Category: Austin (Page 132 of 318)

Umbel, an Austin-based data software company, announced its acquisition of Lodestone, a fan engagement company, in a blog post.

The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Mark Drosos founded Lodestone Social Media in Austin in 2008. The company raised $100,000 in investment, according to its Crunchbase profile.

Umbel, founded in 2010, raised $20 million in a Series B round by Cielo Private Equity last November. To date, the company has raised $24.45 million.

Umbel’s platform lets sports, media, entertainment and nonprofit organizations better understand the data that their businesses generate so they can better engage with their customers or fan base.

“The acquisition of Lodestone will allow us to create a customized experience for each client and campaign for the first time,” H.O. Maycotte, CEO of Umbel said in a blog post. “Using Lodestone’s unique technology to gather first party data, combined with our platform’s sorting and segmenting capabilities, clients will now receive a unified front to backend integration.”

Urban Mining Co., which recycles magnets, announced Tuesday it has completed a $25 million round of financing.

The Austin-based company plans to use the Series A funds to build and operate a magnet recycling and manufacturing plant at its headquarters.

“The first step towards commercializing our technology is capital intensive,” Scott Dunn, Urban Mining’s CEO, said in a news release. “and our Series A financing reflects the confidence of our team and our investors in Urban Mining’s product and business model.”

Urban Mining has a patented magnet recycling process. The company takes scrap rare earth magnets and reprocesses them into new, high performance magnets.

Urban Mining Company plans to open its lab by the end of the summer to use for prototyping magnet products for its partners and customers.

Aunt Bertha, a social services search and referral platform, announced it has raised $5 million in venture capital.

Techstars Ventures led the Series B round of financing and as part of the deal, Jason Seats, partner at Techstars Ventures, will join the company’s board.

“There’s a lot of unnecessary suffering going on for many Americans including veterans, those with low income, and those with complicated medical conditions. Many don’t know about government or charitable programs that can help,” Aunt Bertha CEO Erine Gray said in a news release. “The growth capital will help us extend our lead as the number one search and referral platform for social services. We’ll also continue to partner with the most innovative health care organizations, community foundations and governments.”

AuntBertha.com is a nationwide platform that lets anyone, anywhere search for services from health and human services pgorams provided by charities and government agencies. So far, 207,500 people have used the platform.

“What we liked about Aunt Bertha was that they found a way to provide a valuable service to folks in need but also put together a business model to support it. We were impressed with their customer list, which includes some of the country’s most well-respected hospitals, foundations and health insurance companies,” Seats, Techstars Ventures, said in a news release.

ePatientFinder, a matchmaking platform for physicians, patients and clinical trials, announced this week it has received $8.2 million in venture capital.

The Austin-based startup has raised a total of $11 million since its founding in 2013. Tom Dorsett, Tushar Jain, Greg Sweatt and Dillon Krug co-founded the company. Silicon Hills News did this profile on ePatientFinder last year.

ePatientFinder did not reveal the names of its latest investors, but it reported the funds came from a strategic healthcare technology investment syndicate.

The company plans to use the new funds to “fuel the company’s next stage of growth,” according to a news release.

Its platform works with drug makers, medical device and research organizations to connect them with physicians to identify and refer patients that might make good candidates to paritipate in a clinical trial. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration requires different stages of testing before a drug or device can be approved for sale. One of those stages involves testing the drug or device on humans in clinical trials.

The ePatientFinder platform seeks to match the best qualified patients with the latest drugs and devices being tested in clinical trials.

“The successful closing of this round of funding underscores ePatientFinder’s leadership role in solving the clinical trials recruitment challenge by leveraging the trusted physician-patient relationship and EHR data,” ePatientFinder CEO Dorsett said in a news release. “Our partners and investors share our vision to address inefficiency in the clinical trial recruitment process through the use of technology-enabled solutions. The additional financing will allow us to further expand patient access to available treatment options through our platform.”

ePatientFinder notifies physicians “when a new trial becomes available in their area; the platform uses sophisticated algorithms and an innovative three-tier filtering process to help physicians identify potential participants,” according to the release.

Ellevest, a new investment platform aimed at women, launched this week in Austin.

Ellevest's co-founder Sallie Krawcheck, created the investment platform to "close the gender investing gap and redefine investing for women with a practical, goals-based approach," according to a news release. Krawcheck has nearly 30 years of experience leading financial services companies on Wall Street as a former CEO of Merrill Lynch, Smith Barney and Citi Private Bank.

The platform lets women invest in different goals and then track their progress.

"Women live longer than men, are paid less than men and take more career breaks than our male counterparts, meaning investing is crucial to women's financial health," Krawcheck said in a news release. "These differences have largely been ignored by Wall Street—but that ends today."

The Ellevest platform lets a woman enter her personal details like age, education and income and her financial goals to create an investment portfolio tailored to meet those goals. It doesn't require a minimum balance and it charges a flat rate of 0.5 percent per year of managed assets.

"The gender investing gap can cost some women more in the long term than the gender pay gap, but no one is talking about it yet," Krawcheck said. "Our aim is to educate women about this issue and give them the tools they need to take control of their finances through investing; and, in doing so, to give them the opportunity to reach their goals—whether that means buying a house, traveling the world, retiring on her own terms or all of the above."

By LAURA LOREK
Reporter with Silicon Hills News

The Internet of Things is making us safer.

V5 Systems created a portable outdoor security system that doesn’t need to be plugged in, can capture video, detect a gunshot and pinpoint the location it was fired from to alert authorities in real time.

V5 Systems won Dell and Intel’s Platinum award in its “Connect What Matters” Internet of Things Contest during a celebration gathering and dinner Wednesday evening at Searsucker in downtown Austin.

V5 Systems, based in Fremont, Calif., which only launched its outdoor security and computing platform in April, has installed a dozen systems in the California area including at a Bay Area Rapid Transit station and San Jose State University, said Steve Yung, the company’s CEO and founder. The system weighs just 25 pounds and runs on solar power and uses WiFi and cellular networks. It can be installed anywhere without a need to be tied to power or data cables. Its applications include everything from law enforcement to agriculture.

V5 Systems, which relies on Dell’s Edge Gateway technology, plans to add other sensors to its system like the ability to detect smells such as methane, ammonia and chlorine gases.

The Dell and Intel contest ran from October of last year to March. Dell received more than 1,000 entries from 73 countries and ultimately selected 16 winners, said Joyce Mullen, Dell’s Senior Vice President and General Manager of Global OEM, including its Internet of Things division.

A year ago, Dell formed its IoT division to help its customers with connecting sensors and machines to the Internet and analyzing data in real time to improve their operations.

The Internet of Things is a huge multi-billion dollar market growing at a rate of nearly 17 percent a year, according to International Data Corp., a research firm. It reports the market will grow from $655.8 billion in 2014 to $1.7 trillion in 2020 with devices, connectivity and IT services making up the majority of the market.

The Internet of Things isn’t new, said Jason Shepherd, Dell’s director of strategy and partnerships for IoT. Dell’s customers in the energy field or manufacturing or dozens of other industries have been using sensors in their operations for years and extracting data, he said. What’s different today is that IoT solutions have become so much cheaper with a drop in computing prices and broadband Internet access which makes it easier than ever for customers to connect more devices and analyze their operations more intelligently to increase efficiency and save money, Shepherd said.

Today, IoT devices are prevalent for consumers including everything from Apple’s Watch to Fitbit health trackers. But industrial and commercial applications including cold chain monitoring of the temperature of food from the field to the factory to the grocery store offer huge opportunities and savings for businesses, Shepherd said.

For example, today more than 30 percent of the world’s food is spoiled in transit before it ever gets consumed, Shepherd said. Temperature sensors monitoring that food along its life-cycle could greatly reduce waste and increase supply, he said. Dell is working with partners to do just that, he said.

Also, IoT smart building applications using sensors to manage commercial buildings to cut down on energy use by turning off lights and adjusting the thermostat can result in huge savings to businesses, Shepherd said. Dell is focusing on manufacturing, buildings, energy and agriculture applications, he said. It works with partners ranging from 10-person startups to giant corporations like General Electric.

It’s also going after smart departments to make incremental changes instead of tackling entire smart cities at once, Shepherd said.

“We’re going to bite off stuff that is meaningful and doable and has an immediate impact,” he said.

Data collection in the IoT space can be like a bad episode of House Hoarders, Shepherd said. Companies collect all kinds of data and send it into storage and then get a big bill, he said. It’s like sending Federal Express packages to yourself all day and putting them into the garage and never opening them. Dell’s partnership solutions seek to make sense of the data a company collects and help them sort through what they need to keep, he said.

The winners of the Dell and Intel “Connect What Matters” contest presented all kinds of applications of smart devices connected to the Internet and yielding better solutions for companies.

For example, N.io, a 30-person startup, with its U.S. headquarters based in Broomfield, Colo., created an agriculture monitoring system. Deep Sky Vineyard in Wilcox, Arizona, uses the system to track its 15,000 vines of grapes and to water them when necessary.

“It talks to the vines,” said Blake Duhame, N.io’s program director.

The result is higher grape yields, less water wasted and greater production efficiency overall, he said. N.io’s system uses a Dell Gateway computer in the field to collect and transmit data wirelessly to a dashboard that the vineyard owners can then monitor in real time. N.io won a Gold Award in Dell and Intel’s contest.

Silver Award winner We Monitor Concrete tracks concrete production from the quarry to the construction site and monitors its temperature throughout the process to ensure the highest quality building materials. The concrete talks to the computer.

Another Silver Award winner, Elm Energy and DynOptix uses infrared sensors to detect a person’s body temperature in case they are running a fever. It is in test pilot with a hospital maternity ward right now. The system will not issue a visitor’s pass to anyone running a fever. The idea is to cut down on people who are sick spreading their illness, said John Redmond, founder and CEO of DynOptix. It could eventually be used in airports, schools and businesses like food service, he said.

The other Gold Award winners include: Eigen Innovation, a quality control system uses thermal imaging cameras in a factory for real time monitoring, Iamus, a smart streetlamp system, RiptideIO, smart customer and building monitoring software for small retailers and SoftwareAG, a predictive maintenance solution.

Other Silver Award winners include AZLOGICA, Blue Pillar, Califbr8 Systems, Daliworks, Independent Automation, Onstream, PixController and PV Hardware.

By HOJUN CHOI
Reporter with Silicon Hills News

In light of the growing prevalence of services making up the state’s “sharing economy,” the Texas House Committee on Business and Industry met Wednesday to discuss the impact of city regulations associated with peer-to-peer exchange platforms.

Responding to the testimonies given at the hearing, Committee Chairman Rene Oliveira, D-Brownsville, told Silicon Hills News that he and the other representatives will have to study the regulations of other states that are home to ride-sharing services.

“We need to do more research on what kind of regulation they have, and see whether those measures have been effective or not,” Oliveira said.

At the hearing, much of the conversation revolved around the screening process of “Transportation Network Companies,” like Uber and Lyft, which left the city of Austin in May after failed efforts to repeal regulations that the companies deemed burdensome.

“Our mission is simple. Transportation as reliable as running water- everywhere for everyone,” said Sarfraz Maredia, general manager for Uber. “Essential to achieving this goal is the ability to operate under modern regulations that embrace technology while enhancing public safety.”

Outdated transportation regulations have made it increasingly harder for existing ride-hailing services to operate, Maredia said.. Both representatives from Uber and Lyft questioned the effectiveness of added regulations to the screening standards of these services, especially fingerprint background check requirements.

But when neither of the companies could produce data on the number and frequency of incidents that occurred during rides, several of the representatives responded with raised eyebrows.

“I don’t understand how you all cannot produce any statistical evidence,” Oliveira said.

Some ride-sharing companies, such as Dallas-based GetMe, and Austin newcomer, Wingz, told the committee that they have no problems with regulations that deal with added measures to the screening process of potential drivers.

Ed Kargbo, the president of Austin Yellow Cab, told the committee that he believes a screening process for drivers through a fingerprint-based background check is not only effective, but that it should be considered the “gold standard” for such services.

Representative Matt Rinaldi, R-Irving, however, told Silicon Hills News that the support for more regulation on the screening process of these companies might not be in the best interest of public safety.

“I think you’ll find that people will try to latch onto whatever argument to back up their position,” Rinaldi said. “In reality, they’re not advocating for public safety or some other argument; they’re advocating for protections in the industry- competitive protections that will allow them to make money when they’re not providing the best product that people want.”

Though the majority of the hearing was associated with the public safety standards of ride-sharing services as well as those of taxi companies, the committee also heard from individuals from the “home-sharing” industry, such as AirBnB and HomeAway.

Matthew Curtis, director of government relations for HomeAway, told Silicon Hills News that he thinks burdensome regulations only lead to a lack of compliance.

“The added problem for the state is having to deal with ‘patchwork’ regulations that differ throughout the state,” Curtis said. “That can be very confusing.”

Representatives also heard testimony about the regulatory powers of Housing Associations in the state. The committee is scheduled to meet again tomorrow morning for a hearing on cybersecurity.

By LAURA LOREK
Reporter with Silicon Hills News

It’s hard making a mobile app.

Just ask 80 fourth, fifth and sixth graders who just finished Hello World’s first engineering program and created 12 prototypes. Hello World, a new after school program, teaches kids web and mobile development, game design, data science and design thinking.

The kids designed the apps, learned to code, created wireframes and planned everything while thinking about the user’s experience, said Matthew Hernandez, who just finished sixth grade at KIPP Austin Academies of Arts & Letters and a HP team member.

“You have to put yourself in the user’s shoes,” he said.

Hernandez spoke to more than 200 people at Hello World’s Demo Day. Students from 15 Austin schools participated in six sessions during three weeks. The kids formed 12 teams and Saturday morning at Google Fiber Space downtown they presented their products to judges, their friends, family members and others.

In addition to making a mobile app, the students used HTML and CSS to create websites.

“It’s not as hard when you’re in a team,” said Hernandez. “Everybody had ideas. We worked really well together. We didn’t have many struggles.”

Sabina Bharwani and Danielle Wilson Burnett co-founded Hello World to meet a need for more Science Technology Engineering and Math opportunities for Austin students. Bharwani heads education technology and innovation for Teach for America. Burnett works at GameSalad as principal learning architect. They garnered support for the program from Google, Iron Yard, General Assembly and Dell.

A team of judges picked five team winners. The judges included Michael Georgoff, senior vice president of product at Main Street Hub, Katy Jeremko, founder and chief creative officer at re:3D, Blake Ligon, Google channels specialist and Patrick Benfield, STEAM and makerspace director at St. Gabriel’s Catholic School.

The judges declared the eBay Pandas team overall winner. The team created a homework helper app for Emily, a student, to let her control her room’s lighting and listen to music while completing a homework “to do” list.

During the program, Jeremiah Anderson, who just completed sixth grade at KIPP Austin College Prep, and a member of the eBay Pandas team, said he learned a lot about data science and programming.

His parents, Royce and Etta James, said Jeremiah has always shown an interest in science and engineering. He even won a special scholarship to attend space camp this summer.

Jeremiah said he is interested in becoming a chemical engineer and computer scientist and he wants to work for NASA.

The HP team won for “most innovative app idea” with their buddy system app to help a student transition from elementary to middle school. One of the judges, Georgoff praised the kids for their teamwork.

“Great products get built by teams and not individual people,” Georgoff said.

The AirBnB team won for “making hard choices” for their navigation app to help a kid get around a middle school campus. They decided to leave out games. The Dell team won for their “user-centric” app which provided a virtual school tour. And the Twitter team won for “strong application of the design thinking process” for their homework helper app with study guides, games and practice problems and a way to communicate with the teacher.

James Caras with Macmillian Learning, an educational publishing company, attended the event while his teenage son took the SAT exam. He found out about it on the Austin Ed Tech meetup group. Caras, an entrepreneur who sold his online homework company Saplings to Macmillian a few years ago, liked the high caliber of ideas from the kids.

“A lot of the things these kids are talking about we are talking about every day,” Caras said.

Customer empathy is key to developing a successful app, Caras said. He was thrilled to see Hello World’s program teaching the kids to think about the customer first.

“We think we’re geniuses in our jobs and these kids are running circles around us,” Caras said.

A mission of Hello World is to emphasize diversity, equality and access to big ideas in technology, said Benfield, with St. Gabriel’s Catholic School. The kids came from a wide variety of ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds, he said.

Access creates opportunities, said Bharwani.

In college, 98 percent of computer science majors have exposure to computer science before they go to college, Bharwani said.

Yet computer science is not taught in most schools, Bharwani said. So Hello World is able to fill the gap and expose kids to opportunities in those fields at an early age, she said.

Vyze, a financial technology company, has raised $13 million in venture capital to fuel its growth and expand into new markets and product lines.

Austin Ventures and StarVest Partners of New York led the Series B financing round. The company, founded in 2008, has raised $35 million including the latest funding round.

“We’re building a unique company here in Austin that will help both retailers and lenders unlock the full potential of their businesses. Our goal is to help businesses provide the financing consumers need to buy the products they want, when they want them,” Keith Nealon, Vyze’s CEO, said in a news release. “Investments like these enable us to grow and create better solutions to meet the challenges merchants and lenders are facing today.”

Vyze plans to use the funding to further develop its platform technology and to expand its sales and marketing efforts and to expand into new markets.

“What’s exciting about Vyze is the huge potential for growth,” Chris Pacitti, general partner with Austin Ventures, said in a news release. “There’s a huge need for financing solutions among retailers as well as manufacturers, and those needs will continue to grow as consumers increasingly turn to online and mobile platforms when researching and buying products.”