Thursday, November 1, 2012

Chewse Joins 500 Startups

Silicon valley startup incubator program 500 Startups announced its latest batch of startups Wednesday, with a surprise: a local, Santa Monica firm among the fifth batch of companies being backed by the accelerator. 500 Startups said that Santa Monica-based Chewse, which is developing a marketplace for groups to easily order food together, has joined the accelerator, which invests between $25,000 and $250,000 in Internet startups, and helps them get funded and off the ground. Chewse was founded by Tracy Lawrence and Jeff Schenck. Schenck was formerly at Adly. The idea of group ordering might be familiar to those in the Santa Monica startup scene; now defunct BetterWorks had offered a similar feature which let employees of companies put in and coordinate individual orders from restaurants for delivery to the office.

---