Brighter Earth 8 million dollars from the base to bring affordable dental care to the masses

RIP Empson-writer at TechCrunch. He did not find friends here, he is here to win and you don't forget it. You can contact him at rip [at] techcrunch [dot] com ? more

He was less than three months ago that Jake Winebaum (the same guy who sold Business.com for $ 360 million) quietly started Brighter.com, an online market for discounted dental care. As Erick Schonfeld wrote at the time, Americans pay around $ 55 billion out of Pocket each year on dental bills. Dental plans as their medical brethren, tend to perceive tangible bites out of our wallets without giving much in return. With the exception of the PPO.

Thus Winebaum began Brighter.com allows patients to compare more than 25000 dentists United States price and reputation in an effort to allow those who are in need of dental care in their accounts and to reduce these expenses in cash. Brighter started in May with $ 5 million already in Bank, which he raised the Mayfield Fund, on the basis of the Menlo Park VC firms back in January.

Winebaum Brighter today and added to their investment in General, the closure of the 8 million series b funding round led by benchmark capital. Mayfield also participated in the Serie b promotion.

According to the command to brighten the new infusion of capital from the criteria and the Mayfield Fund will be used to continue a few startup growth initiatives, including ramping up consumer marketing and continues to build on the work of its network of 25 000 dentists offers discounted teeth (approximately one quarter of the total number of dentists in the United States).

A new round of talks, which bringing run total investment of more than $ 13 million (raised in a year and a half), is a testament to the fact that the brighter offers much-needed service. Allowing users to perform a simple search based on location and the procedure for finding the nearest dentists, how much they charge and what type of discounts they currently offer essentially brings comparison shopping dental care is an approach that seems so familiar, it's surprising it hasn't been done before.

Search results include ratings of a dentist, and vicinity, including reviews of Yelp and even allows users to add their own reviews of dentists they visit or as "them on Facebook if they were generous with gas laughs.

Brighter offers 20 to 30% discounts for free and up to 60% off if users purchase the annual plan of $ 79. Startup offers both individual and small business membership with the last value of $ 49 in the employee benefit for many SMBS and startups, aims to provide cheap insurance of its employees.

And the best part? As Schonfeld wrote in may, thanks to the decision, which bypasses insurance, there are no caps and no procedures. Users know how long the procedure will cost immediately, and dentists are buying because they are directly (and immediately) and not have to bargain with the insurance companies after the fact.

This is a smart solution to the chronic problem of insurance, and $ 8 million in the Bank from the criteria and Mayfield certainly doesn't hurt confidence in Winebaum's new approach to reducing dental costs. Although it looks like users of this Forum network doctor students beg to differ.

On the other hand it is probably even Homer Simpson could get excited about the launch.

View the original article here

M5 and partner Bluewolf bring Salesforce in the era of Texting

RIP Empson-writer at TechCrunch. He did not find friends here, he is here to win and you don't forget it. You can contact him at rip [at] techcrunch [dot] com ? more

Given that current projections estimated as 8 trillion text messages will be in 2011, and that people increasingly from landlines to mobile telephony, SMS is becoming an increasingly important part of the communication strategy, business. And this is especially true when it comes to customer service.

As businesses move to SMS for accounting, customer service and CRM, they are encountering several problems, among them the fact that customers often have separate numbers for voice and text, and send messages from devices or applications, SMS outside of the company's CRM system difficult to manage and write for quality.

M5, VoIP and phone service provider for business, in partnership with Bluewolf (business consultancy firm) announce handy tool (the so-called "M5 business SMS"), to address these challenges, allowing customers to text from your mobile phone by using their business numbers, saving the hassle of having to use two different numbers, or need to use their personal cell for business communications.

But the most notable here is that the M5 is working with Salesforce to integrate this SMS feautre directly into the CRM software Salseforce's. This means that business users can now send and receive SMS using their telephone business, the integration of all text messages to Salesforce "cloud services", which in turn enables the customer service teams for the SMS channel measurable service. According to M5 incoming SMS messages will be automatically applied to the case, Salesforce customers to track conversations and keep complete records of communication with customers.

And, seeing how the business phone number is used as a channel for SMS, users no longer need to have their own separate phone numbers. Enterprise SMS is a great tool for maintenance release or update order status, appointment confirmations, purchase authorization, to name a few. And as businesses increasingly interact with their customers through the text, it becomes less important for these enterprises to track and analyze these interactions compare with client and business data to ensure quality customer service and service.

Not to speak for the 82,000-plus Salesforce customers by offering the ability to send and receive SMS messages from their business phone numbers, eliminating the need for a separate texting app or the phone number definitely comes in handy.

For more check out the M5 SMS business solutions for Salesforce, click here.

View the original article here