A new search company called Implicit Interfaces tied for first place with a biotech venture at the 10th annual UC Berkeley Business Plan Competition at the University of California, Berkeley’s Haas School of Business.
Implicit Interfaces’ business is described like this on the UC Berkeley contest web site: A very low percentrage of apparel sales are conducted online resulting in a loss of tens of billions of dollars each year for the apparel industry. To solve this problem, Implicit Interfaces has created a revolutionary new search technology that leverages computer vision and machine learning techniques. Using this technology, online retailers will increase conversion rates, increase browsing times, and create a remarkably better consumer experience.
The team consists of three UC Berkeley Ph.D. students in computer science.
The two winning teams share a $25K prize.
Other IT ventures among the finalists, with the business descriptions as presented on the contest web site:
Carsala :
Carsala leverages its proprietary technology to make used car buying a hassle-free process and save car buyers thousands of dollars. Using its proprietary technology, Carsala acts as a buyer’s agent, finding the right car and negotiating with dealers to obtain the lowest price possible. Carsala has proven its technology in the last six months, saving thousands of dollars for its customers: 25-30% below Kelley Blue Book on average.
Kebima :
Kebima is an experience-sharing platform that leverages the ubiquitous access of mobile devices, harnesses the collective perspectives of users, and establishes an event-based online community. Our mission is to create a crowdsourced open-content platformwhere individuals can contribute, read, and consolidate the latest snippets related to an event while interacting with each other live. Our product empowers “social reporters” to report live and publish origianl media to “social viewers” and enables “social organizer”s to consolidate and generate an article for additional event coverage.
LReady :
LReady uses web and telephony technology to give families a way to get prepared in less than five minutes for a natural disaster. LReady also offers a free disaster planning tool that helps families build an online emergency plan that monitors their status and generates a recommended list of readiness supplies that can be purchased through the company’s ecommerce site. LReady was purchased in 2007 and is currently based in the UC Berkeley Entrepreneurship Laboratory.
Reporterist helps journalists monetize high quality, original news content. To date, there is no eBay for news that connects editors with original, well reported content, and makes the transaction itself more efficient. Reporterist built such a content marketplace and will build a publishing platform that helps niche entrepreneurial publishers create professional online magazines.
Hmmmmm. Might need to check out Reporterist…
Meanwhile, tis’ the season for business plan contests. The winner will be crowned Wednesday for the MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition‘s business plan segment (a look at the semi-finalists ). Audience members will vote for a $10,000 winner via cellphone, though the big overall prize is worth $100K.
