SiliconHills

The biggest challenge for Austin and the Texas Legislature is tackling school finance, according to Austin District 7 Council Member Leslie Pool. “More than half of the property taxes that are paid by Austin homeowners, commercial properties and businesses go back to the state under recapture,” Pool said. That’s more than $400 million this year […]

It may be the heart of the summer and the Texas heat is going strong, but that doesn’t mean technology activity has slowed down in Austin. Silicon Hills News has highlighted five events to attend in Austin this week. TUESDAY– WeWork and the Austin Tech Alliance will host a tech town hall meeting with Councilwoman […]

In the first ever Austin WeWork Creator Awards, seven Austin entrepreneurs won $845,000 in financial grants and now head to New York City fo the final event. The biggest winner, GrubTubs, took home $360,000 in the scale category, the top prize at the event held at Austin City Limits Live at Moody Theater Tuesday night. […]

Austin-based Mood Media Corp. announced Wednesday its acquisition by several investors including Apollo Global Management and GSO Capital Partners. Mood Media, the parent company of Muzak, is now privately-held and its stock will no longer trade on the Toronto Stock Exchange. The investors paid 17 cents per share Canadian for Mood Media’s stock. The deal […]

AT&T on Tuesday announced the second trial of its ultra-fast 5G network throughout more locations in Austin. Last year, the Dallas-based company completed the industry’s first wireless 5G business customer trial in Austin. The company’s second trial delivers “an ultra-fast internet connection to residential, small business and enterprise customers using Ericsson’s 5G RAN and the […]

Austin-based SparkCognition, a startup focused on artificial intelligence, announced Monday that it has closed on $32.5 million in funding. Verizon Ventures led the Series B funding round with participating from The Boeing Company, through its Boeing HorizonX unit. “SparkCognition has pioneered the use of artificial intelligence to bring unparalleled advancements to many of the world’s […]

Austin-based HomeAway announced it has signed a lease to occupy a new 16 story office tower in The Domain in the first quarter of 2019. The vacation rentals company reports the new 315,000 square foot location will be able to accommodate more than 2,000 employees. “As a global company headquartered in Austin and as the […]

This week, WeWork announced 11 Austin companies have been selected as finalists for The Creator Awards South Regional Final, which will be held next week at ACL Line. WeWork selected the finalists from more than 2,000 applications from all across the south. The event is Tuesday, June 27 at ACL Live at The Moody Theater, […]

One of the latest startups to spin out of the University of Texas at Austin, GenXComm has received a $1.5 million seed round of financing. The Austin-based startup is focused on doubling the amount of traffic a wireless network can handle. Its patent-pending technology is called S-SIX. FAM Capital Partners led the investment with investments […]

Rishi Bhilawadikar created the movie, “For Here or to Go?” to tell the story of H1-B Visa workers in the U.S. living in limbo. He knows the story firsthand. For 12 years, Bhilawadikar, a native of India, has been in the U.S. first under a graduate student Visa at Indiana University and later as a […]

By LAURA LOREK Publisher and reporter with Silicon Hills News Creating a great company culture isn’t just about having perks like free lunches, Ping Pong tables, and nap rooms. “They are important in a sense,” said Courtney Branson, head of culture at Square Root in Austin. “Having a Ping Pong table does bring people together […]

Amazon announced Friday plans to buy Austin-based Whole Foods Market in a deal valued at $13.7 billion. “Millions of people love Whole Foods Market because they offer the best natural and organic foods, and they make it fun to eat healthy,” Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder, and CEO said in a news release. “Whole Foods Market […]

Procore Technologies, which makes construction management software, is hosting a Summer Solstice Kick-Off party next Thursday. And you’re invited. The event takes place at Procore’s Austin office at 221 W. 6th Street on the 18th floor starting at 5:30 p.m. It features light dinner and drinks, but you must RSVP. “It’s not often that we […]

Since launching in 2012, Eagle Eye Networks has become the largest cloud-based video surveillance provider in North America. It’s also the largest cloud-based video surveillance provider in Asia. And now, it’s set its sights on becoming the largest cloud-based video surveillance provider in Europe. On Thursday, Eagle Eye Networks announced the acquisition of Panasonic Cloud […]

CognitiveScale announced Tuesday that is has received an additional $15 million in venture capital for product development of its augmented intelligence products. Norwest Venture Partners, Intel Capital, Microsoft Ventures, the Westly Group and USAA provided the investment. To date, the Austin-based startup has raised $50 million. “We are excited about the future AI-enabled enterprise, and […]

If you’re an entrepreneur, you know getting a small start-up operation successfully up and running requires a watchful eye on the bottom line. Maybe you can spring for a ping pong table in the snack room, but you can’t imagine footing the bill for health insurance for you, your employees and families. You might be […]

By Nicholas White Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief and CEO of The Daily Dot Reprinted with permission from ATLAS, a quarterly publication on entrepreneurs from Acton School of Business If you don’t live by your values even when doing so can hurt you, then you don’t really have values. I don’t remember where I first read that, but […]

Digital Pharmacist announced Tuesday that it has closed on a $6.5 million round of financing. Activate Venture Partners, based in New York, and LiveOak Venture Partners in Austin led the Series B financing round. The Austin-based startup plans to use the money on marketing and product development. Digital Pharmacist, founded in 2012, provides digital, communications […]

Everfest, a festival aggregation and promotions site, announced this week it has raised $3.6 million in funding. Live Nation co-led the series A round along with ATX Seed Ventures. Other investors included Red Frog Events, Chip Conley and Bob Kagle. The company plans to use the funds to hire key employees and on product development […]

Governor Greg Abbott on Monday signed House Bill 100 which provides statewide regulation of popular ride-hailing companies. And Lyft and Uber both began providing rides in Austin once again. The law is effective immediately. It overrides local laws passed by cities like Austin to govern ride hailing companies. “Texas has longtime been the home for […]

By LAURA LOREK Publisher and Reporter with Silicon Hills News More than 800 people turned out Thursday night at ACL Live at the Moody Theater to celebrate 17 companies that made the Austin Chamber’s 2017 Austin A-List of the Hottest Startups. “In many ways, A-List is a lot like SXSW in that it helps shine […]

Uber and Lyft, the ride hailing companies, that rode off into the sunset a year ago when they couldn’t reach agreement with local officials, have announced plans to return to Austin on Monday. “Austin is an incubator for technology and entrepreneurship, and we are excited to be back in the mix. Our local team is […]

Billionaire Mark Cuban is leading a $1.5 million seed round investment into Austin-based Meta SaaS, which runs a platform for managing software as a service subscriptions for companies. The startup announced the investment this week which also includes Bazaarvoice and data.world Founder Brett Hurt and participation from Barracuda Networks, Capital Factory, Deep Space Ventures and […]

Austin is known for innovative startups. And the Austin Chamber of Commerce shines a spotlight on the best and brightest every year at its annual A-List Of Hottest Startups Awards. The event, which takes place next Thursday from 4:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. at ACL Live at the Moody Theater, is one of the city’s […]

A bill that would let the state of Texas govern transportation network companies like Uber and Lyft passed the Texas Senate this week and is now awaiting Gov. Greg Abbott’s signature to become law. Texas HB 100 would regulate all transportation network companies, also known as ride hailing companies, operating in Texas and require them […]

Usabili.me this week officially launched its app that lets companies remotely moderate conversations online with customers in a few simple and easy steps. The Austin-based startup is aiming the product at the design and research community that wants to improve website performance and other products. The cloud-based subscription service provides fast and easy feedback from […]

Google announced Wednesday in a blog post that it has acquired Austin-based Owlchemy Labs, a virtual reality game developer. “Together, we’ll be working to create engaging, immersive games and developing new interaction models across many different platforms to continue bringing the best VR experiences to life,” according to the Google blog post. The financial terms […]

Opcity, which has created a data and analytics driven technology platform for real estate agents and brokers, Wednesday announced it has raised $27 million in funding. Icon Ventures, based in Silicon Valley, led the Series A round with participation from Georgian Partners and LiveOak Venture Partners. As part of the funding deal, Tom Mawhinney, of […]

Dropoff, the same day delivery service, announced this week it has raised $8.5 million in additional funding. The Austin-based startup, founded in 2014, plans to use the money to expand to 35 additional markets in North America, according to a news release. Last week, Dropoff announced it had entered three new markets: San Diego, Fort […]

NarrativeDX, an artificial intelligence platform that lets healthcare providers communicate with patients, announced Tuesday it has raised a round of funding. The Austin-based startup, founded in 2014, didn’t reveal the funding amount but reported it was led by LiveOak Venture Partners, Cultivation Capital and HealthX Ventures. Last year, in a profile on the company by […]

Austin-based eRelevance Corp, which makes a marketing platform for small to medium sized businesses to engage customers, Tuesday announced it has closed a $5.1 million round of funding. The company, founded in 2013, plans to use the funds to accelerate its growth by hiring more sales and marketing staff and to further develop its marketing […]

By LAURA LOREK Reporter with Silicon Hills News Plato said: “Those who tell the stories rule society.” That is why fake news is so harmful to everyone. At Silicon Hills News, the news is real. For the past six and a half years, I’ve worked without a paycheck to bring technology news to the people […]

Lepide announced Wednesday that it has selected Austin for the site of its new global headquarters. The company, founded in 2005, also has offices in London and New Delhi and employs 236 people worldwide. It expects to have more than 50 people in its Austin office located at 600 Congress Avenue within the next 18 […]

EverlyWell, the Austin-based healthcare testing platform, announced Wednesday that it has received $2 million more in venture capital funding. The company, founded two years ago by Julia Cheek, the company’s CEO, has received $5 million in total funding. NextGen Venture Partners led the round with participation from Jack Novak, SoGal Ventures, Full Tilt Capital and […]

Bitfusion, an Austin-based startup, announced Tuesday that it has received $5 million in venture capital funding. Vanedge Capital led the Series A round with participation from new investor Sierra Ventures and existing investors Data Collective, Resonant VC and Geekdom Fund. Bitfusion, which participated in the 2015 Techstars Cloud program in San Antonio, makes specialized software […]

The Central Texas Angel Network, known as CTAN, is once again one of the most active angel investment networks in the country, by number of deals done in 2016, according to the 2016 HALO report. The Angel Resource Institute, along with PitchBook, released the annual report last week. In 2016, the most active angel groups […]

By LAURA LOREK Publisher and reporter with Silicon Hills News The latest presentations at the Innovation Center’s monthly StARTup Studio at the University of Texas at Austin show the variety of problems professor led startups are tackling. They included an acoustic monitoring technology to improve coffee roasting, a handheld laser device to shape bones and […]

By LAURA LOREK Publisher and Reporter at Silicon Hills News At South by Southwest, Guy Goldstein came up with the idea for WriterDuet when meeting with screenwriters and filmmakers. Goldstein created a platform, similar to Google Docs, to allow writers to collaborate on projects. Today, WriterDuet has more than 25,000 monthly users with 2,000 new […]

Optimizely, based in San Francisco, announced Wednesday it has purchased Austin-based Experiment Engine. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Experiment Engine, a graduate of the Austin Techstars program, creates tools and services that help companies test products online. Claire Vo, Experiment Engine’s CEO and Founder, will join Optimizely and continue to manage […]

CM First Group, a software company, announced it has raised $1.2 million in funding. The Austin-based company plans to use the funds for the expansion of its software tools and services. The Central Texas Angel Network and Lone Rock Technology Group with Capital Factory participating led the investment. CM First appointed Clint Whitaker of CTAN […]

Factom, a blockchain technology company, announced Tuesday that it has closed on $8 million in funding. The Austin-based startup closed its Series A round with additional investment from Peeli Ventures, Harvest Equity and a number of Austin investors. In October, Factom announced it had closed its Series A round with $4.2 million in investment from […]

The Central Texas Angel Network reported its members invested $14.2 million into 43 companies in 2016. CTAN members made 15 new investments and 28 follow on investments into existing portfolio companies. That compares to $13.3 million invested in 43 companies in 2015. The nonprofit organization also saw a 40 percent increase in 2016 in the […]

Austin-based LeanDNA, a data and analytics platform for factories, on Monday announced it closed on a $4.5 million round of funding. Austin-based Next Coast Ventures led the Series A round. LeanDNA received a seed stage investment from Rony Kahan, co-founder of Indeed. LeanDNA, founded in 2011, plans to use the funding to expand sales, marketing, […]