On May 27th the Ynext Incubator held its first annual Demo Day, where the inaugural cohort of companies revealed their cutting edge innovations after months of hard work and preparation. Eight companies entered the incubator in November 2014, receiving mentorship, technical assistance and capital. Supported by a series of boot camps, they drove towards a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) and honed their value proposition. We were excited to see over 200 people attend Demo Day at the Palo Alto JCC – ranging from VC, angel and private equity investors to bankers, entrepreneurs, attorneys, Yodlee® experts, and other influencers. At Demo Day, the following 8 companies had 8 minutes to present:
- Accredify verifies accredited investors and allows for a secure environment to invest in startups and private equity.
- DRAFT is a crowdsourced investment tool that compares the returns, fees and allocation of your portfolio to top performers.
- Evolved Bookkeeping is a cloud platform to facilitate, automate and optimize the bookkeeping process.
- Fidor US is providing a more personalized and transparent banking experience for urban professionals.
- Open Capital Exchange is a P2P small business lender that taps into local networks for credit signals and distribution.
- Roostify digitizes the home loan experience, making the process easier for borrowers and lenders alike.
- Telito is developing a discovery product that remains in stealth.
- VOATZ enables citizens to safely vote in elections directly through their smartphones.
Investors that attended include Warburg Pincus, Bodega Partners, Acceleprise, Crosslink Capital, LaunchCapital, Global Catalyst Partners, Voyager Capital, Blumberg Capital, Cohesive Ventures, TriplePoint Capital, Square 1 Bank, Advance Ventures, Focus Ventures, Renren, Foundation Capital, Relay Ventures, Draper University, Sierra Ventures, Canaan Partners, Onset Ventures, ITB Venture Capital, Technology Crossover Ventures, Envision Ventures, etc. According to Patrick Mork, Board Advisor at Connect and F50, "It's always great to see startups shaking things up and reaching for the sky. I really enjoyed Ynext Incubator Demo Day. From making it easier for private investors to make private equity investments online to providing credit to help turbo charge SMB's growing 40% of America's businesses, there was something for everyone. I look forward to seeing the next batch in 2016." Demo Day generated a flurry of tweets and below are some highlights: 
Congrats to our Twitter contest winners – Billy Robins, VP of Business Development at PayNearMe and Alex Beck, Marketing Specialist at Appsurdity – on winning a GoPro and Polaroid Socialmatic Camera! Overall, the event was a great success – with excellent company pitches, live demo stations, investor meetings, and cocktail reception for all to meet and greet. I’d like to congratulate the entrepreneurs who presented and our Yodlee team – Christine Loredo, Jeff Cain, and Jesenia Hernandez – for putting together an amazing Demo Day! Do you have a vision or a prototype in need of financial data? Are you interested in applying for the Fall 2015 class?
