With $3M invested in its graduates, UpWest Labs unveils six new startups

PALO ALTO, Calif., Oct. 31, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- At a Demo Day held in Palo Alto, UpWest Labs unveiled six new under-the-radar startups from its third graduating class of their startup accelerator focused on supporting Israel's best entrepreneurs.  The six startups presented a broad spectrum of technologies including context-aware & mobile content solutions, data mining & semantic technologies, mobile ecommerce platform and online video infrastructure.

They include:

Drippler – helps users make the most of their mobile devices. With over 2.6M downloads, Drippler is one of the Top Free News apps on Google Play.  The app automatically analyzes and detects the device it runs on, and provides personalized usage tips, software updates, app recommendations, accessory reviews and more on a daily basis. 

Peer5 – helps video content providers improve video quality of experience while reducing delivery costs. The company disrupts the traditional model by delivering parts of the video directly between the users, using emerging html5 technologies that run seamlessly within the browser. Users will experience no video buffering, and are not required to download or install any software. 

Tenfoot – creates beautiful, tablet-adapted online stores. With the growing market of mobile and tablet-based commerce, many online stores are unable to launch a native app or hire designers and developers to keep up with latest trends. Tenfoot automatically creates a web-based tablet-adapted version of their store in less than 3 minutes.

AutomateIt – a context-aware android app that makes your smartphone smarter.  The startup has developed a unique technology enabling users to automate their daily tasks on their smartphone.  For example, switching to silent mode when detecting a calendar meeting, switching off certain apps when the phone battery runs low, starting your favorite music or navigation app when headset or blue-tooth are plugged-in, etc.  Its vibrant user-base has translated the app to 14 languages, and shared over 3,000 automation rules through the newly launched marketplace.    

KeyWee – brings social context to every user in every site on every platform. The startup developed proprietary text mining algorithms that extract ~2,000,000 items from the user's Facebook feed, creating a "social score" for items such as books, movies, and restaurants.  When users browse their favorite sites, the KeyWee app highlights the top-scoring items it finds on the page. KeyWee is offered as a browser plug-in, a web-based widget for publishers and a tablet app.

HoneyBook – helps newlyweds share their wedding and inspire future couples. Honeybook is a beautiful online experience that aggregates photos, videos and music created during a wedding. It also allows the couple to recommend the DJ, make-up artist, caterers, and others that helped create the wedding.  Many Honeybooks are already being created as wedding photographers use the site to manage and share the photos with the couples. 

"The tech talent and ingenuity of Israeli entrepreneurs continue to stand out especially at the intersection of big ideas and a growing market. The uniqueness of UpWest Labs entrepreneurs is in their commitment to building a global company at an early stage bringing on board the Valley 'know-how' to their existing tech brilliance," said Shuly Galili, Co-founder of UpWest Labs.

In addition, UpWest Labs announced that over $3M has been invested in its graduating startups in the past five months, with two recent announcements this month from graduates Contacts+ and Preen.me. The investments came from US and International funds such as Horizons Ventures (Li Ka-Shing), Tencent, TMT, Genesis Partners, TriplePoint Ventures and notable Silicon Valley angels.

About UpWest Labs
UpWest Labs was founded in January 2012 in Silicon Valley as the only accelerator program in the US serving Israeli startup entrepreneurs.  To date, it enabled over 50 Israeli entrepreneurs to build their product closer to their market, establish strong partnerships and create valuable product momentum. The accelerator provides a mentorship-based 3-month program offering startups a small seed investment, essential resources, and access to a robust network of experts, customers and capital.

www.upwestlabs.com and on Twitter @upwestlabs

SOURCE UpWest Labs