Report: Hawaii’s Startup Community Shows ‘Remarkable Growth’
The number of startups in Hawaii has increased from 18 in 2013 to 145 in 2016 and total capital (revenue
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startups
Kids win latest Startup Weekend Honolulu
History was made on Sunday when 12-year-old Buddy Leong, 10-year-old Koko Leong and 6-year-old Kyndra Leong beat out a field of over fifty adults to win first place at Startup Weekend Honolulu. The achievement may represent the youngest team to win a Startup Weekend worldwide.
Founded in 2009, Startup Weekend has been held over 1,200 times in over 560 cities with an estimated 105,000 participants. The Global Startup Battle is now being held in over 250 cities worldwide.
Over 25 individuals pitched an idea on Friday night and the 10 ideas with the most votes went on to recruit a team. The teams had until Sunday afternoon to create a business model, prototype, get customer validation and deliver a five-minute final presentation. They are judged by industry experts and a winner is named.
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Energy Excelerator announces latest cohort
The Energy Excelerator selected 17 startups from a pool of high quality applicants to transform Hawaii’s energy system. Fifty percent of the new portfolio startups has principal team members with previous exits.
“We are excited to work with a new cohort of startups with a ton of experience in running successful companies,†says Dawn Lippert, Director of the Energy Excelerator. “These are really smart people that have vetted technologies and are eager to partner with our local businesses to help solve some of our most difficult energy challenges.â€
The Energy Excelerator’s goal is to strategically address Hawaii’s energy challenges across many different sectors. The 2015 cohort consists of startups with innovative solutions for the State’s energy, transportation, water, and agriculture industries.
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Honolulu happy hour app taps new beacon tech
Happy Hour Pal, a Honolulu-based startup, is the first business to deploy beacon technology into restaurants and bars throughout the state.
Happy Hour Pal is a searchable website and free GPS-based mobile app that allows people to save money while dining out, by locating happy hour specials in their area. Integrating beacon technology will make Happy Hour Pal even easier for users to identify nearby happy hour specials, and provide local businesses an effortless opportunity to engage directly with customers and increase awareness and sales during the most powerful internal promotion – happy hour.
Happy Hour Pal’s website and mobile app users can search for happy hour specials by food, drink, time, and location, and easily access happy hour menus and daily specials for each business. Users can share information via text message and email, and invite friends to join them for happy hour. Users can also earn points for rewards when they check in to a business on the app.
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Hawaii ‘Energy Excelerator’ gets $30M from Navy
The Navy’s Office of Naval Research, under the Asia Pacific Technology Education Program, announced today that it will invest $30 million dollars in the Hawaii-based Energy Excelerator. The new Navy commitment triples the funding that the program operated with over the past three years, showing that they recognize the value of Hawaii as an ideal place for new energy innovation.
The Energy Excelerator funds seed-stage and growth-stage startups with compelling energy solutions and immediate application in Hawaii.
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Local startup aims to help other startups
Is it possible to grow a bootstrapped tech startup in Hawaii? A new boutique solutions and product-focused tech business, Sudokrew Solutions, is looking to answer this question.
Sudokrew is led by local talent Jason Sewell and Spencer Toyama. Sewell is the former lead developer for Outrigger Hotels & Resorts, and Toyama is the former operations director of Kinetiq Labs and the Pele-Award winning Agency Collaborative.
“There are many incredible web developers and designers in Hawaii building the front-facing websites for our local community, and we really want to differentiate our services by focusing on development and enterprise solutions.†stated Spencer Toyama.
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Founder Institute Launching in Hawaii
The Founder Institute, the world’s largest startup accelerator with over 800 graduate companies, is announcing its launch in Honolulu. After
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BizGym partners with Hong Kong accelerator
BizGym.com, an online rapid business plan building program based in Hawaii, has formed a partnership with CyberPort, the largest information technology accellerator in Hong Kong. The relationship was sparked by BizGym.com’s recent partnership in “Hawaii Tech Asia,†a business development tour organized by Hawaii Business and Entrepreneur Acceleration Mentors (HiBeam).
The two companies will create a Chinese language version of the BizGym online entrepreneur’s toolset, branding it as the “Cyberport Business System powered by BizGym.†It will feature team-matching, collaborative business planning and a direct link to Cyberport’s micro-fund application process. Operations will begin by year-end in Hong Kong and mainland China.
Cyberport is a government-owned enterprise, and when breaking news of the partnership on Hawaii Public Radio’s Bytemarks Cafe show last week, BizGym.com founder Steve Sue said that the co-branded arrangement with a prominent Hong Kong organization will likely discourage copycats from diluting the BizGym.com model in Asia.
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