After the break, CEO Brian Ziebart presented NavPrescience, a CMU spin-off. Brian says that current GPS systems are “stupid” in that they are, by definition, “slow to learn or understand”. NavPrescience is taking navigation to the next level by predicting and personalizing your routes. Their technology has roots in training automated military vehicles, and they eventually hope to “be the Intel Inside of GPS systems”.

I just experienced this problem myself: Every time I drive from my home in Brooklyn to Pittsburgh (or NJ), it wants to take me through Manhattan because it is technically shorter and faster. Anyone who has ever driven through the Holland Tunnel at all, let alone on a Friday or Saturday evening, knows full well that will never be the fastest route (and certainly not the least stressful).

NavPrescience has an exclusive license for patent-pending predictive and personalized navigation technology. The first part is predictive location-based services. If you’re currently on the highway but haven’t put your destination in, it will suggest locations such as coffee shops where you typically go from here, not where you are here. The personalization understands the types of routes you prefer such as avoiding highways or certain types of roads. It can weigh a route based on the stress, skill, cost and time. (And I’m sure everyone wants their GPS to remember their reference for not driving through the ghetto).

Obviously, if they can penetrate the market there is a big opportunity here. Brian says that they can achieve $36m in revenue by being adopted by just 2.5% of the current GPS-enabled mobile devices. Their model is to be a value-added part of the technology stack. They are hoping that users will be willing to pay a nominal fee on a monthly basis for these features, of which they will see $1. There are also opportunities to improve advertising relevancy based on the predictive features, thus opening up new revenue streams there.

I may not be the typical user here, but I’ve always preferred to pay a premium for features up-front as opposed to paying on a monthly basis. In fact, I recently purchased a GPS that was $40 more than the comparable model but included lifetime traffic services – and I’ve noticed that many of the new systems seem headed in this direction. Some psychology comes into play here – we’re prepared to spend money at the time of purchase, particularly for a consumer electronics purchase – but we’re perhaps becoming more reluctant to sign up for new recurring costs. If NavPrescience were to pursue this pricing model, it may hurt their long-term revenues somewhat but it might also bring in an influx of cash which would help them scale the business quicker and reduce the need for dilutive fundraising.

They are planning to enter the market with a two-phase strategy: to build a smaller scale, “proof of product” solution and then scale the technologies to a higher-level platform. For phase one, they are seeking $300k to build a freemium application which can be delivered to mobile phones and doesn’t necessarily require partnerships with the big GPS makers. They will use this money to hire two additional developers and to cover their infrastructural costs.

Phase two is about integrating the technology in consumer products. They are in the process of bringing in former GPS executives to help them build the partnerships necessary to gain market share. They may need a Series A round at that point to help scale the business, but based on currently revenue projections that will not be required.

Before the break, Geraldine Yong presented LeftRight Studios. LeftRight falls into the category of advergaming and are building a network where brands can engage consumers in a more meaningful and engaging way. They previously launched SmackBots, which broke into the top 100 for action and kids games, and are launching their second game, Katch-Up, today.

Like Zynga, they are a game studio – but rather than trying to sell the game itself or rewards points to the customer, they are partnering with consumer brands to use this as a marketing vehicle. They are building a library of games which brands can use as a baseline and apply their own skins and tweaks to game play, as well as standalone games which have sponsorship and affiliate revenue opportunities.

In order to make these compelling to consumers, Geraldine said these games must be fun and multiplayer but also must reward users for playing them. She also said that leaderboards are an important element in their success. Scores and leaderboards have an uncanny way to incentivize usage, even when they are not tied to any actual “reward” – but when you can win, for example, a free year of Heinz Ketchup for playing or discounts for reaching a certain level, it can be even more compelling.

They have 2 games live today and will be launching several more by Fall 2010. The next game to be released is Boutique Star, a sort of “fashion tycoon” game which will integrate coupons, followed by Parcel Toss. 

Revenue comes from three primary sources: 1) building individual branded games, 2) recurring promotions, coupons and affiliate sales in their existing games and 3) building and running a white-label network as part of a consumer marketing campaign. They expect to break to break even next year and are projecting $12m of revenue by 2014. .

My only concern is whether they will be able to scale the business well. My suggestion would be to focus on the second revenue stream and enable a self-service model and perhaps de-emphasize the one-off marketing games. Geraldine says they are a good acquisition target by a media giant or current competitor; the focus of a short-term exit is perhaps indicative of the scalability challenges they will face.

LeftRight is currently seeking $300k which they will use to aggressively launch the branded network.

The best way I can describe Fooala, presented by CEO David Chen, is Facebook Connect meets OpenTable. They have built an open online ordering process where the order can happen contextually. I am a huge proponent of this distributed approach and inserting yourself contextually and have actually employed this in my own startup.

David says they are “selling food the right way on the Internet.” 58% of restaurant business is takeout and delivery, of which 10% comes from online orders – but only 5% of restaurants currently accept orders online. More importantly, existing closed solutions only allow orders to be taken in a single place, but traffic pales in comparison to social networks and review sites.

Fooala opens up the online ordering process, so a hungry consumer can order while on Yelp, from within the Serious Eats iPhone app, and so on. Their first partner, CollegeBite, is live today.

They are live with over 30 restaurants in Pittsburgh, and are launching pilots in Youngstown and Washington D.C. bringing the total to over 60 restaurants. They are planning to expand into specific markets with direct sales but also opening this up for online enrollment.

They will be cash flow positive by 2010 and are predicting $10m in revenue by 2011. Revenue comes from subscriptions and affiliate sales from the restaurants and are shared with the originating application who integrate the functionality through widgets or by using their API directly.

Fooala is currently looking for seed funding to expand the business.

Nick Pinkston opened the day speaking about CloudFab. Consumers are starting to demand customized experiences. Digital customization is everywhere, in part because it’s so easy, but there’s also been a trend towards customization of physical goods such as NikeID and Build-a-Bear. At the same time, many of these manufacturing machines are running at just 60% of their capacity. CloudFab hopes to solve this with a platform which will allow consumers take advantage of “cloud fabrication”.

In the future, we’ll all have 3D printers and will “build” our mobile phone instead of ordering it. While that may not happen all that soon, CloudFab can offer us effectively the same thing today – the opportunity to “print” a 3D model and letting a supplier with extra capacity bid on the order.

Nick cited the World of Warcraft example, where Blizzard wanted to sell branded toys from the game but had little success selling generic toys. What they realized is that one of the reason gamers were so passionate about the game was their ability to really customize their characters. Now, Blizzard is able to sell physical toys modeled after the actual characters created by the gamers instead of some generic model.

CloudFab has launched a private beta which it will expand to the public and add features to over time. They are planning on launching a full platform in Jan 2010. In June 2010, they are planning on launching a Software Development Kit which will allow others to create a World of Warcraft-like “creator” that can plug into the platform and generate the order request right there.

CloudFab’s competitive advantage in the market is that they do not have to maintain and upgrade the physical fabrication machines. This also allows them to offer a wider array of production capabilities and leverage the free capacity instead of having their own machines which may sit idle.

They expect to be cash-flow positive next year. They recently closed an angel round but are still looking to bring on additional investors who can help them accelerate growth.