Category: Austin (Page 159 of 318)

By LAURA LOREK
Reporter with Silicon Hills News

During Austin Startup Week, Austin Mayor Steve Adler declared Oct. 7th as “UK Day in Austin.”

Officials with the United Kingdom, which is comprised of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, showcased some of the opportunities U.S. companies, and in particular Austin-based companies, have in expanding their operations into the fifth largest single market.

For UK day, the British Consulate held a series of events on Wednesday including an open for business British breakfast, a lunch on animation and gaming and a gin tasting at Old School Bar & Grill on Sixth Street downtown.

Last year, the U.S. British Consul Office in Houston opened an office in Austin. Haileigh Meyers, vice consul ICT & Creative Media, heads up the local office. She organized the events for Austin Startup Week.

To kick off the animation and gaming luncheon presentation, Hannah Perrin-Haynes, vice president of Scottish Development International, gave a presentation on the benefits of locating operations in Scotland. It is the biggest hub for game development in Britain.

Scotland has a robust video game development industry with more than 100 companies, Perrin-Haynes said.

“It’s a growing sector,” Perrin-Haynes said.

The country’s skilled, talented and creative workforce attracts multi-national companies to locate operations there, she said. Also, costs are low and it’s a stunningly attractive location and they’ve got scotch, she said.

CGI last year opened an open source software development center in Glasgow that is expected to create around 250 jobs, Perrin-Haynes said.

And many people might be surprised to learn that the hit video game franchise Grand Theft Auto was created in Scotland. DMA Design created the game in Dundee, a former shipbuilding city. The company is now part of Rockstar Games.

And 4J Studios, another Dundee-based gaming company, created Minecraft for Xbox 360. Swedish programmer Markus Persson created the original version of Minecraft.

London is also a draw for international gaming and animation companies, said

London is home to gaming studios from Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony. And King.com created the wildly popular Candy Crush Saga. London also has 26 meetups geared to the gaming and animation industry and several conferences, said James Cummings, vice president of business development with London & Partners.

London has the seed funds, technology accelerators, support of the government, Tech City and coworking spaces for a vibrant technology and gaming cluster, Cummings said.

“Everything the cluster needs to develop extremely well is in London,” Cummings said. “We’ve attracted more international gaming companies than any other international city.”

London has a cluster of 83 international gaming publishers in London, more than Los Angeles, San Francisco, Tokyo, Seoul or Vancouver, Cummings said.

“London attracts creative talent that is looking to innovate,” he said.

The UK is the easiest place in Europe to open an international office, said Mark Barron, partner with TaylorWessing, a London-based law firm. The U.K. also offers tax credits and low tax rates to international firms doing business there.

“The U.K. is a great springboard to the rest of the world,” Barron said.

It takes a day to set up a business in the U.K., Barron said.

Kixer, a mobile advertising platform with its technical team based in Austin, just got acquired by LAKANA.

Kixer is based in Los Angeles, but Jake Moilanen, its co-founder and Chief Technology Officer, lives in Austin and so does the company’s technology team.

LAKANA, based in St. Paul, Minn., did not release the terms of the deal. Its local media platform network reaches nearly 220 million unique monthly users across 300 sites. Kixer helps marketers promote their products through its mobile app “over 400 premium web publications that in aggregate reach over 110 million unique visitors and generate 1.5 billion page views per month.”

“As the mobile ecosystem continues to evolve, mobile app marketing has become a multibillion-dollar advertiser category poised to double in size over the next 12 months,” Phillip Hyun, LAKANA’s president said in a news release. “Kixer has quickly become a leading platform for app marketers to reach the most valuable users across premium content mobile websites.”

Kixer was backed by Lowercase Capital and TenOneTen Ventures as well as a collection of well-known angel investors. Kixer was co-founded by Keith Bonnici, Omar Nicola and Moilanen in 2014.

Mozido, a digital payments company, and TabbedOut, an app that lets people pay tabs at restaurants and bars, are partnering to improve the experience of consumers through a mobile application.

Through the partnership, the companies will create a new mobile app that will allow their customers to discover new restaurant locations, join wait-lists, make reservations, order, split and pay bills and leave feedback on their mobile phones.

“Mozido and TabbedOut are improving the way consumers find places to eat and drink, redeem valuable and relevant offers, place their orders, and pay,” Michael Liberty, founder of Mozido, said in a news release. “We are proud to be mobilizing the hospitality industry together with our partner TabbedOut.”

“Mozido is a leader in providing secure, full-featured mobile solutions to Quick Service Restaurants, retail merchants, banks, and mobile network operators enabling them to better serve their customers,” Ben Carolan, executive vice president of strategic partnerships at TabbedOut, said in a news release. “Partnering with Mozido enables TabbedOut to not only be the quickest and most secure way to pay, but also to provide the best way to mobilize the entire restaurant and bar customer experience for our merchants.”

Several media outlets including the Wall Street Journal, CNBC and the New York Times are quoting inside sources saying Dell is in talks to buy EMC, a data storage and software development company.

In 2013, Dell went private in a $25 billion buyout deal which left its founder Michael Dell with a 75 percent ownership stake. Silver Lake Partners controls the rest.

The acquisition price of EMC would be more than $40 billion, according to a story in the Wall Street Journal.

“A combined Dell-EMC would encompass computing, networking and storage—both hardware and software—giving it the breadth to compete more effectively with larger companies such as International Business Machines Corp., Hewlett-Packard Co., Cisco Systems Inc. and Oracle Corp,” according to the Wall Street Journal.

If Dell and EMC merge it would create one of the largest technology companies in the world. The acquisition makes sense with Dell’s moves in the past few years to become more of a software and services company in addition to its businesses in PCs and servers. It has seen a lot of growth in its data center, cloud and cybersecurity businesses, according to a presentation Michael Dell made at Dell World last year.

HomeAway, a vacation rental business, Wednesday announced its acquisition of Dwellable, an online vacation rental search engine and app based in Seattle.

The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Dwellable, founded in 2012, had raised $2 million in one round from three investors, according to its CrunchBase profile.

A time of six employees including founders Nathan Kriege and Adam Doppelt will be moving to Austin, according to a story in GeekWire.

“The Dwellable team has built an incredible product with an impressive and growing base of travelers who use the app to book vacation rentals,” HomeAway Co-founder and CEO Brian Sharples said in a news release. “With 48 percent of travelers coming to HomeAway from mobile devices, it’s important for us to continue improving our mobile experience, with an even stronger emphasis on functionality and design for the traveler. Dwellable will help us take that next step.”

HomeAway’s mobile app has had more than two million downloads this year. It has undergone significant improvements in recent years with HomeAway’s investment in social travel platform Gogobot this year and its acquisition of mobile app developer Glad to Have You last year.

“Travelers using HomeAway to book a vacation rental can improve their whole vacation experience through the app by accessing information about the home and surrounding areas and activities through Gogobot, hailing an Uber car ride, ordering Instacart grocery delivery and hiring a babysitter from Care.com,” according to a news release.

Dwellable will shut down its app within 30 days and customers will be referred to HomeAway.

By SUSAN LAHEY
Reporter with Silicon Hills News

TripChamp, a company that saves organizations thousands on airfares through access to unpublished fares as well published ones, won a free trip to pitch at Oslo Innovation Week’s 100 Pitches competition October 16.

TripChamp was one of six Austin companies to pitch before the panel of judges that included Morton Paulsen, Consul General for Norway, Casey Smith, Austin Economic Development’s International Program Manager; Gary Hoover and Donovan Miller, international project manager for IC2 at Austin Technology Incubator. Hoover and Paulsen said that while competition was close among the six companies, all judges were unanimous on TripChamp.

“They have a real product that saves money and is capturing the attention of the industry… and did a very clear presentation of what they’re up to,” Hoover said. “They appear to have a wonderful team and advisors from the industry. The travel industry is complex, there are a lot of players and to have that level of people say ‘Hey this is a great idea,’ really says something.”

Daniel Senyard, COO of TripChamp—whose parent company is LF Tech in London–pitched in front of the small group at Capital Factory Wednesday morning. The company created a database that helps find the best rates for flights.

For TripChamp most of these options apply only to business and first class flights and are only available to business customers who use a lot of flying miles. They also employ artificial intelligence so TripChamp offers rates and options designed specifically for the user. Ultimately the company may use the technologies on other verticals Senyard said.

Growth Institute, a company that provides executive education programs from internationally known thought leaders in easily digestible formats was chosen as the alternate if TripChamp founders couldn’t make the conference. Growth Institute makes courses available for individuals as well as whole companies in both English and Spanish.

Other companies that pitched included Own Local, which converts newspaper print ads into digital ad campaigns; Curb, which sells a device that attaches to a breaker box and tracks energy usage; You Roam, a company that allows consumers to travel internationally and use their own phone numbers to send and receive calls without paying international rates; and Pen Pal Schools, a peer-to-peer global education program covering language, culture, politics and other topics.

All companies were required to have traction in Europe. Two members of TripChamp’s team will travel to Oslo next week, all expenses paid, to pitch against top ranking companies from London and Scandinavia.

Senyard said the company has just been launching with very early beta customers in recent months but has received a large investment from “a large strategic investor in the travel industry.” Senyard said he was “surprised” to have won, but then on second thought added “Well it’s a good audience of international people and what I do with TripChamp caters exactly to what this whole contest is about…which is moving people around. So I knew I had a good target audience.”

CURB, an Austin-based energy startup, announced Tuesday that it has closed on $1.25 million in seed stage funding form angel groups, strategic partners and Capital Factory.

The three year old company recently completed an Indiegogo campaign in which it raised nearly $118,000, more than 400 percent of its sales goal and sold hundreds of units of its energy monitoring device to consumers worldwide. CURB makes a monitor that tracks all electricity usage in a house and can help homeowners reduce their energy consumption and save money.

In addition, the company announced Eric Gould Bear joined the company as its Chief Experience Officer and joined its board of directors.

“Users and investors both recognize that CURB provides a better way to manage energy. Our over-subscribed funding round underscores this fact,” Founder and CEO Erik Norwood said in a news release.

RetailMeNot Tuesday named Marissa Tarleton as its new chief marketing officer for North America.

Tarleton will be in charge of “all consumer brand advertising, customer acquisition and retention, search engine marketing, public relations, internal communications, business-to-business marketing, and customer relationship management,” according to a news release.

“I’m so excited that Marissa, a skilled marketer who helped build one of the leading consumer electronics brands in the world, has decided to join RetailMeNot as we reimagine the shopping experience,” Cotter Cunningham, CEO and founder, RetailMeNot said in a news release. “In addition to her expertise in CRM and branding, I believe that Marissa’s presence on the executive team will help us evolve RetailMeNot into a business that consumers more frequently rely on for more than just coupons when they shop. This year, RetailMeNot is providing our users with more ways to find value when they shop. As we bring these new services to market, I know Marissa will help us expand upon our mission to save the world (some money).”

Before joining RetailMeNot, Tarleton worked at Dell for 13 years and most recently led its North America Consumer and Small Business organization. She also previously worked in advertising in New York City for Ogilvy & Mather and Foote Cone & Belding.

Next year, Hyperloop Transportation Technologies, is breaking ground on a five mile test hyperloop outside of Los Angeles, said Dirk Ahlborn, CEO of Hyperloop Transportation Technologies.

The company wants to test out the technology, proposed by Tesla and SpaceX Founder Elon Musk, to ultimately create a high-speed transportation system between Los Angeles and San Francisco. The hyperloop would carry people in speeds up to 700 miles per hour in a capsule inside a tube moving in a high pressure environment like a pneumatic tube. The system is on pylons. With one tube, the hyperloop can handle three times the airline traffic between Los Angeles and San Francisco, Ahlborn said.

The hyperloop uses solar power and kinetic energy and produces more energy than it consumes, Ahlborn said. He delivered the afternoon keynote address at SXSW Eco on Monday.