Category: Austin (Page 235 of 318)

By LAURA LOREK
Founder of Silicon Hills News

At the Pike Powers Lab Tuesday morning, Nest Labs, based in Palo Alto, announced it has selected SPOT BPO to expand its technical support and customer service in Austin.
SPOT is locating its customer service center in a 27,000 square foot building at 6800 Burleson Road in the Bergstrom Technology Center.
The center will house about 140 customer service employees initially. The company plans to hire 125 of those agents immediately.
SPOT is going to provide the technical and customer support for Nest Labs thermostat known as the Nest Learning Thermostat.
Nest Labs has 300 employees in California. Austin is one of the top markets for Nest’s thermostat. Texas, overall, is the largest market for its smart thermostats, which save energy and adjust appliances in the home according to the consumer’s needs, said Mark Wilhelm, the company’s director of customer support.
Nest currently has two employees in Austin, Wilhelm said. He said by the end of the year, the call center could have as many as 150 employees with 80 percent of them being employed by SPOT and another 20 percent being employed by Nest. The jobs pay between $10 to $20 an hour, Wilhelm said.
Nest looked at ten other cities before selecting Austin as the site for its center, Wilhelm said.
Nest Labs has participated in the Pecan Street Project, a research and development organization focused on clean energy products and services.
“As Nest prepared to bring its signature product to market, Pecan Street conducted research utilizing the Nest Learning Thermostat to measure the effectiveness of set and forget smart thermostats, with Austin households at the Mueller Development,” according to the Chamber.
The new center can hold up to 250 employees, said Alton Martin, CEO of SPOT Consulting. He plans to contract with other technology companies doing work in the smart appliances area to hire additional employees, he said.
The Austin Chamber of Commerce and the Pike Powers Lab, a non-profit smart grid research lab, worked with Nest to bring the jobs to Austin, said Lew Little, its chairman.
Nest Lab’s expansion in Austin is the latest of a string of companies to move to Austin from California, Little said. In the past year, 15 companies have expanded or relocated here including Visa, Apple, Dropbox, Resignation Media and HID Global.

By SUSAN LAHEY
Reporter with Silicon Hills News

Utz Baldwin knew that one day regular people would be able to control their home electronics with their smart phones—regular people meaning not James Bond or the very wealthy. Having spent decades designing and installing connected home systems for rich people, he waited until the technology and consumer usage hit the tipping point…then he founded Ube.
Ube, which is part of Techstars inaugural class, makes an app that controls smart dimmers in your home using an open source API. With the installation of the Ube dimmers—that cost about $79 each—you can turn your lights on from your smart phone before you get home or while on vacation (as long as you’re someplace with an Internet connection.) Or you can remember you left the bedroom light on while you’re watching a movie in the living room and turn it off without going upstairs. Ube dimmers have sub metering technology to let homeowners know how much energy their lights are using. It relies on several gestures: a slide to raise or lower the light in a room; a pinch to turn everything off at once.

A 007 Home, Without His Expense Account

And unlike other connected home technologies, Ube gets along great with other devices. You can use your home router; you don’t have to buy a special one. And down the road, Ube will be able to control hundreds of other IP systems from its one app.
The app will also rely heavily on analytics to “learn” its owners’ living habits.
“Because we’re using server side software and algorithms we can begin to capture and learn how you interact with the technology around you…” Baldwin said. “People typically like their lights set a particular way. As you interact with the lights and other electrical products around you, our system can learn your behaviors rather than responding to a predetermined block of code. Also if you’re going on vacation, our system could remember what you did in weeks before and simulate that. Instead of a light coming on at 6 and going off at 10, we could make it look like somebody went from the bedroom to the kitchen.”
Brad Kayton, a serial entrepreneur in home electronics, advisor and investor took on the role of advisor with Ube mostly because of the team, but also because the idea was unique in the industry.
“The more functionality that you have the better,” Kayton said. “Some folks out there are trying to create more of a closed system. That never wins in technology…. Ube’s plan is that other systems will be allowed to integrate with our system. We can bundle with other systems. The founders are very good at creating partnerships…going out and convincing other companies they should integrate with us. That’s the winning strategy.”

Playing a Hunch

Baldwin had his own top 100 systems integrating company, AD systems, and worked as CEO of CEDIA, an International Trade Association for the residential electronic systems contracting industry. So he had long industry knowledge. He also, he said, “always had difficulty working with others. I don’t know if it’s because I’m a Leo, I’m strong willed, opinionated.”
For awhile CEDIA felt like running his own show, but then the politics set in. He’d conceived the idea of Ube a decade before, but when he left CEDIA in 2011, he took time off to ponder his next move.
Founding Ube, he said, was “a culmination of life experiences, connections you make, tracking industries you’re familiar with. I don’t think it takes a rocket scientist to see a good idea. The writing’s on the wall. The information’s in front of you. It’s just a matter of acting on it.”
He knew the connected home industry was moving toward a networked world but the infrastructure wasn’t there. He’d watched other companies try and fail similar projects and waited until the number of smart phone users reached a critical mass.
In the first quarter of 2012, he called his co-founder Glen Burchers who had worked with him at AD systems. The first words out of Burchers’ mouth were:
“I hope you’re calling me with a startup idea because I’m sick of my job.”
“You have to have the fortitude to act on your hunch. You also want to prove your assumptions quickly. We launched our product and came above water as quickly as possible. You want to introduce a technology like ours without spending millions and millions to do it…. We were bringing together sub metering, capacitative touch, Wi-Fi, a lot of cool tech rolled into one device.”
They built a slide deck and gave themselves a 60-day investigative period visiting mentors, CEOs of other companies they knew, investors, “just to get their opinion…should we do this or should we go get jobs?”
The answer was, Go for it. So they bootstrapped, and raised $200,000 in friends and family seed money, and built prototypes.
“They didn’t look pretty but they worked. We got them back from the manufacturers in China and were sitting at Glen’s dining room table with all these light bulbs and wires. We had the app going and they were talking to each other. That was exciting.”
In October, Ube launched at DEMO. Unfortunately they nearly failed to show the product because their wireless access registered as an “alien” wireless network to the building’s IT system which blocked their app’s connection. They were up until 2 a.m. the night before getting it squared away. But it all worked out in the end and they won the People’s Choice Award which gave them a million in free advertising from IDG in magazines like Computerworld and CIO.
“It was a bit surreal standing on stage at the end of the event holding a million dollar check. I thought that was a very pivotal point for us.”

The Startup Rollercoaster

In April 2013, Ube launched a Kickstarter campaign. In the first two days, the money poured in. Then for the next five, the campaign essentially stopped. Hit the doldrums. Then, three days before the campaign, Kickstarter pulled the campaign because of an objection they had to the reward Ube was offering, though they’d initially approved the reward. Ube had to email all their backers and ask them to send their support to a new campaign.
“Twenty four hours later we were back live. We’d gotten 250 emails from our backers.” The backers had pulled out of the first campaign and Ube wound up bringing in nearly $308,000, more than their initial goal.
One of those backers, Steven Jennings, is eagerly awaiting the release of his Ube dimmers for a home he’s redoing in the Barton Springs area. He met with Utz and got a look at the prototypes.
“One of the things that’s annoying is when you’re comfortable on a couch, getting ready to watch a movie and my wife and I kind of play ‘It’s your turn’ to turn off the lights,” said Jennings. “Ube is iPhone or Android compatible and you need one device that will do it all. The idea of multiple gestures is great.”
“Ube is also very intuitive, very consumer friendly,” Jennings said. “It’s not tough for the non-programmer-thinking mind…down the line they’ll be controlling other stuff as well. The light switch is their shtick to get you in. It’s a good shtick to start with.”
Ube has a profile on the popular crowd funding site Fundable.com, where accredited investors can learn more about the company. They anticipate raising a Series A venture capital investment round late this year. They need to hire additional staff and accelerate their engineering. So far they have about $430,000 in pre-orders.
Being accepted into Techstars was another huge validation point, Baldwin said. And only a week into it, he’d learned a ton. But then it’s been 18 months of intense learning about the VC community, the differences between Silicon Valley VCs and Texas VCs, valuation, convertible notes, the manufacturing process….
“It’s a little like being bi-polar,” Baldwin said, riding the ups and downs and not getting a paycheck. He’s learned 16 different ways to cook lentils.
“But I wouldn’t trade it. I’d go another 18 months without pay just for the ride.”

TrendKite announced it has received $1.2 million in first round venture capital funding led by Silverton Partners.
The Austin-based company has developed a platform that measures marketing campaigns in different media outlets.
Other investors include DreamIt Ventures, Raymond Walheim, Rodrigo Carvalho, Joshua Baer and Sean Spector.
TrendKite’s software as a service platform uses data to create predictive analytics to measure how well a marketing campaign is doing so that customers can adjust it to get a better return on investment.
“We are extremely grateful for the opportunity afforded to us by our world class team of investors,” Matthew Allison, CEO and Co-founder of TrendKite said in a news release. “Companies deserve to be able to answer that question that has been long unanswered: ‘How do we measure success when it comes to media?’ Our platform was designed specifically to answer that question with definitive, meaningful results that impact your bottom line. We want to be a game changer for a new market bringing data into the world of media.”
TrendKite’s beta customers include Nikon and the OpenStack Foundation.
The other founders of TrendKite include AJ Bruno, president, and Patrick Brannen, CTO. The company plans to use the money to hire more technical and sales staff.

San Antonio-based Compass Intelligence announced it has acquired MobileTrax LLC, based in Florida and Georgia.
Compass Intelligence, which does research on mobile and wireless devices, also appointed MobileTrax’s founder, J. Gerry Purdy, as its new chief mobility strategist.
“Compass Intelligence will continue producing MobileTrax’s innovation awards, the Mobility Awards held annually at the Consumer Electronics Show and the Inside Mobile newsletter, Dr. Purdy’s syndicated weekly column that reaches more than 100,000 people each Wednesday under the Compass Intelligence brand,” according to a news release.
Compass Intelligence, founded in 2005, is a global consulting and strategy acceleration firm.

Austin-based Newgistics, which makes e-commerce products, has acquired Tacit Knowledge, a digital commerce consultant.
The terms of the deal were not announced.
“Like Newgistics, Tacit Knowledge is a trusted partner to some of the world’s most recognizable retail brands,” Bill Razzouk, CEO of Newgistics said in a news release. “Both organizations also share a reputation for excellence, making Tacit a perfect fit as Newgistics launches an end-to-end e-commerce offering that brings together best-in-class technology solutions spanning the entire customer journey.”
Both companies share similar cultures, values, mission and an entrepreneurial spirit, Chris Andrasick, CEO of Tacit Knowledge, said in a news release. “With the launch of our new end-to-end e-commerce solution, this is a particularly exciting time in Newgistics history, and we look forward to playing a key role in the company’s continued growth.”
Tacit Knowledge, founded in 2002 and based in San Francisco, has 80 employees.

Abila, based in Austin, has acquired Avectra, based in McLean, Va.
The terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Abila, which changed its name in July from Sage Nonprofit Solutions, sells software to nonprofit organizations and government agencies. Avectra sells customer relationship management software to nonprofits and associations.
“We are delighted to welcome Avectra’s highly regarded product set, talented team and significant base of clients into the Abila family,” Krista Endsley, CEO, Abila, said in a news release.
The combined company now has 8,000 customers and will maintain offices in McLean, Chicago and Maitland, Fla.
In March, Sage Nonprofit Solutions was acquired by Silicon Valley-based private equity firm Accel-KKR from Sage Group PLC.

At Javelina’s on Rainey Street in Austin, FrameBuzz officially launched its online video conversation platform Tuesday.
The startup’s free platform lets people have a conversation while watching a video online. The messages appear in the upper corner of the video screen.
“Social conversations around online video are disjointed right now and filled with spam, giving people a bad taste in their mouth when it comes to video commenting. Instead of using separate social networks to have conversations around videos or using static, after-the-fact commenting, people can use one platform for coherent, threaded, moderated conversations within the video itself. With FrameBuzz, we want those conversations to live on as part of that video, in the moment, anytime someone presses play,” Jason Kohn, FrameBuzz co-founder said in a news release.
The FrameBuzz platform allows video viewers to interact with the content creators. The platform provides immediate feedback on YouTube or Vimeo videos.
FrameBuzz tested its platform with several Austin businesses including UPG Video Marketing, Winding Road Magazine and fashion creators.
“We want to change the way people interact with video. Current commenting solutions simply don’t allow for intelligent conversations around online video. FrameBuzz provides the glue between content creators and video connoisseurs whose interactions will shape the way video is produced, shared, and discovered,” Aaron Lindsey, CEO of FrameBuzz said in a news release.
To use the service, go to FrameBuzz and sign up for a free account and then start commenting on videos online.