OCTANe's Technology Investor Forum Showcases Orange County's Emerging Tech Startup Companies

ALISO VIEJO, CA--(Marketwired - May 26, 2016) - At OCTANe's Technology Investor Forum (TIF), the organization's LaunchPad™ SBDC program showcased six promising tech startup companies that are looking to change the tech landscape within their respective areas. The two-day forum, attended by a record 700 people last week at the Hotel Irvine, brought tech-focused entrepreneurs and investors together to discuss key topics facing the tech industry in Orange County and worldwide. 

As part of the program, six LaunchPad companies were selected to present to a panel of eight active investors, vying for the right to receive one-on-one meetings with each. LaunchPad assisted the companies in preparing well-developed business plans and strategies for commercializing their products and raising capital.

The companies included:

• Meridian AR, (Robert Brown, CEO) an augmented reality platform that allows industries to create specific applications to explain their products in situations and locations matching their customers' environment and context and convert those presentations to revenue.
• NarrativeWave, (Ben Decio, CEO) a Software as a Service analytics and natural language generation platform that takes real-time operational data from high-value industrial equipment and generates "narratives" that decrease costs, improves workflow efficiency and increases profitability on multi-billion dollar service contracts sold by large, global manufacturers.
• Monet Networks, (Anurag Bist, Founder and CEO) A Software as a Service platform that captures, tracks and analyses video content in real time and at scale using non-verbal cues from online viewers to determine audience preferences and insights to optimize video effectiveness, initially targeting the video advertising business.
• Pandexio, (John Burge, CEO) a Software as a Service platform for enterprises creating segments of information embedded in existing communications and information systems that are easily retrievable in context for training and worker education.
• Mobilize Solutions, (Aaron Horvath, CEO) an ad-tech company specializing in social media branding using geo-location to dynamically add branding to user generated photos and creating incentives for the users to upload the photos to their social media, creating a better alternative to paid advertising.
• @ Your Gate, (PJ Mastracchio, CEO) a mobile app platform connecting travelers to an airport concierge service delivering food and other goods to travelers at their gates using brand ambassadors.

After the judging, NarrativeWave and Meridian AR were announced as the winners of the presentation competition.

"The LaunchPad presentations are always such an important component to TIF, and each of these companies had experienced CEO's and several had led previous start ups to liquidity events," said Bill Carpou, president and CEO of OCTANe. "These companies demonstrated strong B2B models with recurring revenue and a sales pipeline of large organizations capable of accelerating growth and profitability -- we're proud to help facilitate that growth."

The presentations were evaluated by eight active investors, including Nate Raabe and Jared Schramm from ROTH Capital Partners; Mark Adkins from Muir Capital; Bob Drobish, a private tech investor; Tristan Snyder of Intrepid Investment Bankers; Len Brandt from Brandt Ventures; Grant van Cleve of VC Invest and Tech Coast Angels and Brad Costello of BRC Ventures.

Since 2005, OCTANe's LaunchPad SBDC has worked with startup tech and life science companies in Orange County. By using a unique predictive analytics technique to position the companies and their underlying business models, LaunchPad helps these companies make effective presentations to investors. Since inception, the LaunchPad SBDC panel process has evaluated over 300 companies, and of that number, 210 have successfully raised over $1.1 billion in investment capital.

OCTANe's next event is the Ophthalmology Technology Summit on June 21, 2016 held at the Center Club at 650 Town Center Drive in Costa Mesa.

About OCTANe 

OCTANe drives technology industry growth and innovation in Orange County by connecting ideas and people with resources and capital. Its members represent Orange County technology executive leaders, entrepreneurs, investors, venture capitalists, academicians, and strategic advisors, all working together to fuel innovation in the OC. The organization has helped more than 800 companies via the LaunchPad™ SBDC accelerator. LaunchPad™-certified companies have received more than $1.1 billion in investment and equity exits. OCTANe annually welcomes more than 7,000 people to its programs and events. More than 2,000 business leaders throughout the Orange County region are OCTANe members. For more information, visit www.octaneoc.org.