San Antonio-based TrueAbility made the finalist list for the SXSW Accelerator in March.
TrueAbility, one of the TechStar Cloud companies based at Geekdom, is the only startup from Central Texas to make the list. A few Austin companies made the alternates list including Clay.io and Spot On Sciences.
TrueAbility will compete in the Innovative Web Technologies category on Monday, March 11 and Tuesday, March 12 at the Hilton Hotel in downtown Austin.
“TrueAbility helps companies hire only the best technical talent by assessing a job candidate’s technical skills in a live server environment–from anywhere in the world,” according to its description on the accelerator page. “TrueAbility shortens the recruiting process and delivers objective, easy-to-use pre-hire data that helps businesses hire great techs.”
TrueAbility’s team is made up of Luke Owen, Frederick “Suizo” Mendler, Marcus Robertson and Dusty Jones. The company recently closed on $750,000 of seed-stage funding.
SXSW reported that more than 500 companies applied for the fifth annual SXSW Accelerator.
Category: Austin (Page 269 of 318)
It’s never too early to start thinking about South by Southwest.
The mammoth technology, music and film conference kicks off in March. Last year’s event attracted a record-breaking crowd of more than 20,000 people just for the Interactive part of the festival.
With that many in geeks in one place, it just makes sense to throw a job fair. At least it did to Chris Sherman, founder of Engage Digital. He created the first Austin Tech Career Expo last year as a matchmaker for job seekers and companies looking for tech savvy workers.
Already, 36 companies advertising more than 2,600 jobs have signed up to participate in the 2013 event, which is not affiliated with SXSW. The second annual Austin Tech Career Expo takes place March 8-9. It’s free and open to the public.
“Once again, this year’s event will highlight Austin’s unique quality of life while providing the local business community with a compelling solution addressing the region’s tech talent shortage,” Sherman said.
The Tech Career Expo takes place in the heart of downtown Austin from 11 am to 5pm on Friday, March 8th and Saturday, March 9th at Rivals Steakhouse on the corner of 5th street and Trinity street.
While more than half of the companies attending Tech Career Expo will be looking to fill positions located in Austin, many companies like Groupon, Inc. will also be searching for talent to send to offices all over the country and even in other parts of the world. Other positions are located in Denver, Boston, Silicon Valley, Portland, Paris, Berlin and many more cities all over the U.S. and the world.
Jobseekers should register to attend the free event.
The first 36 announced companies to participate in Tech Career Expo are: WhaleShark Media (RetailMeNot.com); Groupon, Inc.; Quantcast; Advisory Board Company; ARC; athenahealth; CSID; Dell; eBay Inc.; Pandora; Reddwerks; Volusion; CompassLearning; Data Foundry; Enova; Evernote; Gemalto; Intel; ISIS Mobile Commerce; Amazon Music; Luna Data Solutions, Inc.; MapMyFitness, Inc.; Patient Conversation Media; SailPoint; Samsung Austin Semiconductor; SendGrid; Sparefoot.com; Spredfast; SurveyMonkey; T3; United Airlines; Visa; Viacom; Yelp; Yodle and Zoosk.
The startup team at SpareFoot has got a lot of spirit.
They always participate in all the startup events in Austin including placing in the top stops at Startup Olympics.
But now the 60-person company, started four years ago by Chuck Gordon and Mario Feghali, have really started thinking outside the box – that is the packing boxes that sit in storage lockers everywhere.
SpareFoot is the first local startup (that I know of anyway – correct me if I’m wrong) to release its own 2013 firefighter-style pinup calendar featuring its staff posed in supermodel silly shots at an Austin storage facility.
“We turn working in an unsexy niche industry on its head, showing off our chiseled, champagne-filled bodies frolicking in packing peanuts,” according to Matt Schexnayder with SpareFoot. “While some may associate self-storage with the chore of moving, this professionally photographed calendar aims to show that a successful move is cause for celebration.”
The calendar is titled “Bust A Move-In” and $1 of each sale goes to Kure It, a non-profit dedicated to cancer research. You can order the calendar through LuLu for $20.
Sparefoot has a slideshow of the calendar on its site. Be sure to check out the month of October featuring SpareFoot’s Albert Hood recreating the cover photo of American Beauty with packing peanuts.
Next One’s On Me has hired two new executives and closed on $570,000 of a $1 million founding round.
NOOM hired Ben Calder as Chief Technology Officer and Paul O’Brien as Chief Marketing Officer. They’ll join co-founders Sara Rodell and Jeffrey Schwartz.
With NOOM’s mobile app, a person can send a coupon for a drink, treat or meal, which can be redeemed at one of NOOM’s more than 60 partner merchants in Austin and Houston.
“Launching NOOM in Austin was important to us, Jeffrey and I moved here from New York City and LA because we felt so strongly about the entrepreneurial community here,” Rodell, CEO of NOOM, said in a news release. “Ben Calder’s experience with payment technologies and scalable mobile platforms will serve us as we rapidly expand in other markets. Paul O’Brien’s extensive work with consumer technology startups will help us establish the right foundation and scale within the ideal channels allowing NOOM to change the way we treat friends and coworkers.”
Calder previously worked at Rev Worldwide in Austin. He helped launch technology that enables small businesses to accept credit card payments with their smartphone. He also founded Shiftt and Axee, both mobile payment companies.
O’Brien relocated to Austin from California where he worked with Yahoo!, HP, and he helped launch Zvents and Outright.com. In Austin, he founded Cospace, a search engine for coworking spaces. His focus at NOOM will be to expand its service nationwide and to create an offering for corporate gifting.
“Since launching the native iOS app in late summer, 2012, we have been overwhelmed by the ways people want to use NOOM,” Schwartz, NOOM co-founder, said in a news release.
A lucky 13 startups got a “golden ticket” on Thursday to pitch their businesses to the president of Dell and other top Dell executives.
“I’m super excited about being here and having this opportunity,” said Tonia Thompson, co-founder of Springcreek Systems, which makes software that eliminates duplications in customer relationship management systems.
Thompson worked for Dell until last summer when she left to start her own company. She participated in its first Tech Innovators Day headed up by Ingrid Vanderveldt, Dell’s entrepreneur in residence. Vanderveldt also heads up the Dell Center for Entrepreneurship, launched last December. The Tech Innovators Day brought a variety of startups to Dell’s headquarters in Round Rock to help them make connections, she said.
“First of all, as an entrepreneur, when you’re building a company everyone dreams of how do they do business with a Dell. How do they get in the door?” Vanderveldt said. “We’ve completely opened up the doors.”
Dell’s President Steve Felice wanted to talk to the people building companies with the next big ideas, Vanderveldt said. He attended the afternoon pitch session. He never left the room or took a phone call despite all the news happening with Dell right now with rumors of a potential leveraged buyout underway. He gave the startups his full attention.
“As we become more of a solutions company we’re going to add more companies,” Felice said. Dell is also seeking to promote a culture of innovation and creativity, he said. Felice spoke briefly to the group before the entrepreneurs each gave five-minute pitches to him and other high-level executives at Dell followed by a question and answer session.
Dell has made more than $10 billion worth of acquisitions in the last four years to re-make the company beyond its origins as a PC maker and to build a broader portfolio of products and services. But Dell has startups at its heart. The often-repeated story about how Michael Dell founded the computer company in 1984 in his dorm room at the University of Texas and then built it into a Fortune 500 Company is legendary in Austin.
The startups, from Austin, San Antonio, Houston, Dallas and Chicago, hope to do that some day too. Many were recommended by tech accelerators and co-working spaces including 1871, Capital Factory, ATI and Tech Ranch or Dell’s Small Business Think Tank events.
“They come from a variety of different industries but they’re all focused on how can they use technology as a path to success,” Vanderveldt said.
The startups asked Dell executives for contracts, mentorship, advice, investments and more.
Stacy Yamaoka, co-founder of Austin-based Deohako, which makes tablet mounting systems, recently returned from presenting her products at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. She also previously participated in a Dell Think Tank event aimed at small businesses in Austin.
Yamaoka asked for a $250,000 contract from Dell to supply Deohako’s mounting system for Dell’s tablet computers.
Timothy Porter, founder of Appddiction Studio in San Antonio, makes an app to prevent bullying in schools. He asked for a $350,000 investment to hire more sales staff and take the app, which is in 65 schools, nationwide.
Susan Strausberg, co-founder of 9WSearch, a financial search engine, is also seeking investment and strategic partners. Strausberg formerly founded Edgar Online. She moved to Austin and launched 9WSearch to create an intelligent search engine for financial data.
Erine Gray, co-founder of Aunt Bertha, pitched his website search engine for finding and applying for human services such as food, housing, healthcare, education and jobs. He got inspired to create the company after he became his disabled mother’s guardian at the age of 26. He had to find services and help for her and he didn’t know where to go. Founded in September of 2010, Aunt Bertha has four full time employees, an intern and two contractors. More than 23,000 people have searched for services using Aunt Bertha.
Aunt Bertha is a software as a service company that sells application processing software, but it’s evolving into a data and intelligence company, Gray said.
“This is just a great chance to work for a great Austin company and build a valuable service,” Gray said. “I jumped at the chance to come. I’m fortunate to have been selected.”
Ed Bellis, CEO of Risk I/O, based in Chicago, pitched his vulnerability assessment and management software. His company, founded in 2010, has raised $6 million and has more than 2,000 customers. It has also processed 10.2 million vulnerabilities. He asked to partner with Dell.
Shion Deysarkar, CEO of Houston-based Datafiniti, a search engine for data, has 330 customers with $1.1 million in revenue. Deysarkar asked Dell for access to its Project Copper server technology and startup pricing on its products.
This is the first time Dell’s held this kind of event, Vanderveldt said. Dell is seeking to identify the next companies for mergers and acquisitions, she said. In the feedback from the executives, Dell will consider what the next steps will be, she said. There are no guarantees any buyouts or investments will happen.
“It’s an experiment,” she said. “Anything can happen from today.”
Dell plans to hold many more Tech Innovators Days and will publish information on the next ones on its website, Vanderveldt said.
“We’re looking for who is pitching a fascinating idea,” Vanderveldt said.
Under the Dell Center for Entrepreneurship, the company has programs for entrepreneurs at all different stages from early-stage bootstrappers to funded companies, Vanderveldt said. Last summer, Dell launched the Founder’s Club, an invitation-only program for companies with funding and now has 50 companies enrolled and a waiting list to get in. Dell also has the $100 million Dell Innovator Credit Fund, which invests in startups.
Grapevine, founded by Richard Ortega and Eric Larson in San Antonio, asked for a chance to partner with Dell. The company makes a reputation management software system. It aggregates customer reviews from several different sites online and then sends an email alert to the company. Larson thought the day spent at Dell was well worth it.
“We got assurance we will be given a phone number to call,” said Larson. “At the very minimum, we’ll get feedback on our product. All in all, this has been a great experience.”
The startups weren’t the only ones who got value from the event.
On Friday morning, Dell’s President Felice tweeted “Dell’s Tech Innovators Day reminds me that it’s important to stay thirsty, innovative and entrepreneurial.”
Cospace, one of Austin’s original and popular coworking spaces, shut down last week.
The site, located at Highway 183 and Lamar in North Austin, is working with TechRanch, a nearby tech incubator and coworking site, to relocate its members.
While the physical space is gone, the Cospace brand continues to live on and serve entrepreneurs and professionals nationally through a coworking search engine that also provides economic and real estate information.
“In July 2012, partners affiliated with the workspace
launched the Cospace online site to index and promote every work environment; connecting skilled professionals with the right place to work,” according to a news release.
“I am very proud of the positive impact Cospace coworking has had in the startup community,” Kirtus Dixon, Managing Partner of BlindOx LLC, owner/operator of the Cospace coworking space, said in a news statement. “I will be eternally grateful for all of our customers and colleagues, some of who gave of themselves without any expectation of return. It’s been a great run.”
“Collaborative, accessible work spaces are one of the keys to innovation and working through a cospace should be an option to anyone,” James Weddle, head of Cospace Ventures, the management and holding company for the Cospace brand, said in a statement. “We are proud to continue to support the coworking movement through our web service. I am particularly excited about the role the web service, Cospace.co, can play in helping students, entrepreneurs, skilled professionals, and even cities, bring innovation to market.”
In the past few months, this new, virtual Cospace has grown to serve over 1,000 spaces throughout the country and is connecting nearly 100,000 professionals each month with the ideal work space.
“We’ve mapped over 50 work environments in Austin alone and the insight, from doing that, to Austin’s future as an entrepreneurial community
is tremendous,” Paul O’Brien, Co-founder and developer of the Cospace.co web service, which will be developed further in a new entity, said in a statement. “Cospace.co has helped thousands of skilled professionals, teams, and startups find the right work environment in Austin while working
closely with stake holders invested in the economic development of Austin and surrounding cities to understand how and where to invest
further in creating environments that will foster innovation, help employ Austin, enable success for entrepreneurs.”
The classes and education programs Cospace formerly operated are being acquired by Brainco; a school of advertising, interactive studies, and design, recently relocated from Minneapolis to Austin. Brainco will be further developing and serving such popular classes in Ruby on Rails, iOS app development, WordPress, and other skills through spaces throughout Austin.
Want to move your startup to Austin for free?
Then check out this contest at South by Southwest. “The amazing “welcome package” will go to one lucky startup at SXSW that wants to move to Austin,” according to Joshua Baer, co-founder of Capital Factory.
At SXSW on Friday, Capital Factory is kicking off the Interactive conference at SXSW Startup Village at the Hilton Hotel in salons A-C on the fourth floor with room for 1,000 people.
First, Joshua Baer will led a session on Intro to Angel Investing.
Next, they’ll showcase five of the hottest startups in Austin that can get profitable on $1 million or less, followed by five startups from outside the city. Then one winner will be selected to move to Austin for free.
The relocation package includes more than $50,000 worth of benefits including three months rent in a three bedroom house, six months of co-working at Capital Factory, six months of server hosting, moving expenses, six months of a storage unit, six months of local groceries, six months of Ramen noodles and more.
Apply to pitch by February 24th. You can also RSVP to attend on Facebook.
“If you are accepted, you will receive one complimentary SXSW Interactive badge.”
We Are Austin Tech, a weekly video site highlighting Austin area technology entrepreneurs, has just launched its second season.
Its latest post features a profile of Gazzang CEO Larry Warnock.
The site has done more than 25 video interviews featuring some of the city’s most prominent technology leaders including Bob Metcalfe, co-founder of ethernet and 3-COM and now professor of innovation at the University of Texas and video game visionary Richard Garriott and his latest venture, Portalarium. Other interviews featured Pike Powers, Bryan Mennell (SubtleData), Andrew Allison (Main Street Hub), Mellie Price (Front Gate Tickets), Sam Decker (ex-Bazaarvoice, Mass Relevance), Kevin Koym (Austin Tech Ranch), and Lloyd Armbrust (OwnLocal.com).
The site got its inspiration from We Are NY Tech and seeks to put a spotlight on the innovators in the local technology community.
“The goal is to evangelize the people that empower the Austin tech scene in order to attract more talent and opportunity to the city,” according to a news release.
The We Are Austin Tech site is made up of prominent technology leaders like Austinpreneur Joshua Baer (founder, Otherinbox and The Capital Factory), Ruben Cantu (CORE Media Enterprises), René Lego (SolarWinds), Austen Trimble (OwnLocal.com), Nicholle Jaramillo (The Capital Factory), and Paul Schomer (Radio Crowdfund). Austin-based Thinktiv designed and created the original site, which WPEngine hosts.
Adometry, formerly Click Forensics, announced it has completed an $8 million round of financing.
The Austin-based company plans to use the money to develop products, recruit employees and expand into new markets.
Shasta Ventures led the financing round which included participation from Austin Ventures and Sierra Ventures. In addition, Shasta Venture’s Jason Pressman will join Adometry’s Board of Directors.
The company plans to further develop its Adometry Attribute™ platform, which provides marketers with analysis of the performance of their cross-channel marketing campaigns.
“Our focus has always been to deliver the best possible products for advertisers so that our customers and agency partners around the world are better able to understand and make decisions about their marketing spend,” Paul Pellman, CEO of Adometry, said in a news release.
Click Forensics, originally founded in San Antonio, bought Adometry in 2011 and changed its name.
Dreamit Ventures in Austin kicked off on Jan. 2 with nine teams located at the Capital Factory in downtown.
The teams include doccaster, which provides one place for sponsors, exhibitors and speakers at events to share presentations, brochures, and whitepapers which attendees can easily engage from their mobile devices; Figlabs, cloud-based mathematical platform for engineers and scientists; NewCastic, a a marketplace for journalist and business sponsored stories; Planana, an event sponsorship platform; Seer, an intelligent organizing platform; Stereotypes, a music social network; TrendKite, media analysis firm; Pincam, a platform for creating highlighted video clips and YEVVO, a a platform for live social video broadcasting.
Dreamit Ventures, based in Philadelphia, launched its first ever Austin program which will culminate with a Demo Day during South by Southwest Interactive. The program gives entrepreneurs $25,000 in exchange for a 6 percent stake in the company. It also provides office space and all kinds of startup services including legal, accounting and marketing. Entrepreneurs must relocate to Austin for the program.
Dreamit Managing Partner Kerry Rupp is running the Austin program.