Food righteousness app raises $2 million [Startup Roundup]

Who’s getting money?

Greenpoint’s HowGood, an iOS and Android app that rates foods based on a number of attributes, such as sustainability and social impact, has raised a $2 million seed round, backed by FirstMark Ventures and Highline Capital, according to Crain’s.

Downtown Brooklyn’s Bandwagon was accepted into Hawaii’s Energy Excelerator. The company “will receive $75K in largely non-dilutive investment,” according to a press release, as well as technical assistance. Bandwagon is one of 17 companies to have been accepted into the program.

Who’s making moves?

Final Frontier Design has secured a contract with Houston-based Waypoint 2 Space to provide space suits designed for activities outside the vehicle, according to a press release. The Texas company makes simulations of space-based activities, either to prepare people for commercial space travel or to give them something like a space travel experience while still here on Earth. Final Frontier itself recently created its own terrestrial space experience, which we covered here.

Alex Blumberg, formerly of NPR’s Planet Money, is starting a company to make high-quality podcasts. His cofounder is another Brooklynite named Matt Lieber. They haven’t revealed much about the actual company yet, but they are documenting the process of building it on a podcast that Blumberg is producing, called StartUp. Episode 4 just came out.

Bitbanger Labs has been shipping out its Pixelstick to Kickstarter backers, according to a Facebook post. The Pixelstick is a lightpainting device that also happens to be one of the most successful Kickstarter campaigns in Brooklyn tech history. The startup has been publishing tutorials on how to use the device and releasing packs of readymade images that users can paint onto scenes with their device.

In an email to Technical.ly Brooklyn, CEO Pat Phelan said that Irish startup, TrustEv, which had opened an office in Brooklyn, has expanded its staff here and relocated to Manhattan.

Who’s getting buzz?

The Brooklyn Army Terminal’s synthetic meat startup, Modern Meadow, got a note in Business Insider Australia and H+ Magazine.

Several recent pieces on the rise of podcasts as a business (in the Guardian, Fast Company and the Washington Post) all mention StartUp.