Right now, all visits have to be scheduled. It costs from $50 to $100 for a renewal. There are plans to make MarijuanaMD an on-call service. However, the company’s next step now is to take more doctors who are well versed in cannabis on board.
Meadow won the ‘Best Bootstrapped Startup’ award
CloudFlare
CloudFlare won the ‘Best Enterprise award’ this year. CloudFlare provides a content delivery network and distributed domain name server system to its clients. The internet company was founded by Matthew Prince, Lee Holloway, and Michelle Zatlyn, who previously worked on Project Honey Pot.
CloudFlare has caught fire and is growing very fast. It is signing up 5000 new customers every single day. The company’s impressive portfolio has clients from small blogs to big givernment websites
Line
Line started its business as a messaging app. Now, it is expanding beyond into a Youtube-like video service in Thailand. It is expanding into international markets. Their app, Line TV, features shows from South Korea, Thailand and Japan. But Line is not a Netflix copycat. There’s a built in messenger which friends can use to share videos among themselves. Furthermore, the videos themselves contain information about the actors in the show.
The startup is now working on sourcing more content, including a few exclusive deals. The company claims to have 33 million users in Thailand.
ClassDojo
ClassDojo is a behavior feedback platform. Studies have shown that teachers spend more than half of their classroom time improving student behavior. ClassDojo’s services allow users to make use of feedback to build up better behavior. This can help students focus more on building up traits like Persistence and Teamwork.
There’s been a lot of effort by various startups to improve education and academics. ClassDojo’s aim is to now build the other half of the students. Which is basically traits and behavior. ClassDojo has won the ‘Best Educational Startup’ at the Crunchies awards.
Oculus VR
Anyone who hasn’t heard of the Oculus VR probably lives under a rock. The company’s first product, the Oculus VR, is a head mounted display that can create an augmented reality. Software, especially games have been developed to run on the Oculus VR and the response has been great so far. A limited edition, Crescent Bay has been released for developers and demo purposes.
There’s a lot of potential for Oculus’ head mounted display. A while ago, Facebook acquired the company for US $2 Billion.
Kim Kardashian: Hollywood
This app personally came as a shock to many. Given Kim’s background and her notoriety for her history, it’s difficult to believe that an App named after her would be listed as one of the most popular anywhere. The accomplishment by this app in terms of numbers is astounding. This came number 1 in the Apple Store with many 5 star ratings. This app has been reviewed by 140,000 users. And like a lot of other games out in the market, users also spent tons of money on this game for virtual currency. By taking on certain events, tasks and traits, players work their way up the celebrity rankings in Hollywood.
Twitter
Twitter won the award for the ‘Biggest Social Impact’ this time. And for very good reason. People voice out themselves on pressing issues and social matters around the world via tweets. There are many substantial examples of how Twitter has lent voice to the people in ways no other social media platform could. Take any pick: Isis, Ferguson, politics. By giving the masses a powerful means to voice out, Twitter truly has been a vehicle for tremendous social change.
Oculus VR Kickstarter Backers
For the crunchies awards, the Angels of the Year award did not go to any one Angel Investor. Rather, it went to all of Oculus VR’s Kickstarter backers. For a crowdfunded project, the numbers are absolutely impressive. Oculus VR’s crowdfunding project targeted for a total US $250,000. Oculus raised almost 10 times their target, raising over 2.4 million US Dollars from over 9500 backers. This success demonstrates that sometimes crowdfunding can go a long way.
Jim Goetz
The award of VC of the Year went to venture capitalist Jim Goetz from Sequioa capital. Jim Goetz has practically turned any enterprise he has invested in into solid gold. He has invested a total of $60 million in Whatapp over three funding rounds. When Whatsapp was sold to Facebook for $19 Billion, Sequioa received $3 Billion in Facebook Shares. But there’s more. Goetz has enjoyed a number of succesful public exits: Ruckus Wireless in 2012, Pao Alto Networks in 2012, Barracuda Networks in 2013 and Nimble Storage in 2013.
Slack
Slack’s founders won the title of ‘Founder of the Year’. The founders are: Stewart Butterfield, Eric Costello, Cal Henderson and Serguei Mourachov. Founders have achieved massive success with the tool and their business models. Within 24 hours of launch, Slack signed up 8000 users. According to the company, Slack currently has 30,000 teams making use of their platform sending over 200 million messages a month. Among all their individual users, 73 thousand are paying customers.
The company has recently raised US $120 million in a funding round. The round was led by Google Ventures and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. Investors also included A16Z, Accel Partners and The Social+Capital Partnership. This put Slack at a valuation of US $1.12 Billion, post-funding.
Marc Benioff
Saleforce CEO Marc Benioff has good reason to be awarded ‘CEO of the Year’. Salesforce, which has pioneered the software-as-a-service business model, has performed incredibly last year. THe company received over US $1.3 billion in revenues in the last quarter. This is a 29% increase from the figures from the year 2013. Salesforce is slowly moving into a massive physical infrastructure, which is aptly titled the ‘The Salesforce Tower’
On the personal side, Benioff has made a personal donation of US $100 Million to the University of California, San Francisco Medical Centre. This money will be used to build a new hospital for the institution and will bear Benioff’s name.
Product Hunt
Product Hunt may make new technologies and startups get off the ground much faster with their platform. A lot of startup founders and investors have spent time looking for the next big thing on Product Hunt. How did it begin? The platform started back in 2013 when Ryan Hoover made a list about his favorite products. This was later upgraded into a system where visitors can come in, check and rate products based on their impression. It’s somewhat similar to reddit. In fact, one of Reddit’s founders did invest in Product Hunt’s Series A round, which raised US $6.1 Million.
Product hunt has come a long way from just putting up and rating. In a way, it has become a social media platform in its own niche. There’s a system that allows people to follow each other.
Uber
Uber won the ‘Best Overall Startup’ at this year’s Crunchie Awards. Uber’s model and business have allowed myriads of people around the world to travel with suitable partners and cut down on commuting costs. This powerhouse of a startup has raised US $2.6 Billion in two massive funding rounds last year, putting the valuation of the company at US $40 Million.
Uber’s journey has not been the smoothest one. A rape incident in India has casued Uber’s credibility to Nosedive. Furthermore, Uber ran into several issues with the law in various regions. Uber has worked hard to improve their screening systems, improve steady and obtain more reliable vehicle owners in their database. A few nations have lifted bans on Uber and it looks like Uber is poised to become bigger in the future.