Everyone loves March. Some bask in the onset of spring, others revel in March Madness, and those in the tech community know only one thing: SXSW Interactive.
The festival returns this week for its 23nd year, where the greatest minds in the tech and digital space gather for a week of sharing ideas. Many are headed down to Texas to represent LA tech. Some are up for awards, others are there to demo their companies and still others are just there to drink and get weird. Here are some of the companies representing Los Angeles this year:
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Stand 1040
Laguna Hills, CA
The Centercode beta management platform is built to handle every aspect of managing a beta test. Centercode helps you grow a community of profiled candidates, select the most qualified testers, collect feedback, share results, and much more. Best of all, it centralizes your entire beta program via a single highly-integrated system.
Stand 446
Irvine, CA
Candy Lab's proprietary mobile toolset, CandyBAR (blended augmented reality) which is a private-label, location based augmented reality mobile marketing platform. In english, CandyBAR captures the user at point A, and sends them to point B — the cash register.
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Stand 108, 110
Los Angeles, CA
Hive Lighting Inc. is an American manufacturer of plasma lights, a brand new energy efficient technology for use in photography, film production, broadcast, and live events. Hive’s plasma fixtures provide completely flicker free full spectrum daylight that can be plugged into any wall socket worldwide.
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Stand 809
Santa Monica, CA
Krue is a new live streaming platform where musicians perform, share, and engage with their audience in real time. Viewers can discover new artists and watch their favorites from their phone or desktop and interact with them like never before, creating an intimate music experience like never before.
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Monkey Challenges
Stand 1543
Orange County, CA
1UP Challenges solve daily un-noted issues by providing a platform that handles all online marketing, multi-person crowd funding, and social online distribution with a click of the button.
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Stand 1252 (MON)
Santa Monica, CA
A platform where you can invest in music. Could there be a more fitting tech service for SXSW?
Qnap
Stand 1019
Pomona, CA
QNAP aims to deliver comprehensive offerings of cutting edge network attached storage (NAS) solutions featured with ease-of-use, robust operation, large storage capacity, and trustworthy reliability. QNAP integrates technologies and designs to bring forth quality products that effectively improve business efficiency on file sharing, virtualization applications, storage management and surveillance in the business environments, as well as enrich entertainment life for home users with the offering of a fun multimedia center experience.
Sagindie
Stand 213, 215
Los Angeles, CA
SAGindie promotes the working relationship between professional actors and passionate independent filmmakers. As a free resource, SAGindie offers filmmakers clarity and kinship by guiding them through the SAG-AFTRA signatory process.
Stand 309
Irvine, CA
Ten-X is a leading online real estate marketplace, having sold 200,000+ residential and commercial properties totaling more than $34 billion since 2007. Leveraging Internet and mobile technology, Ten-X allows people to safely and easily complete real estate transactions entirely online.
Step and Repeat LA
Stand 211
Shadow Hills, CA
Step and Repeat LA is a one-stop shop for event planners, providing high-quality step and repeat backdrops and red carpets.
Accelerator Finalists & Alternates:
Entertainment and Content Technologies:
Showgo: Talk about your favorite TV shows with everyone, whenever you decide to watch. The Showgo app syncs with your show so you can experience the biggest moments with the world, spoiler-free. Showgo brings the “live tweeting” experience to all audiences. (Alternate)
Innovative World Technologies:
AKA: AKA is developing an AI engine MUSE and its AI robot Musio. The company’s mission is to help the communication between all Things (IoT) including human beings.
: CUJO offers a smart way to fight home hacking. CUJO device connects to cloud-based machine learning services to guard all connected devices against malware and other hacks.
Virtual Reality:
inVR: inVR is a publishing and discovery platform for CG VR experiences. They empower 3D artists and designers to upload and share their visions with their growing community of 30,000 enthusiasts.
Awards:
Innovation in Connecting People: Awarded for the best new way to connect and communicate with others. LA-based Don's Voice is nominated.
Innovative 3-DIY: Awarded for making 3D printing technology more accessible or affordable, or to the Maker using such technology in new and exciting ways. Pasadena-based Respere is nominated.
Privacy & Security: Awarded for 2015’s most progressive accomplishment in the way we go about securing our data and ensuring our privacy. Irvine-based CylancePROTECT is nominated.
Responsive Design: Awarded for excellent digital design, creating the best-integrated interaction in terms of content, aesthetics, and functionality. Venice-based Caress of the Gaze is nominated.
Student Innovation: Awarded to the student with an exceptional interactive technology project or startup; both of which are the future. Redondo Beach-based Watch Dogs is nominated.
VR & AR: Awarded for breakthroughs in augmented and virtual reality technology including the application of new hardware or software which truly make the virtual a reality. No surprise here, two LA-based companies are nominated: The Surrogate and Project Syria.
Have a tip? Let us know or follow us on Twitter @BuiltInLA
Monkey Challenges
