Category: Austin (Page 114 of 317)

By LAURA LOREK
Founder of Silicon Hills News

Austin has lost one of its greatest proponents of the technology industry, Laura Kilcrease to Alberta, Canada.

Last week, hundreds of people turned out at the Four Seasons Hotel downtown for a going away happy hour to honor Kilcrease, who has been a pillar of the Austin tech community for three decades.

Kilcrease is leaving to head up the Alberta Innovates Corporation.

“This is just a unique opportunity to connect people from Austin, Texas to people in Alberta’s Edmonton, Calgary and other areas, ” Kilcrease said. “We were an oil state here and still are and they are an oil state there. It was just an opportunity to change the landscape of innovation and entrepreneurship.”

Kilcrease was one of the major players in Austin’s transformation from a sleepy college town dependent on the oil and gas industry to one of the nation’s top technology centers.

From 1989 to 1997, Kilcrease served as executive director of the University of Texas IC2 Institute’s Center for Commercialization and Enterprise. Kilcrease is the founding director of the Austin Technology Incubator at the University of Texas at Austin. Kilcrease, along with George Kozmetzy, also founded the Austin Software Council, which became the Austin Technology Council, and the Capital Network, which became the Central Texas Angel Network.

She is an expert at collaborating between businesses, universities, government and private and public institutions.

Born in London, Kilcrease has been a permanent resident of the United States since 1984. She received her certification as a Chartered Management Accountant in the U.K. in 1980 and an M.B.A. from The University of Texas at Austin in 1992.

In Alberta, Canada, government officials expect Kilcrease’s leadership will work her magic to help that region develop into a major globally competitive research and innovation center.

“Laura Kilcrease has demonstrated that with the right supports innovative researchers and entrepreneurs can diversify an economy and create new jobs in both emerging and traditional sectors. Alberta’s world-class researchers, entrepreneurs and academic institutions can be proud their international reputation has attracted world-class talent to take on this exciting new role,” Daron Bilous, minster of Economic Development and Trade, said in a news release.

Alberta Innovates enables and funds provincial research and innovation – ensuring entrepreneurs and researchers have expert support in responding to challenges and opportunities – building on Alberta’s strengths in the health, environment, energy, food, forestry/fibre, and emerging technology sectors.

The new CEO will report to the Alberta Innovates board, comprised of 11 prominent innovators and business leaders across a variety of sectors.

Most recently, Kilcrease served as the director, professor of practice of the Center for Entrepreneurial Action at Texas State University. Before that, she served as Entrepreneur in Residence at the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin. And Kilcrease was one of the founding members of Women@Austin, a group that meets to support women founders. She is the founder and managing director of Triton Ventures, a venture capital fund investing in spinout and early-stage technology companies.

Kilcrease plans to keep her house in Austin. She plans to keep in close contact with her contacts here.

Austin-based RxWiki, a digital health company, has announced its merger with TeleManager Technologies, a communications solutions company based in Newark, New Jersey.

The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Together, they have launched Digital Pharmacist with 55 employees. The company provides digital, communications and other solutions for 5,500 pharmacy locations, national pharmacy wholesalers, hospital systems and pharmaceutical brands. The company reports that four million patients use its products every month.

Digital Pharmacist will be based in Austin. Val Gurovich and Paul Kobylevsky, co-founders of TeleManager Technologies, will become executives in the newly combined company, reporting to Chris Loughlin, the company’s CEO. Loughlin previously served as CEO of RxWiki.

“Digital Pharmacist’s platform allows patients and pharmacies to communicate quickly and efficiently via telephone, web, mobile or SMS text,” according to a news release. “Patients can refill digitally with one click or call, set adherence reminder alerts, complete reviews, learn about their conditions or medications through interactive adherence tools, and ask their pharmacist questions. Digital Pharmacist integrates into the workflow of 53 pharmacy systems.”

“We are pleased to merge our companies to form Digital Pharmacist, a new company that offers the very best digital adherence solutions and the most robust pharmacy communication solutions. Our offices in Austin and Newark are brimming with talented people who care about independent pharmacies and patients. Through our merger, we are able to bring even more robust products and services that help patients and ultimately help our clients compete,” Loughlin said in a news release.

RxWiki raised $5.75 million in funding last October from investors including LiveOak Venture Partners and Milestone Venture Partners LP.

Silicon Hills News did this profile story on RxWiki last summer for our third annual life sciences magazine.

Photo licensed from iStockphoto.com

The StARTup Studio put on by the Innovation Center at the University of Texas at Austin had a decidedly pharmaceutical focus during its January presentations.

Three professor-led startups presented a variety of ideas including a traumatic brain injury treatment drug, a peptide sequencing platform to combat bacteria and a new way to create antibiotics.

The StARTup Studio is a monthly series of invitation-only presentations put on by the Innovation Center at the Cockrell School of Engineering. UT Professor of Innovation Bob Metcalfe runs the center along with Louise Epstein, managing director and Steve Nichols, Advanced Manufacturing Center director. The series is sponsored by the Innovation Center, the UT Office of Technology Commercialization, the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce and WeWork Austin.

The first company to present, NuvoNuro makes a drug to be given within 24 hours of a traumatic brain injury to lessen the detrimental effects of the injury and lead to a speedier recovery.

UT Research Scientist Jim Sahn and Chemistry Professor Stephen Martin presented the early stage startup NuvoNuro, which has discovered a drug compound to treat brain injuries. The company is preparing to go into more extensive animal trials next.

The need exists for a new drug to treat traumatic brain injury, Sahn said. Traumatic brain injury is a major cause of disability and death. It affects more than 10 million people worldwide each year. In the U.S., 5.3 million people suffer lifelong disability because of traumatic brain injury. No new drugs have been developed to treat the injury in 20 years, Sahn said.

Football players and other sports professionals, the military, first responders, young children and males between the ages of 15 and 24 are at the highest risk, Sahn said.

Secondary brain injuries result within hours after the initial injury and the drug would intervene to mitigate that damage, Sahn said.

NuvoNuro’s drug compound has been shown to improve cognitive performance following a traumatic brain injury in mice and the drug is low on toxicity, Sahn said.

Next, UT Molecular Bioscience Professor Bryan Davies presented bDAT Therapeutics, a high throughput antimicrobrial screening technology. The problem is antimicrobial resistance causes 700,000 deaths annually and in 30 years, superbugs are expected to kill more people than cancer, Davies said.

And no new antibiotics have been developed in 50 years, Davies said.

bDAT’s solution is antimicrobial peptides, which are biologically occurring short chains of amino acid monomers linked by peptide bonds.

bDAT has received funding from the National Institutes of Health, Welch Foundation, Sanofi and the Defense Threat Reduction Agency. It is looking at is looking at either licensing its technology or attracting outside investors to take it to market, Davies said.

The last presenter, Molecular Bioscience Professor Andy Ellington and Research Professor Greg Ippolito presented a new way to create antibiotics.

The company uses bioinformatics and gene sequencing to target single T-cells and B-cells of the immune system to kill diseased cells.

A company called AbVitro, based in Boston, and spun out of Harvard University, does similar work and Seattle-based Juno just acquired AbVitro this month for about $125 million.

Austin-based BuildGroup announced Tuesday that it has invested $30 million in CSDC Systems, a software company based in Toronto, Canada.

CSDC Systems makes software for licensing, permitting, and compliance duties for local, state and federal governments hosted on its online platform. The company plans to use the money to support customer growth, product expansion, support services and more.

The company’s software helps governments and their agencies work more efficiently and effectively, according to the company.

“Governments are increasingly looking for modern technology solutions that can automate their business processes, increasing the efficiency of their work to save time and money. Also, they want to consolidate this functionality on a single platform if possible,” Dan Mishra, founder of CSDC Systems, said in a news release.

Lanham Napier, BuildGroup co-founder and former CEO of Rackspace, courtesy photo.

“We see a compelling opportunity to use modern cloud technology to radically change how governments are run, and believe that CSDC is in a position to lead this shift long term,” Lanham Napier, BuildGroup co-founder and former CEO of Rackspace, said in a news release. “We’re excited to help CSDC realize this vision, bringing the strong operational background of our partners to increase growth and profits. With CSDC’s established experience and innovation within the market, we believe the company can lead the needed technological transformation to modernize governments.”

GoCo courtesy photo

Other investors included Guardian Life Insurance and Salesforce Ventures.

GoCo.io, based in Houston, is a software startup that provides an all-in-one Human Resources platform focusing on small to medium sized companies. Its founders, Nir Leibovich, Jason Wang and Michael Gugel have worked together on two previous startups. The company has also partnered with OneDigital, a human resource provider and a subsidiary of Fidelity National Financial.

“The demand for enabling technologies and solutions for human resources, benefits and payroll departments is remarkable,” Chris Shonk, founder of ATX Seed Ventures, said in a news release. “Much of the enabling and transformative technology developed and deployed thus far has initially focused on sales, operations and other departments. Driving culture at scale, and the attraction and retention of talent as the pinnacle activity for executives, GoCo.io is water in the desert. Delivering time, economic savings and actionable insights to department heads clamoring for better technology and customer service is a top priority for any CEO or board room discussion.”

ATX Seed Ventures, based in Austin, specializes in early stage invesments. Shonk founded the firm in 2014. It has $25 million under management and it recently launched its second fund.

New car2go Mercedes CLA, courtesy photo

The company, which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Daimler North America Corp, the parent company of Mercedes-Benz, announced that the majority of its 5,500 car fleet in North America will be comprised of Mercedes-Benz vehicles by the end of the year. The new fleet consists of car2go’s 2017 Mercedes-Benz CLA, a 4-door coupe and car2go’s 2017 Mercedes-Benz GLA, a sporty 5-door small SUV with added cargo capacity.

“At Mercedes-Benz we see the four key pillars for future mobility as connectivity, autonomous driving, carsharing, and electrification,” Dieter Zetsche, CEO of Daimler AG and Head of Mercedes-Benz Cars, said in a news release. “Today we take another step toward that future by adding the new Mercedes-Benz CLA and GLA to car2go’s North American fleet. car2go is already the most popular carsharing service in the world. Now it will be even more attractive to small groups of friends and families who want to conveniently travel around cities in style, safety, and comfort.”

car2go, which began with a pilot in Ulm, Germany in 2008, has since become the largest one-way carsharing company in the world with more than 2.2 million members sharing cars on three continents. In 2016, the company saw a 43 percent increase in members.

In addition to Austin, car2go members in Portland, Oregon, Seattle, and the Washington, D.C. area are the first to get the new Mercedes-Benze car2gos. Members in Toronto and Vancouver will get them in February.

YouEarnedIt Tuesday announced it has received $6.5 million in funding.

The Austin-based startup plans to use the funds to further product development on its software as a service human resources rewards platform, sales and marketing. Silverton Partners, based in Austin, and IDG Partners, based in San Francisco, led the Series A round. Existing investors include WPP, Social Starts, the Motley Fool and Capital Factory.

“The business of getting work done has changed dramatically, and the need to meet these new models in a way that drives meaningful results is more important than ever,” Alexander Rosen, managing director of IDG Ventures USA. “We have a huge network of enterprise buyers of software, and unique method for employee engagement that the YouEarnedIt platform offers resonated with us. Plus, we are super excited about this management team and its vision to improve work and its outcomes.”

YouEarnedIt, which launched in 2013, has more than 100,000 users on its platform, which provides rewards to employees who meet criteria set by their employers. Its customers include Turner Construction, Anheuser-Busch, NBC Universal, Santander, Conde Nast, J. Walter Thompson and others.

“YouEarnedIt took a strong stance in its commitment to solving the real problem for employee engagement and performance and asked, “What does the employee need, and how is this different than what is being offered through the traditional HR tools that exist today?” By focusing on the employee, YouEarnedIt can deliver better results for businesses and stay committed to driving real change for the employee,” Mike Dodd, partner at Silverton Partners, said in a news release.

Previously, YouEarnedIt raised $1.5 million in seed stage funding in 2014.

“Our primary product focus in 2017 is to enhance the feedback mechanism and increase the level of actionable insights for our users and customers so they can continue to improve their impact and performance individually and across their teams,” Autumn Manning, CEO of YouEarnedIt, said in a news release.

SpareFoot Wins the 2017 Austin Startup Games, Photographs by Clayton Sharp.

SpareFoot received gold medals in MarioKart, foosball, shuffle board, pop-a-shot, and flip cup. It received bronze medals in Ping Pong and Trivia. The company won by 11 points overall.

SpareFoot is a veteran of the startup games and has previously won the games three times since 2012. It won a $20,000 donation for Kure It, a charity that focuses on curing kidney cancer. Second prize went to Outbound Engine, who will donate $10,000 to the SAFE Alliance, and Modernize took third place to win a $6,500 donation for GirlStart.

“Startup Games offers a chance for homegrown Austin businesses to give back to the community in a way that is truly authentic to startup culture,” Startup Games Executive Director Sara Reeves said in a news release.

More than 1,200 people attended the event, which featured 16 teams. Each team received $1,500 to donate to the charity of their choice.

The teams competed for gold, silver and bronze medals in a variety of games including ping pong, foosball, beer pong, flip cup, trivia, MarioKart, Pop-A-Shot, darts, shuffleboard, giant Connect 4, and a mystery event.

Last year, uShip won the games. This year the games featured newcomers AffiniPay, Academic Works, Aceable, and ShippingEasy.

The competitors included:

Academic Works – Nonprofit: SafePlace
Aceable – Nonprofit: Breakthrough Austin
AffiniPay – Nonprofit: Volunteer Legal Services of Central Texas
Boundless – Nonprofit: Meals on Wheels
Capital Factory – Nonprofit: RideAustin
Headspring – Nonprofit: DO IT FOR THE LOVE FOUNDATION
LawnStarter – Nonprofit: The National Alliance on Mental Illness
Modernize – Nonprofit: GirlStart
OneSpot – Nonprofit: Without Regrets
OutboundEngine – Nonprofit: SAFE Alliance
OwnLocal – Nonprofit: Austin Bat Cave
ShippingEasy – Nonprofit: Caritas of Austin
SpareFoot – Nonprofit: Kure It
theCHIVE – Nonprofit: CHIVE Charities
Trendkite – Nonprofit: JDRF
uShip – Nonprofit: Communities in Schools

Capital Factory has come a long way since it launched its collaborative coworking space on the 16th floor of the Austin Centre downtown in May of 2012.

The technology accelerator, which bills itself as Austin’s center of gravity for entrepreneurs, has grown to become one of the largest tech entrepreneurial hubs in the country.

This year, Capital Factory expanded to the first floor, added a virtual reality lab on the fifth floor and continues to occupy the 16th floor. It is also focusing on expanding its portfolio of accelerator companies in the health and military areas this year, according to a blog post.

And in 2014, Google named Capital Factory as an official Google Tech Hub.

Just last week, Google for Entrepreneurs Partner Network released an impact report for Capital Factory. “In Austin, Capital Factory benefits from GFE’s high-quality programming and financial resources to help grow faster,” according to the report.

Some interesting stats from the 2016 report:

*Jobs created by the startups that Capital Factory supports: 120
*Number of startups who have raised funding: 49
*Funding raised: $30.5 million
*Number of events hosted: 837+