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The Pitch Taxi: Making investor connections at Logan Airport

Posted by Scott Kirsner March 12, 2010 02:11 PM
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scion.jpg
Jeremy Levine's Scion xB is not a licensed cab, but when the Silicon Valley blogger and angel investor Dave McClure sent out a tweet that he was flying into Logan on Tuesday, Levine decided to offer him a lift. 

McClure has been an employee, investor, or advisor to companies like Mint.com, SimplyHired, SlideShare, PayPal, and Facebook, and he was coming to Boston for a series of meetings and events. When Levine, founder of the start-up StarStreet Sports, saw that McClure was headed east, he offered him a ride from the airport. 

Levine said they'd communicated a bit before on Twitter, so McClure wasn't exactly surprised when Levine filled him on on StarStreet, which he calls a "stock market for sports"; you can buy and sell "shares" in professional athletes, which would rise and fall based on their performance, using play money. (Levine's hope is to introduce real money at some point — and he believes he can do it legally.) "He was definitely really interested, and we're going to keep talking, but we're not raising money now," Levine says. 

Earlier this year, Levine and his three co-founders were accepted into the TechStars Boston start-up spring training program. He showed McClure a short video on his iPhone of the TechStars Boston participants beseeching McClure to stop by their office in Central Square, but McClure didn't have the time in his schedule for that. In a tweet about getting a lift from Levine, McClure jokingly referred to Levine's car as the "PitchTaxi" and himself as a "CaptiveVC."

Levine told me that StarStreet did a bit of early testing of its trading system during the NFL season, and they're about to crank up a second test that will run during the March Madness NCAA tournament.

If you'd like to check it out, he has created three invites for Innovation Economy readers: just use the invitation code INNOECO here.
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About Scott Kirsner Scott Kirsner was part of the team that launched Boston.com in 1995, and has been writing a column for the Globe since 2000. His work has also appeared in Wired, Fast Company, The New York Times, BusinessWeek, Newsweek, and Variety. Scott is also the author of the books "Fans, Friends & Followers" and "Inventing the Movies," was the editor of "The Convergence Guide: Life Sciences in New England," and was a contributor to "The Good City: Writers Explore 21st Century Boston." Scott also helps organize several local events on entrepreneurship, including the Nantucket Conference and Future Forward. Here's some background on how Scott decides what to cover, and how to pitch him a story idea.

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