NextIO has received $12.3 million of venture capital.
The Series F funding is led by existing investors and an undisclosed strategic investor.
Austin-based NextIO plans to use the money to further expand sales and marketing and its product offerings. The company plans to double its revenue this year, K.C. Murphy, its president and CEO, said in a news release.
NextIO has customers in the Internet, aerospace, automotive, oil and gas, government and finance industries. The company makes networking hard and software products for data centers.
Category: Austin (Page 294 of 318)
Mass Relevance announced Wednesday that it has closed a $3.3 million venture capital funding round.
Austin Ventures led the series A round and other investors included Battery Ventures, Floodgate Fund, Allegro Venture Patners and Metamorphic Ventures.
Mass Relevance plans to use the money to accelerate its growth. Sam Decker, the company’s founder and CEO, said the company planned to triple in size this year in an interview with Silicon Hills News late last year.
Mass Relevance has 120 clients that use its real-time social media curation platform. It also signed a deal with Twitter last November that officially made Mass Relevance Twitter’s first curation partner licensed to re-syndicate Twitter content.
“The financing comes as leading brands, ranging from Madonna and MTV through Target and Purina, turn to Mass Relevance to use real-time social content to drive engagement on television, web and mobile,” according to the company. Its clients include the “Big Four” television networks, 7 of the top 10 2011 cable networks, as well as top brands like Target, Cisco, Ford, Samsung, New York Giants, Pepsi, Purell and Victoria’s Secret.
“People around the world are actively participating in social conversations about brands, media and entertainment, and this content is passing us by faster than ever before,” Decker said in a news statement.
A year ago, Mass Relevance raised $2.2 million in a large seed stage round of funding from Austin Ventures, Floodgate and angel investors.
WhaleShark Media has acquired Miwim, an online coupon and deal site in France.
The terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Austin-based WhaleShark Media connects consumers with multiple daily deal and coupon services like Deals.com and CouponShare.com as well as deal sites outside of the U.S.
Founded in 2010, WhaleShark Media has received $300 million from several venture capital firms including Austin Ventures, Google Ventures, and Institutional Venture Partners.
Last year, WhaleShark Media made more than $70 million in revenue as part of the $1.7 billion in sales generated for its merchant clients.
The company has 170 employees worldwide, including 120 in the U.S. It plans to hire another 50 employees this year.
The acquisition of Miwim’s web portfolio, which includes online coupon site Bons-de-Reduction and cash-back website Poulpeo, combined with WhaleShark Media’s existing portfolio of European websites, VoucherCodes.co.uk in the U.K. and Deals.com in Germany, positions WhaleShark Media to provide coupons to consumers that represent 70% of the ecommerce activity in Western Europe.
Olivier David and Francois Larvor, the founders of Miwim, will continue to serve as co-General Managers of Miwim and 20 other employees will join WhaleShark in France.
Ernst & Young announced the finalists for the entrepreneur of the year central Texas award.
The winner will be announced on Thursday, June 7th at a gala at the Hilton Downtown Austin.
Here’s the nominees:
Entrepreneur finalists
View more PowerPoint from Laura Lorek
Timothy League
Alamo Drafthouse Cinemas
Dan Graham
BuildASign.com
Barry Evans
Calxeda, Inc.
Glenn Garland
CLEAResult
Jim Stimmel
CLEAResult
Jeffrey Dachis
Dachis Group
Allen Gilmer
Drilling Info, Inc.
Brian Sharples
HomeAway, Inc.
Jonny Jones
Jones Energy Ltd.
Phil Miner
The Miner Corporation
John Arrow
Mutual Mobile
Kevin Cunningham
SailPoint
Mark McClain
SailPoint
Samir “Sam” Hanna
SAM, Inc. (Survey And Mapping, Inc.)
Gail Summers Page
Vermillion, Inc.
Calxeda, which makes energy-saving chips for servers that power data centers, has raised $20 million of a $30 million offering, according to a statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The Austin-based company, founded in 2008 as Smooth Stone, announced $48 million in funding in November of 2010.
Calxeda’s funders include Advanced Technology Investment Co., ARM, Battery Ventures, Flybridge Capital Partners and Highland Capital Partners.
For more on the company, read the profile Susan Lahey wrote last year.
BY DAMON CLINKSCALES
FounderDating (and no, it’s not romantic) has just launched in Austin.
The online network allows you to connect with other talented folks who are ready to found a company in your area. The first live event for Austin will be held on May 23rd (apply by May 15th).
About the network:
High Quality – members are carefully screened for quality and readiness. Applications and members’ identities are confidential, but a few of the folks who are part of the network are former founders or early employees of: StackMob, Snapfish, Asana, Soundtracking, and hi5 just to name a few.
Balanced – 50% engineering & 50% non-engineering
Online Network – The event is just the beginning. FD is an invite-only online network of entrepreneurs looking for co-founders around the country that you become a part of.
You can apply at here (you don’t need to have an idea, just ready to work on a serious side project).
Here’s some more background: in a TechCrunch article.
Photo by John Rogers of Visualist Images Photography in Austin
Adecco Staffing U.S. compiled a list of the 10 best cities to find work in the U.S. with Washington, D.C. and the Arlington and Alexandria, Virginia area take the top spot, followed by Austin.
Adecco compiled the list from information gleaned from its 900 national branches as well as other factors such as local unemployment rate, job opportunities based on number of job openings in the past six months and an overall assessment of the economic environment of each city.
A diverse economy with plenty of opportunities and an unemployment rate of 6 percent, below the national average of 8.1 percent, helped Austin claim the number two spot on the list.
“Top industries hiring in Austin include technology and manufacturing, but leisure and hospitality, education and health services, professional and business services, and financial activities are also fast growing sectors,” according to Adecco. “Among the most in-demand skills are customer service, call center, pharmaceutical customer support, assembly, and warehouse.”
The complete list of best U.S. cities to find a job:
Washington, DC and Arlington/Alexandria, VA
Austin, TX
Ithaca, NY
Boston, MA
Portland, ME
Dallas, TX
Nashville, TN
Columbus, OH
Baltimore, MD
Pittsburgh, PA
ihiji has joined the Austin Technology Incubator.
The Austin-based company makes software that allows companies to remotely monitor and support Internet enabled devices on a network. It has been part of ATI’s Landing Pad Program for the past two years.
ihiji founders, Stuart Rench, President; Michael Maniscalco, Vice President of Technology; and, David Rench, Vice President of Financ, sold their residential design build home automation company in West Palm Beach, Fla. in 2010 and moved to Austin under the ATI Landing Pad program.
ihiji joined ATI to tap into its network of peers, mentors, businesses and investors.
“Not only is Texas a great state for businesses, but Austin is on the rise, has a wonderful tech community and is also very livable. The structure of ATI was a good fit for our company and the Landing Pad Program helped us easily relocate from out of state and not miss a beat,” Rench, President of ihiji said in a statement. “ATI staff has been great. They’re there when you need them for ideas, thoughts, reviews and introductions. We’re also able to take advantage of multiple directors depending on our challenge, which is nice because they each have their own perspectives and areas of expertise.”
Ziften Technologies just closed on $5.5 million in its Series B financing.
And the Austin-based startup released its first software product, Behavioral Lightweight Intelligence for Stressed Systems, nicknamed BLISS, which lets companies easily manage and deploy software across Windows desktop computers.
Ziften’s software leds to “improved uptime, business alignment, performance, security, and reduction of errors and annoyances,” according to the company.
With the latest round of funding, Ziften plans to add additional software products and market BLISS.
“We are ready to deliver BLISS to IT organizations everywhere,” Mark Obrecht, Ziften’s CEO, said in a news statement.
The two year old company has raised $11.3 million so far with the latest round led by Fayez Sarofim & Co. Other investors include Andrew Busey, former CEO of Challenge Games now with Austin Ventures.
Ziften serves several Fortune 500 companies in the aerospace, chemical and publishing industries already with its BLISS software product.