We were really honored to have Tech Cocktail in town last night hosting its first startup and entrepreneurial mixer in Minnesota. The event was held at CoCo Minneapolis (on the floor of the historic Grain Exchange in downtown Minneapolis). I’m here to tell you it was a blockbuster success! More than 200 people were in attendance.
I’ve been *so* wanting these folks to come to our town, and was delighted to represent Minnov8 at the event, along with my colleague Steve Borsch. Tech Cocktail’s events have the stated purpose of “helping connect, amplify, and showcase the local technology scene” — and it’s now held such events in more than 20 cities, founder Frank Gruber told me. The local sponsors who made this one happen were W3i and Ovative Group — kudos to them! 
(And a special shout-out to our friend Kim Garretson.)
It was a really fun evening, with a group of technologists, investors, bloggers, and entrepreneurs as diverse as I’ve seen at a local tech event, mingling and learning about a great group of local startups that were selected by the TechCocktail folks to show their stuff:
Best Attendance – Take attendance, manage event schedules, and update membership rosters online.
BookBottles – Reserve VIP service at the hottest clubs in the world.
ByME – A digital community that is powered through user connections and location to provide an easier way to navigate and interact.
Fantools (Four51) – Connects businesses and customers so businesses can deliver relevant deals to active consumers.
fitparel – Find correct size apparel no matter the brand – just enter a brand that fits you, and they will recommend other brands.
Proliphiq and Shopntella (Echidna Inc.) – Proliphiq delivers credible people, topics, and content to you, while Shopntella lets you shop with the wisdom of crowds.
My Gluten Free Deals – Deep discounts at gluten free-friendly restaurants and on gluten free products.
ServerCyde – Build web apps for most platforms, in the least amount of time, with only one language and zero server configuration
TelemetryWeb – Their AgSphere tool helps manufacturers of agriculture technology build solutions that harvest data from the farm.
Toovio Software – A real-time decision-making solution that is focused on centralized orchestration of each customer marketing interaction across every channel.
Zingstring – An intuitive, web-based interface for non-technical folks (marketers, customer service people, etc) to create pre-programmed conversations that are triggered by keywords in incoming messages, on Twitter, Facebook, SMS, and other messaging platforms.
I shot some pix during the event and posted a Flickr set. Thanks again to Frank Gruber and his great team at Tech Cocktail! We’d love to have you folks back soon — how about twice a year? : – )