Category: Austin (Page 236 of 318)

Austin Startups Propose SXSW Panels for 2014

August 23, 2013 / LauraLorek@gmail.com / 0 Comments

Photo courtesy of SXSW

It’s South by Southwest PanelPicker time.
That’s the second phase in choosing the lineup of proposed talks at SXSW 2014. The event’s organizers first ask people to submit ideas, then others vote on the best ones and finally the SXSW folks select the lineup.
I’ve learned that some people don’t enjoy hearing all of the new ideas and proposed panels for Austin’s biggest technology, film and music festival.
In fact, some clever folks have created programs to weed out the tweets and Facebook posts about proposed SXSW panels from their social media streams.
But that’s not how we roll here at Silicon Hills News. We’re all about hearing the latest ideas. They all contribute to the overall ideation process. It’s all about brainstorming and finding inspiration from others.
Frankly, I love the SXSW PanelPicker process. It’s a great data set of ideas and if someone was clever they would find a way to analyze all of those ideas instead of blocking them from their social media feed.
Because I’m not clever enough to create such a tool, I relied upon crowdsourcing to come up with the following list of proposed panels from some of Austin’s high tech innovators. And in no particular order here they are:

Going From a Terrible Idea to a Real Business: Erica Douglass and Parnell Springmeyer, co-founders of MarketVibe, formerly Whoosh Traffic, talk about how to pivot a tech startup and get headed in the right direction. The company is one of the startups in the inaugural Techstars Austin class.
Co-founders Austin: Ricardo D. Sanchez of Co-founders Austin and TheTechMap along with Stefan Brunner and Johan Borge of The TechMap are hosting this panel featuring 10 startups pitching and competing for investors, talent and media recognition.
Top Mistakes Made by Entrepreneurs: Tina Cannon, founder of Napkin Venture, is organizing the panel which looks at common mistakes entrepreneurs make and instructs people on how to avoid them.
How To Spot a Liar with Data: A solo talk proposed by Noah Zandan of Quantified Impressions that uses data analysis to tell if a person is lying.
Young Guns & Science Commercialization: Jonathan Van with Alta Ventures is organizing this talk about global technology commercialization and harnessing student intelligence to solve the world’s big problems in energy, security, health and materials sectors.
From Table to Tech: The Secret Ingredient: Jane Ko of A Taste of Koko leads a discussion on how restaurants can use social media to engage customers and drive sales.
Longhorn Startup Expo: A showcase of University of Texas at Austin Longhorn startups from students and professors introduced by Professor of Innovation Bob Metcalfe. Organized by UT-Austin.
Building Games for Every Platform with HTML5: And speaking of Longhorn Startups, Austin Hallock, founder of Clay.io, has proposed a discussion about using HTML5 for creating games.
Innovation Commerce: Intellectual Property 2.0: A talk about creativity and the power of the imagination in the technology field to tackle some of the world’s big problems to create new value. Organized by Tarzan Sharif. Andrew Sanderson is a speaker.
How Open is Open Data: A panel on the impact of open data and how to find and bring value to the marketplace. Aman Bhandari of Merck will moderate the panel featuring Susan Strausberg, co-founder of 9W Search, Fred Trotter of Not Only Dev and Michael Atkin of Enterprise Data Management Council.
Austin Startup Media Pitch Competition: Susan Lahey with Silicon Hills News is organizing a panel in which startups pitch their companies to reporters. The best pitch gets profiled.
How to Make a Good Impression in 50 Milliseconds: Chris Perez, the founder of CityGram Magazine, a digital publication about Austin available on the iPad, is leading a discussion about good design and how it can attract or repel customers.
Should You Drop Out of School to Start a Company?: Madeline Vu with 3 Day Startup has organized a panel of experts to talk about the pros and cons of dropping out of school to start a company. The panelists include Cam Houser with 3 Day Startup, Phillip Dade with Crimson.com, Michael Gibson with the Thiel Foundation and Professor of Innovation Bob Metcalfe at the University of Texas at Austin.
The Human App Instrument: Sean Killian and Marcus Turner with Atomic Axis are leading this discussion on ways to use fitness data aggregated from people to improve healthcare and overall well being.
How Collaboration Makes the Impossible, Possible: Dmitri Iourovitski with Astrotech is proposing a talk on team building and collaboration for entrepreneurs.
Funded in Austin: Claire England, executive director of RISE, leads a panel discussion with entrepreneurs who have pursued different types of funding in Austin including crowdfunding, angel investment and venture capital.
Austin: Home of the Journey Entrepreneur: Austin’s Bijoy Goswami, with Bootstrap Austin, leads a discussion on entrepreneurial journies and people who are driven by passion in creating their ventures.
The New World of Health Care – A panel discussion proposed by Sandeep Kumar of Tech Ranch Austin on the information age of health care.

And the folks at Rackspace also have penned a post today on nine SXSW panels being proposed by its employees. Check them out here.

And Apogee Results has proposed several panels for SXSW listed here.
And here’s a roundup of Blacks in Technology at SXSW proposed panels.
SXSW Interactive also has a blog post on Startup Austin Programming with various events listed including the Startup Village.

TrendKite Lands $1.2 Million in Venture Capital

August 22, 2013 / LauraLorek@gmail.com / 0 Comments

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.

Compass Intelligence Acquires MobileTrax

August 22, 2013 / LauraLorek@gmail.com / 1 Comment

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.

TeacherGraph Wants to Solve Communications Problems at Schools

August 22, 2013 / LauraLorek@gmail.com / 0 Comments

The team behind Ed-Tech Startup TeacherGraph

Joseph Van and Tony Le founded TeacherGraph, a software as a service (SaaS) application online that allows schools to send messages via email or text to parents and for them to send back messages all on one platform. Van spent some time Wednesday answering questions about the new startup which has just launched out of private beta.

Q. In simplest language, please explain what is TeacherGraph?

A. In the simplest language, TeacherGraph is a tool that allows schools and parents to communicate more effectively by putting all that communication into one application.

Q. How does it work?

A. As a teacher or an as an administrator or anyone in the school you can reach one or many parents with a click of the button. It’s really simple for the school to message the community. And teachers can blast the class with any reminder. But parents can also reply back to them with email or by text. It’s private and secure. Text messaging is really, really popular. It’s increasing the reach you can get in these socially diverse economic situations for people who don’t have a computer or email.

Q. What problem are you trying to solve?

A. How schools, administrators and teachers can reach parents easily and effectively. Right now, there is no way to make sure that the messages that parents are sending are being received or that the messages the schools are sending are being received. TeacherGraph is a new tool at a very affordable price that can tackle all forms of communication within the school at once.

Q. Who makes up your team?

A. Tony Le is the co-founder and we currently have four developers who are really talented and energetic individuals. We also have two business development guys.

Q. Why are you guys the ones to solve this problem?

A. Tony and myself sit at the intersection of education and technology. We have backgrounds in technology, communications and education.

Q. What’s your secret sauce that differentiates your product from the competition?

A. It’s a combination of things. We have a really, really great team with backgrounds in Google, Facebook and educational companies. There is a lot of talent on this team that is young. We’ve had a really vocal, awesome community of fans.

Q. Who are your customers?

A. We have tons of beta partners. As of Saturday, we opened up our Beta. We are working with a couple of schools and individual teachers throughout the U.S. K-12.

Q. Are you bootstrapped, angel funded or VC funded?

A. We are super bootstrapped. The bootstrapped route is doing very well for us.

Q. Where are you based in Austin?

A. Sometimes it’s on campus (at the University of Texas at Austin) and sometimes we’re based at Capital Factory. Other times we are working out of schools.

Q. What Austin startup resources do you use?

A. Austin has been such a great resource. The Capital Factory for one has been instrumental in connecting the right dots in starting a SaaS based company. We had a launch party on Saturday. It’s really awesome to know these teachers, administrators. It’s a great city to grow into.

Q. What’s the business model, how do you guys make money?

A. It’s free for teachers. Schools when they decide to adopt they pay on a monthly basis. Potentially – the pricing model is based on per user – per teacher.

Q. Who are your competitors?

A. We compete with all the really big enterprise level software companies that do 300 things at once. Then there are group text messaging services and another startup Remind 101.

Q. How are you going to acquire customers?

A. We’ll get customers through really great digital word of mouth. We have a very big Facebook following. It’s nice to see that active teacher community on Facebook. We can reach out to them on Facebook. We’re still pretty young. The Austin Ed-Tech Meetup in Austin has been a great resource.

Q. Anything else you would like to add or make a point of?

A. A lot of parents and schools want to know about the security of the platform. From a security perspective, how secure is this data and will this communication be public? It’s even more secure than it was in the past. When you are using Teachergraph the communications are encrypted and secure. Parents can safely receive texts and keep their communications anonymous.

Newgistics Acquires Tacit Knowledge

August 21, 2013 / LauraLorek@gmail.com / 0 Comments

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 Acquires Avectra

August 21, 2013 / LauraLorek@gmail.com / 2 Comments

Krista Endsley, CEO, Abila

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.

FrameBuzz Launches Video Conversation Platform in Austin

August 21, 2013 / LauraLorek@gmail.com / 1 Comment

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.

Equity Endeavor Wants to Help Mom and Pop Shops Raise Funds

August 21, 2013 / LauraLorek@gmail.com / 3 Comments

Eric Sonnier and Broderick McClinton, Co-founders of Equity Endeavor

Equity Endeavor set out to help startup businesses raise money through its equity-based crowdfunding site.
And although that practice has been approved by Congress and signed into law by President Obama as part of the JOBS Act, equity-based crowdfunding still isn’t allowed. That’s because the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has not yet signed off on the practice and provided the rules to regulate equity based crowdfunding. Those rules are expected to go into effect on Sept. 23 and the SEC is currently seeking comments on them. Angellist, a site that helps tech startups find investors, thinks the new rules are too complicated and will hurt startups. Equity Endeavor decided to go a different route.
“We wanted to create a more efficient ecosystem for funding startups but we couldn’t wait for the government to come up with its regulations,” said Eric Sonnier, co-founder of Equity Endeavor.
So the startup company did a pivot.
“Out goal is to help small businesses,” said Broderick McClinton, the site’s other co-founder.
So they decided to focus on rewards-based crowdfunding for local businesses. They plan to launch this fall with five companies each in Austin and New Orleans.
McClinton and Sonnier are now both Harvard Business School students who will graduate next spring. They received a small grant from Harvard to work on their startup. They’ve split their time between Austin, where they have work out of Capital Factory and New Orleans. Sonnier graduated from the University of Texas at Austin and McClinton graduated from Tulane University in New Orleans.
Right now they are looking for businesses to try out their site in Austin and New Orleans. The businesses must be locally owned and looking to raise between $4,000 and $40,000. Although rewards-based crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter, Indiegogo, RocketHub and others already exist, Sonnier said they felt like a void existed for a crowdfunding site focused on supporting local businesses by a locally-focused crowdfunding site.
“It’s very hard on these national markets to contribute to a small business in Austin, Texas,” Sonnier said.
The whole focus is on helping local businesses reach their communities and expand their customer support.
“It should be just as easy to raise money in Austin, New Orleans and Kansas City as it is in Silicon Valley,” McClinton said.

Ambiq Micro Lands $10 Million in Funding

August 20, 2013 / LauraLorek@gmail.com / 0 Comments

Ambiq Micro, an Austin-based maker of ultra-low power integrated circuits, announced Tuesday that is has secured $10 million in Series B financing.
Austin Ventures led the round along with participation from existing investors including ARM, Mercury Fund, Huron River Ventures and other investors.
Ambiq Micro makes technology that lets semiconductors operate at low power levels.
“As more and more markets are demanding devices that are mobile, portable or remote, batteries and low power ICs become essential enablers for business,” Mark Foley, CEO and President of Ambiq Micro said in a news release. “With this investment round, we will proliferate our SPOT platform-based products to these emerging low-power markets and applications. AV is a perfect partner for us as it shares our vision for the rapid growth of the Internet of Things.”
The company’s technology can be used in batteries for smart watches, wireless sensors, smart cards and medical devices.
“Austin Ventures expects Ambiq Micro products to have a major impact in many high-growth applications. Long life will be the driving factor behind consumer acceptance of new networked, battery-operated devices. Ambiq Micro is forging a path to change the market. We are very excited to join its investor group,” Clark Jernigan, Venture Partner, Austin Ventures, said in a news release.

Techstars Introduces Its First Austin Class

August 19, 2013 / LauraLorek@gmail.com / 3 Comments

By SUSAN LAHEY
Reporter with Silicon Hills News

Techstars will introduce its inaugural class in Austin Monday night, August 19th at 6:30 at Capital Factory. Announcing its first Austin program in May, Techstars has reviewed applications from more than 850 companies and chosen ten.

Filament Labs build patient tracking and compliance software around mobile health, behavior tracking, and behavior change. One of its consumer products, HealthSpark, was 1 of 30 hand-selected apps within Aetna’s CarePass initiative.
MarketVibe (founded by the Whoosh Traffic team at Capital Factory) uses customers web analytics and shopping cart data to teach companies how to get more traffic, leads and sales.
Fosbury is a cross-platform digital wallet solution for designing, managing and analyzing campaigns on Apple Passbook and Samsung Wallet. Fosbury ensures retailers and other that their customers always have loyalty cards and coupons with them and provides a new way to interact with customers.
Atlas Wristband takes a new approach to wearable technology in the fitness industry. Atlas combines top talent from Johns Hopkins University, Phillips Healthcare and Maxim Integrated Products.
AuManil helps Online Retailers identify, manage and grow their most valuable customers – and create more of them. It enables shopper-facing agents to engage high value customers based on behavioral profiles and predictive insights. These targeted, personalized engagements lead to increased revenues, high retention rates, and better customer satisfaction.
Ube: controls lights and appliances from a smart phone, inexpensively. The company’s Wi-Fi enabled Smart Dimmers, Smart Plugs and Smart Outlets are competitively priced, easy to install, and provide the convenience of controlling your lights from your smartphone from anywhere in the world.
ProductGram: allows online sellers to extend their store from one outlet to many. Currently in development for Etsy sellers, the mobile app will push an attractive listing, not just a third party link to drive more product views to increase sales via other channels, with checkouts happening wherever engagement happens.
Testlio: opens a network of mobile testers to developers needing every last bug uncovered. The company has created tools for software testing that use real time chat, integrate issue reports into their existing systems, and do daily/weekly testing based on the customers own release schedule.
Accountable: streamlines and simplifies HIPAA compliance by providing a suite of tools and resources for firms, from necessary agreements and policies to risk assessments and employee training. All required pieces are tracked for completeness and time-sensitive expiration, with monitoring and alerts maintaining compliance. Audits are as simple as printing out a report and all requested information.
ProtoExchange: is a cloud-based network of professional 3D printing services that allow businesses to source the production and material capabilities of the network in a scalable, cost-effective, and time-efficient manner.

Brandon Marker, analyst with Techstars Austin, said the accelerator went through every one of the applications and wound up sitting down with 40-50 teams either in person or on a video call. Techstars has a very specific list of criteria. For example, Marker said, they tend not to accept single founders because “It’s very difficult to control and manage everything going on in the TechStars program while you’re growing, building and managing your business at the same time.”
Matt Ford, a spokesman with Techstars said the criteria boils down to: “Team, team, then idea. We’re looking for talented, passionate co-founders with a nice balance of skills.”
Techstars is a 13 week program with a demo day at the end of October.
“The difference (between Techstars and other programs) is going to be our approach to mentorship and growing community within Austin,” Marker said. “The mentors have a very natural, organic connection to the company. There’s no pay, no incentive. It’s just do you want to meet with them? Do you want to take any of them on beyond the initial meeting?”
Techstars recruited 90 mentors among serial entrepreneurs, investors and others. Each of them met with Jason Seats, managing director of the Techstars program in Austin, during the selection process. The companies’ goals vary depending on where they are in the development of their companies.
“They’ll have focused long term vision,” Ford said.
“We’re pushing them to a stronger, more meaningful business model,” Marker said. “When they’re done, they will clearly know what their business is, who their client is and how they want to push that growth.”