SolarWinds announced it has signed an agreement to buy N-able Technologies for $120 million in cash. Austin-based Solarwinds, which makes information technology management software, expects the deal to close by the end of May. N-able, based in Ottawa, Canada, makes remote monitoring, management and service automated software that is based in what has come to [...]

The March for Innovation kicks off today. The event is designed to raise awareness about immigration reform, said Peter French with Free Flow Research. He’s organizing the San Antonio event for the March for Innovation virtual town hall meeting in the Silver Fox Studios. He’s been working with Jeremy Robbins, the director of the Partnership [...]

Design BIG is a free weekend design workshop for entrepreneurs that our team at Pushstart, an Austin-based industrial and interactive design firm, is organizing. The three-day event is designed to help entrepreneurs design their product with customers in mind. During the weekend, design consultants will help the entrepreneurs. The weekend features a series of lectures, [...]

Spot on Sciences‘ Founder Jeanette Hill credits the RampCorp program at Texas State University with helping her launch her venture. RampCorp is designed primarily for women entrepreneurs who want to build a scalable business. Spot on Sciences won the RISE Austin Fast Pitch Competition last week. Hill received the $3,000 cash prize, a Dell Ultrabook [...]

One of the latest companies to graduate from the TechStars Cloud program, Postmater announced it has raised $600,000 in seed stage funding. The Austin-based startup has created an online portal for shipping, tracking and saving money on small parcel shipping. Capital Factory, Cloud Power and Zelkova Ventures led the round along with angel investors. The [...]

Austin-based SpareFoot, the self-storage marketplace, will donate a month of storage space to people in Oklahoma affected by the devastating tornadoes in the Oklahoma City area. A massive tornado tore through Moore, Okla., just to the South of Oklahoma City, on Tuesday. It wreaked havoc leveling entire neighborhoods, businesses and schools and left two dozen [...]

Akimbo Financial wants to change the way people pay for things. The three year old company, which recently moved from Austin to San Antonio, has created a prepaid card that connects to a digital wallet and allows people to easily share money with others. Akimbo recently closed on $850,000 of a $3 million Series A [...]

Founder.org received more than 500 submissions for its Big Ideas competition. Its mission is “to inspire students to chase big ideas and become founders of impactful companies that drive innovation and economic growth.” Founders.org has narrowed the field down to 50 Big Ideas as the semifinalists and five of them are from the Austin Technology [...]

Bob Metcalfe, University of Texas’ Professor of Innovation, Murchison Fellow of Free Enterprise, delivered this keynote address Saturday to the 2013 graduates of the Master of Science in Technology Commercialization (MSTC) Program. Metcalfe contends that “founderati – the people who invent, innovate, commercialize technology, found and grow startups, entrepreneurs, intrapreneurs” are made, not born. And [...]

By SUSAN LAHEY Reporter with Silicon Hills News Serial entrepreneur and entrepreneurial guru Gary Hoover has an old electric shaver box that his father gave him when he was a boy. Inside it is a crudely drawn game board with businesses on it: Neiman Marcus, Marshall Field. When he was seven years old, he started [...]