Gummicube Inc, Patient Army Inc and Piggyback Media were selected as Fund-able-50 at the Private Pitch Demo event held at Perkins Coie, Palo Alto.

• First-place Winner Gummicube, Inc(is also the Winner of Jan 2014 monthly Pitch Demo Day): “Gummicube helps apps find their audience in App Store search.”

Gummicube offers a full service App Store Optimization solution. App Store Optimization is like SEO for Apps. It improves app distribution by increasing Search Ranking for apps in an App Store. Gummicube leverages exclusive data from inside the App Store and proprietary technologies to help apps improve their search rank and increase organic downloads and revenue from App Store search.

Dave Bell, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Gummicube, Inc

Dave Bell is the Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Gummicube. In this role, Dave is responsible for overseeing the business strategy for the company, driving growth and market development. Dave is a pioneer of the mobile entertainment industry with more than 15 years of experience publishing, marketing and distributing mobile applications and games across carrier, direct to consumer and app store channels.

Prior to co-founding Gummicube, Dave was a member of Playphone’s founding team and served as SVP, Business Development & Strategy. Playphone was one of the first direct-to-consumer channels for mobile entertainment, growing to $100M in annual revenue during his tenure. Prior to Playphone, Dave was the founder of Chasma Publishing. Chasma was one of the first publishers of mobile games in the world and was responsible for releasing some of the first downloadable apps on carrier networks. Chasma merged with Kayak Interactive and was sold to Oberon Media in 2005.

• Second-place Winner Patient Army Inc(is also the Runner of Jan 2014 monthly Pitch Demo Day): “PatientArmy is a crowd-sourced marketplace that gets money back on your medical bills by resolving billing errors.”

Healthcare is broken. Medical billing errors cost patient $110B a year annually. Over 100 million health insurance claims are declined each year and a majority of them are wrongfully denied. Detecting and fixing these errors are challenging, as it requires analyzing and cross-referencing jargon-loaded bills, medical records and insurance coverage details. PatientArmy makes medical billing advocacy accessible to consumers by making it easy for patients to find answers to questions on their medical bill.

 Vj Anma, Founder and CEO

Vj Anma is a serial entrepreneur who has built and sold Internet and mobile companies. He sold Visual Search Engine Company, YoMeta.com in 2009 and AppMe.com in 2012.

• Third-place Winner Piggyback Media: “Piggyback makes it easy to connect with people who would otherwise be inaccessible by incentivizing them to reply with a payment.”

Piggyback lets you chat privately with artists, entertainers, and celebrities. Meet your favorite band without having to book them for a private gig, exchange pictures with a celebrity stylist instead of flying to LA, or talk with a storied athlete you revered as a kid. As an artist, entertainer, or athlete, earn money by chatting with your fans and sharing personal experiences and content. Answer, entertain, contribute—you’re paid automatically when you reply, and there’s no need to schedule appointments, track your time, or establish billing relationships.

Eric Martin, Co- Founder at Piggyback Media

Eric Martin is co-founder and CEO of Piggyback Media, a startup developing a messaging system that’s recognized as the first practical way for individuals to engage directly and privately with celebrities and leading subject matter experts.  Prior to Piggyback, Eric led west coast sales at network behavior analytics company Mazu Networks.  He was also VP, Sales at predictive network analysis company Opnet Technologies, where he helped guide the company through a successful IPO.  Eric holds BS and MS degrees from MIT, two in Engineering and one in Public Policy, and an MFA degree from the California College of the Arts.   

Job Opending Description:  Piggyback, an early stage, San Francisco Bay Area mobile startup is looking for a sharp software engineer with iOS or C programming experience.  Our venture will appeal to developers interested in asynchronous user-facing messaging systems like chat, IM, SMS, or Twitter, or the emerging issues surrounding mobile payments.  We’re especially interested in speaking with candidates interested in (and capable of) assuming a lead role.