Capital Chaos

As It Is, Inc (Buffalo, NY) is an an intellectual capital development and holding company which announced that is has secured 60 percent of its $5 million venture funding target according to the company. As It Is raised the funds entirely from local private Western New York investors. The company will use the funds to enhance the customer experience of its first web-based service, TrueThinker.com, while launching the service worldwide. The company also will build its development and management team while marketing to several new vertical segments.

Started in 1999 at the University of Buffalo, the group assembled a portfolio of technologies and related intellectual property including the AutoGnome™ and recently developed a commercial-ready business venture to exploit and capitalize on over 40 years of development.

The TrueThinker application is pretty cool and lets users categorize your website links, after its patented Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology called the “AutoGnome™” learns about what data you save and how you organize it.   It also helps users

• manage files, RSS feeds, links, images and more and;
• share knowledge easily with - and learn from - communities of people interested in the same topics you are, whether sports such as baseball, bird watching and fly fishing, or medical issues, such as allergies and diabetes, or any other areas of interest.
• access TrueThinker and your organized bookmarks and files from any computer, making your accumulated knowledge on just about anything accessible from anywhere.

A yearlong subscription to TrueThinker costs $24.95 and a 30-day trial is available.

The list of private investors into As It Is was not released but it was interesting to see that technology companies outside both the Valley, NYC and Massachusetts are being funded.  While it is unusual for a company to say that it has only raised 60% of their target funds, it can also be used as a great marketing play to make people aware of who you are and solicit funding that way.

Just a small word of advice to the guys at both companies, take some of the new found capital and build a website that will inspire people to want to invest in you.  The sites they both have look like they were developed in the late 90’s.