Zoho Tuesday announced plans to relocate its headquarters to Austin from California and to create a new 375-acre campus including a 100,000 square foot building in South-east Austin.
The company, which is hosting its annual national users’ conference, Zoholics, at the Palmer Events Center, will release more details later this morning during a presentation along with Zoho’s Founder and CEO Sridhar Vembu and Austin Mayor Steve Adler.
Zoho “plans to hire hundreds of employees in
the Austin area in the years to come, with a focus on finding and training
local talent. It will not require its employees to have a four-year degree, due
to its in-house technology program, Zoho University,” according to a news
release. Currently, Zoho has about 100 employees in Austin.
Zoho also plans to expand
its Zoho University, a technology school for high school graduates based in
India, to Austin.
Zoho plans to work with Austin’s schools and community colleges to help educate local students. It plans to replicate the Zoho University, which Zoho’s founder Vembu created in 2005.
Zoho
University is in Tamil Nadu, India. It is designed as a college alternative to
train engineers and developers. Zoho University has graduated around 900 individuals. Today,
approximately 15 percent of Zoho employees, including many managers, are Zoho
University graduates.
The
Zoho University in Austin will be focused on business administration and
marketing. “Training
will be offered at no cost, providing them with hire-ready skills upon
finishing the program,” according to Zoho.
Zoho, based in Pleasanton, Calif, and founded in 1996, is a privately-held company that makes more than 40 business software applications. The company has more than 45 million users in 180 countries and its revenue grew 39 percent last year, according to a news release. Zoho has also recently added offices in Singapore, Mexico, United Arab Emirates, Australia, and the Netherlands.
Zoho has
more than 7,000 employees worldwide in 12 offices in five continents. More than
30 different languages are spoken amongst Zoho’s employees.
“As
a private company that’s been in operation for more than 22 years, we are
invested in long term growth and crafting the very best business solutions for
our customers,” Vembu, CEO and
Founder of Zoho, said in a news release. “Without the pressures of
shareholders, we can grow with purpose. It is our imperative to invest in our
employees and the communities we are in, while making sure our software remains
accessible to every type of business, from small to large, whether they exist
in yet-to-be-developed, emerging or fully developed markets.”
Zoho makes more than 40 software application for sales, marketing, customer support, accounting, and back-office operations, and an array of productivity and collaboration tools, Zoho is one of the world’s most prolific software companies.
Zoho is the latest technology company to announce a major expansion in Austin. Amazon recently announced it was hiring 800 new employees and building a new office in the Domain. Oracle opened its campus in Austin last year and announced plans to expand further. Apple is putting a $1 billion campus expansion in Austin. Google and Facebook are both expanding in the downtown area.
The fund was
oversubscribed, according to a news release.
Krishna Srinivasan,
Venu Shamapant and Ben Scott founded Austin-based LiveOak in 2013 and raised a
$100 million fund to invest in early-stage Texas startups. The three founders
met while working together at Austin Ventures.
LiveOak’s Fund II has already led investments in six companies including Austin
startups Eventador, Osano and Rollick, and Dallas-based AmplifAI, according to a news release.
“Texas is exploding
with opportunity,” LiveOak Partner Srinivasan said in a news release. “We are
continuing to execute on our proven playbook of creating successful companies
for close to 20 years in
Texas. Early stage investing is a local neighborhood sport, and as such, we are
looking to be the local lead investor and first money in companies to harness
their full potential and help create the next generation of category leaders
coming out of this market.”
To date, LiveOak has led
or co-led 24 investments. Those companies have collectively raised more than
$400 million. Its exits include Digital Pharmacist being acquired by KI
Investment Management for more than $100 million and Opcity, acquired by News
Corp for $210 million.
And its portfolio company,
CS Disco recently raised $83 million and moved its headquarters from Houston to
Austin. And OJO Labs recently raised $45 million. Its other investments include
TrustRadius, Infocyte and Mavenir.
“LiveOak was an
outstanding partner for our business,” Chris Loughlin, CEO of Digital
Pharmacist, said in a news release. “As the lead investor and most active board
member, they supported us through the challenging and successful times. They
helped us develop and execute our strategy of building a network of 7,500
pharmacists and pharmacy owners and played an enormous role in sourcing and
closing key hires — their team was critical in empowering our vision into the
reality of becoming the definitive leader in our category.”
Fund II will continue to
focus on entrepreneurs in Texas
“The fund’s focus will
still be on first institutional funding for startups headquartered in Texas’
four largest tech hubs: Austin, Houston, Dallas and San Antonio,” according to
a news release. “Initial investments will range from $2 million to $4 million
and scale up to $10 million over the full company life cycle.”
But in Austin,Strangeworks, founded by William Hurley, aka, Whurley, is spearheading a venture focused on making quantum computing applications accessible to everyone. It is one of a handful of startups around the world focused on tackling the really big problem of creating quantum computing applications.
On Wednesday, Hurley spoke to a packed auditorium to deliver the keynote address at InnoTech San Antonio, an annual IT conference and trade show held at the Norris Conference Center.
A day earlier, the Department of Energy announced it was making $40 million available to teams “with the potential to dramatically accelerate research in quantum computing.” Quantum computing is a combination of quantum physics, computer science, and information theory.
“In the rapidly evolving field of Beyond Moore’s Law
computing, QC emerged as one of the most promising computing technologies in
recent years,” according to the DOE.
And that’s what Hurley has been saying since launching Strangeworks a year ago at South by Southwest in Austin. The startup raised $4 million in seed stage funding last June. At the InnoTech San Antonio presentation, Hurley said he runs a startup that is capital efficient and he’s selective on his investors.
“Quantum Computing needs long term investment – from founders and investors,” Hurley said.
Strangeworks has created a quantum computing platform, which it announced at SXSW 2019, to bring the quantum computing industry together to share, collaborate and publish work on quantum computing.
The platform is currently in a private beta.
“I think these machines will change forever the course of
history” Hurley said.
Hurley said his first startup, Chaotic Moon, did mobile and fun stuff. Accenture bought Chaotic Moon. For his next startup, he wanted to do something good for the world. He launched Honest Dollar because the U.S. has a savings crisis and financial products disenfranchise people, he said. Goldman Sachs bought Honest Dollar.
Now Strangeworks is going to be a catalyst for others, Hurley said. Strangeworks is going to make tools that millions of other people will use to change the world, he said. It is targeting applications in the aerospace, energy, finance and pharmaceuticals industries.
Strangeworks is a team of less than a dozen.
Quantum computing needs collaboration and compounding discovery to thrive, Hurley said. Two guys in a garage in Silicon Valley will not solve quantum computing alone, he said.
At Innotech, Whurley made a call to action on stage, “if you’re working on quantum computing, come collaborate with us”.
Quantum Computing will not replace classical computers just like air travel didn’t replace train travel, Hurley said.
“But just like with rail travel, at some point you run into an ocean and you need something new,” he said. “Quantum computing will open up possibilities in computing we haven’t even begun to imagine.”
Austin Texas at Golden Hour Above Tranquil Lady Bird Lake
It is tough to recover from March madness and South by Southwest.
But Austin’s tech community is not disappointing in the month of April. There are so many interesting talks, pitch events, panel discussions and hackathons to attend.
And Zoho is having its annual user conference: Zoholics in Austin for three days at the Palmer Events Center. The event kicks off next Tuesday. There is still time to register. Use the code SiliconHills to get a discounted ticket. (Full disclosure: Zoho is an advertiser with Silicon Hills News).
And Silicon Hills News is changing things up a bit in April with a Hill Country Happy Hour. Join us on April 18th at The Shady Llama in Wimberley for great beer and a beautiful sunset and if we’re lucky, the llamas will be out.
April 3rd
The Riveter Grand Opening
When: 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.
Where: 1145 W 5th St, Austin, TX 78703
Why: The Riveter co-working space is officially opening in Austin. It is the latest expansion of the Seattle-based organization that caters to women and their allies. For more info.
April 3rd
Going Back to Our Roots: Purpose Drive Approaches for Next Gen Leaders
When: 6 p.m. to 7 p.m.
Where: Robert
B. Rowling Hall, The University of Texas at Austin McCombs School of Business, 300
West Martin Luther King Junior Boulevard, Crum Auditorium
Why: “How does one live and work with purpose? How does real social change happen? How can businesses affect social change? Join Walter Robb, former Co-CEO of Whole Foods, in an exploration of these questions and more in the Social Innovation Initiative’s first “Trailblazers in Impact” evening! Dennis Price, Editorial Director of Impact Alpha, will moderate.” For more info.
April
4th
Austin Tech Open Coffee Downtown
When:
8:30 a.m.-10:30 a.m.
Where:
Houndstooth Coffee, 401 Congress Ave, (Frost Bank Tower)
Why: Hosted by Open Austin Coffee, created by Damon Clinkscales and sponsored by Egan Nelson, is an informal gathering of Austin’s tech community to network over coffee. For more info.
April 4th
Startup Angel & VC Funding: Raising Money in Austin
When: 6 p.m.
Where: Galvanize, 119 Nueces Street
Why: Founder Institute of Austin is hosting an event on angel and VC funding with a panel of experts discussing the topic. For more info.
April 5th
STEM in the Technopolis: The Power of STEM Education in Regional Technology Policy
When: 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Where: AT&T Conference and Education Center, UT
Austin
Why: IC2 Institute hosts a day-long conference on how STEM education models are opening schools up to businesses and organizations in their communities. For more info.
April 6th
TEDxUTAustin Conference
When: 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.
Where: Mulva
Auditorium, Engineering and Education Research Center (EER), 2501 Speedway
Why: With a theme centered around sustainability and innovation, TEDxUTAustin 2019 – Origins of Tomorrow will showcase an immersive lineup featuring CEOs, entrepreneurs, student leaders and professors that will transform your paradigms about the future. Sponsored by the Austin Technology Incubator. For more info.
April 8th
Cofounder Austin- Keynote: Reagan Pugh, Founder Partner of Assemble When: 6:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.
Where: Capital Factory, 701 Brazos Street
Why: Reagan delivers workshops and keynote speeches on personal effectiveness and leadership development around the country under the banner of Assemble, the consultancy he co-founded in 2016. For more info:
When: Kicks off 8 a.m. on Tuesday, April 8th
and runs through 5 p.m. on Thursday
Where: Palmer Events Center, 900 Barton Springs Road,
Austin
Why: Zoholics is Zoho’s annual user conference and it’s being held in Austin this year. The event is filled with helpful workshops, events and interesting keynote speakers. For more info.
April 9th
Tech Idea to Tech Startup presented by the Austin Forum
When: 5:45 p.m. doors open
Where: Austin Central Library, 710 W. Cesar Chavez
Why:” It is easy to get excited about the possibility of starting a successful tech company—especially in Austin—and to dream about possibilities of becoming a household name or being acquired by the Googles or Apples of the tech world. However, turning a great tech idea into a viable tech company with impact and success requires more than an idea and hard work.” For more info.
April 9th
AUSTIN CTO Summit
When: 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Where: Capital Factory, 701 Brazos Street
Why: Speakers include senior engineering leaders from the NY Times, Keller Williams, Indeed, RetailMeNot, Artsy and Mode Analytics. For more info.
April 10th
Startup Grind Austin with Evan Loomis
When: 6 p.m.
Where: Capital Factory, 701 Brazos, Suite 150
Why: “Evan Loomis loves people and ideas. He’s a native Austinite and most recently co-founded a construction robotics business called ICON that 3D prints homes at a fraction of the cost and time. Evan believes that entrepreneurs take the risks and make the sacrifices to make the world a better place. All of the everyday things we use…everything around us…came from entrepreneurs. Come hear from Evan about how he is doing his part to change the world from Austin, Texas with his 3D home printing company, ICON. ” For more info.
April 10th
Techstars Austin Demo Day
When: 2 p.m. to 4 p.m.
Where: Austin Central Library 710 W
Cesar Chavez St
Why: Ten startups in the latest Techstars Austin program pitch their ventures before investors, entrepreneurs, mentors and others in the Austin technology community. For more info.
April 12-14th
Startup Weekend Hackout
When: Thu,
Apr 11, 6 PM – Sun, Apr 14, 10 PM
Where: Robert B. Rowling Hall, UT Austin, 300 W Martin
Luther King Jr Blvd, Austin,
Why: The purpose of this event is to inspire potential entrepreneurs in the LGBTQA community to learn the ropes of validating an idea for a startup or lifestyle business and turn that idea into a business venture. For more info.
April 13th
Girls in STEM Conference
When: 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.
Where: Travis High School, Austin
Why: Girls currently in 4th-5th & 6th-8th grades will discover the fun side of STEM careers at this unique annual conference just for them. The day is packed with three hands-on workshops led by women in science, technology, engineering, and math fields. Separate workshops are provided by grade level (4th-5th and 6th-8th). For more info.
April 13th
EcoPitch at Earth Day Austin 2019
When: 12 p.m. to 6 p.m.
Where: 900 Chicon St.,
Austin
Why: Tarmac TX and Earth Day ATX are proud to announce the inaugural #EcoPitch challenge taking place at Earth Day ATX on 4/13/19 at historic Huston-Tillotson University in Austin, Texas.
The #EcoPitch is designed for entrepreneurs launching early-stage sustainability-focused companies and is open to the public. Individuals or teams may apply. High School Students are especially encouraged to apply with an adult sponsor, and college students are also encouraged to apply. For more info.
April 16th
PowerUp Austin Tech Talks
When: 4 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.
Where: Capital Factory, 701 Brazos St.
Why: Hugh Forrest talks to Gerald Youngblood about his award-winning startup Tankee . They’ll cover the state of kid-focused online content and why apps like Tankee fill a valuable need. Youngblood will also share some of his experiences from March, when he promoted this startup via several different avenues during SXSW. For more info.
Why: Roundtable: Sales Leadership “Emerging Trends” Monthly breakfasts targeted to specific groups within the Austin technology community to come together in a small group of 25-40. For more info.
April 17th
Kick-Butt Marketing, Get-Known Chuck Norris Style
When: 12 p.m. to 1 p.m.
Where: Sputnik ATX 301 Congress Austin
Why: “Marketing for startups is life or death. You can have the best technology in your market, but if you’re not telling the right story to the right audience, you’re dead to the world and will have no customers. Yet, when developing a marketing strategy and building a team to effectively execute (another favorite Chuck Norris word), founders often find that they’re strapped for time and resources. What marketing initiatives are the most important for a startup? For more info.
April 18th
Silicon Hills News: Talking Tech Happy Hour at the Shady Llama
When: 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.
Where: 18325
Ranch Road 12, Wimberley, TX
Why: Join Silicon Hills News at the Shady Llama in Wimberley for Happy Hour, casual fun and networking. Shady Llama opened last year and is known for its spectacular sunsets and wide selection of locally brewed tap beer. For more info.
What: Pitch event featuring the startups in the latest cohort of Tarmac TX. For more info.
April
23rd
The World Spins Series: Doing Business in China?
When:
6 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Where:
The Neill Cochran House, 2301 San Gabriel, Austin
Why: Featuring Tyler John, international business consultant and former head of Dell’s Asia-Pacific Services and author of The Way of Laowai: The Importance of International Self-Awareness for Businesses. For more info.
April 30th
ReVerse Pitch Competition
When: 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Where: Capital Factory, 701 Brazos, Voltron Room
Why: It’s a competition in which Austin businesses and organizations with potentially usable waste products “pitch” them to entrepreneurs and technologists, who over several weeks come up with new uses for the materials and business plans to support that reuse. At the final event, the [RE]verse Pitch finalists will pitch and compete for the Innovation Prize. For more info.
Most companies wouldn’t let everyone have access to a vault of money, but many companies don’t think about limiting access to data within their organizations
That’s where ALTR comes in. It breaks up data and stores it using blockchain technology, making it inaccessible to an intruder or someone who doesn’t have the key.
ALTR, a data security company, quietly came out of stealth mode last June and announced it had raised $15 million in venture capital.
For four years, a team of engineers worked on the software behind ALTR, said David Sikora, a software industry veteran and former executive chairman at Stratfor, a global research, and intelligence platform. He is a veteran technology executive and the CEO of ALTR.
“Blockchain is a pretty profound new
development, akin to where the Internet was back in the 1994-95 timeframe and
the founding team of ALTR really got a great head start,” Sikora said.
Silicon Hills News recently sat down with Sikora, to talk about ALTR’s cybersecurity platform built with blockchain technology on the Ideas to Invoices podcast.
Austin-based ALTR launched its
cybersecurity platform built with blockchain technology last year and has
customers in the healthcare industry and financial services. It also has 18
patents that have been issued and several more pending.
Early on, the founding team behind ALTR,
who came from Wall Street options trading, saw how blockchain technology could
be used to differentiate the data security landscape and they started investing
in protecting those innovations, Sikora said. At one point and time, ALTR had
10 percent of all the issued patents in blockchain technology in the country,
he said. A lot of the patents they’ve filed relate to how ALTR is breaking up
and storing data in the blockchain, Sikora said.
ALTR’s platform consists
of an ALTR monitor, ALTR govern and ALTR protect. It integrates into existing
computer networks and supports Microsoft, Oracle and open-source database
platforms. Like a 10,000 piece puzzle, ALTR breaks data into small pieces and
stores it on different servers so if hackers break into a computer system, they
can only access fragments of data.
And recently ALTR partnered with San
Antonio-based Sirius Computer Solutions to provide blockchain-based data
security as a managed service. That partnership helps the company reach even
more businesses, Sikora said.
And
ALTR’s blockchain technology is being used to secure data in the healthcare
field. Recently FRTYL adopted the ALTR platform to protect health records
involved in fertility treatment and IVF.
A lot of hype and focus on Blockchain
cryptocurrency has cooled considerably this year but there are more startups
focused on using blockchain for healthcare, journalism, and verification
purposes. Blockchain technology is becoming more mainstream, Sikora said.
ALTR is also a member of the Austin Blockchain
Collective, which is comprised of more than 120 companies in Austin. But ALTR
doesn’t consider itself to be a blockchain company, Sikora said. It’s a
software cybersecurity company that uses the blockchain to protect data.
For more on ALTR, listen to the entire podcast below.
Austin-basedargodesign announced this week it has expanded to Europe with the opening of a new studio in Amsterdam.
The team
heading up the new Amsterdam studio is known to Rolston. He worked with them previously
at frog design. Tjeerd Hoek and Joe Fletcher, who are leading the argo studio
in Amsterdam, previously held leadership roles at frog design. Fletcher also co-founded
and served as executive director at Raft. He brings with him, his co-founders
Guus Baggermans, Matthias Dittrich and Servé Custers.
Amsterdam is almost a
secondary consideration, Rolston said.
“It just came down to this is a great team. They are
really talented,” Rolston said. “It’s a creative place with a lot of other
creative people. As we grow, it won’t be hard to hire the talent.”
The Amsterdam studio already has a roster of clients including NS Dutch Railway, Facebook, Elsevier, Philips and a large Dutch bank, said Mark Rolston, Founder and Chief Creative of argodesign, a product design consultancy.
“Great
user experience design is not a commodity, despite a common industry narrative
that says otherwise,” Tjeerd Hoek, head
of Creative, argo Europe,
said in a news release. “We take a nimble but deliberate approach
with our clients, tying all design decisions back to business strategy and
doing everything we can to understand the full picture of what they and their
customers need, want, and do. With that mindset, the creative team that we now
have in Amsterdam and
the U.S. is primed to push the boundaries of how we deliver design, innovation
and digital strategy with real business impact, bringing delight to users at a
global scale.”
In Amsterdam, argodesign has 11 employees, which puts its total headcount at nearly 70 people, Rolston said. Most of its employees are in Austin, but it also has a studio in Brooklyn, New York.
In Austin, argodesign’s
clients include CognitiveScale, Magic Leap and ICON. Its other customers
include Sam’s Club.
“Austin is a fantastic place to put a design company,”
Rolston said. “Being in the middle of the nation we can reach so many.”
The new European studio is the “first set of steps that will hopefully be argo becoming a more global organization,” Rolston said. “We think of our market as anywhere in the planet.”
For a while, argodesign had a series of opportunities
in China, Rolston said. It kind of backed away from those because of the practicality
of executing those works, he said.
The company has also done work in Japan and Israel,
but those projects are hard on the team because they stretch the team, Rolston
said. In the future, argodesign may consider opening a studio in Asia, Rolston
said.
The European market is a very mature market, Rolston
said. They are creating global products, he said.
The Amsterdam studio is doing a concept scooter
project to help with urban transportation, Rolston said. In Austin, scooters
have this mixed reception, he said. They’ve become urban blight when they are
not in use, but people do enjoy them as a way to get around, he said.
“There is a real struggle on how they fit into a city,”
Rolston said. “It’s a long-term problem.”
argodesign is contributing to the thinking about how
to solve the urban transportation problems in cities like Austin, Rolston said.
Amazon announced Thursday that it plans to add 800 jobs to its Austin Tech Hub.
The
jobs will be in the fields of software and hardware engineering, research
science and cloud computing.
Amazon,
based in Seattle and Northern Virginia, already has more than 1,000 employees
in Austin at two buildings in the Domain area. And the company has been growing
in Austin.
In
addition, Amazon will expand into a new 145,000 square foot office
in The Domain, opening in 2020.
In
addition to the Domain Austin Tech Hub, Amazon bought Whole Foods and also
operates several distribution centers in the greater Austin Area.
Austin
was a finalist for Amazon’s HQ2, a second Amazon headquarters. That project
went to the Washington, D.C. area and New York’s Long Island. But Amazon
recently pulled back on plans for expansion in the New York area.
“Together
with its customer fulfillment facilities, Amazon has created more than 22,000
full-time jobs in Texas and since 2011 has invested over $7 billion in the state
including infrastructure and compensation to its employees,” according to a
news release.
“In the last four years, we have created more
than a 1,000 jobs in Austin,” Terry Leeper, General Manager of
Amazon’s Austin Tech Hub, said in a news release. “With a strong pool of
technical talent in Austin and
a dynamic quality of life, we are excited to continue to expand and create more
opportunity in this vibrant city.”
“We are pleased to see Amazon’s significant
investment in the Austin region
continue to grow,” said Gary
Farmer, Opportunity Austin Chair, Austin
Chamber of Commerce. “This expanding presence is indicative of our
region’s ability to provide creative and innovative talent. We’re proud to call Amazon a
partner in our efforts to achieve regional prosperity.”
Amazon’s Austin Tech Hub is one of
the company’s 17 North American Tech Hubs nationwide.
Colin Loretz founded Cloudsnap, an integration startup that
connects web apps in 2011, and participated in the TechStars Cloud’s inaugural
class in San Antonio.
That company, which moved to Reno, Nevada, eventually failed.
But now an Austin-based startup has taken on the name, Cloudsnap and it is doing something similar to the original Cloudsnap. It announced on Wednesday that it has raised $1.75 million in seed stage financing led by Active Capital. And it’s creating software that lets enterprise companies connect to other applications seamlessly.
Rick Barkley, Founder and CEO of Cloudsnap, last year spun the
company out of Nuvola Networks, an elearning and software development startup
he founded in 2011.
“Rick
has actually been running a software business for several years now and
Cloudsnap was born out of that business,” said Pat Matthews, Founder and CEO of
Active Capital.
“He was starting to spin Cloudsnap out of his ed tech
business. He had never raised any money. He was at the Capital Factory
accelerator. Through that he just discovered us,” Matthews said.
One day Barkley sent Matthews a cold email and next they talked
on the phone and started to build a relationship from there, Matthews said.
Active Capital also participated in Cloudsnap’s pre-seed round six months ago.
Active Capital recently raised a $21.5 million fund to invest in early stage business to business startups that focus on software as a service. In Austin, Active Capital has invested in Pingboard, Servable, Living Security, CloudSnap, and Prosper Ops. And in San Antonio, Active Capital has invested in FunnelAI and SendSpark. It has other investments in San Francisco and New York.
“The more business apps there are in the world – the more
integrating these apps together is a big deal,” Matthews said. “Right now,
Cloudsnap is really focused on ERP integration.”
David Rubin and John Berkowtiz, co-founders of OJO Labs
OJO Labs, an artificial intelligence startup, has raised $45 million in additional funding.
The Austin-based company plans to use the
funds to accelerate its development and market expansion. It plans to hire more
employees in the areas of engineering, data science, product and design.
OJO has created a virtual assist that
helps homebuyers and sellers. Its agent uses natural conversations conducted
via mobile messages to help a person find a house. OJO’s product is available
in 12 markets in the U.S. and Toronto, Canada. OJO is rolling out the product
nationwide.
“We have utilized a unique combination of
AI technology and human operations to solve some very hard problems,” John
Berkowitz, CEO of OJO Labs, said in a news statement. “Our early investments
and willingness to be first to market with this type of product gave us a
significant head start to build our now patented technology.”
OJO has created a free assistant that lets homebuyers ask all kinds of questions about home features ranging from things like whether the house has a swimming pool, a view of downtown, a large kitchen, large lot, school district, etc. The OJO assistant then sends the homebuyer texts of potential homes with photos and listings. It learns what the person likes and what the person doesn’t like through the interaction. When the person is ready to buy, it refers them to a human agent to handle the homebuying experience.
To date, OJO Labs has raised $76 million.
Last October, the company merged with real estate data giant, WolfNet Technologies,
based in St. Paul, Minn. The combined company will
have about 290 employees. OJO also has offices in St. Paul, and on the island of
St. Lucia in the Caribbean. OJO Labs and WolfNet expect to add more than 50
jobs in the coming months.
Wearing a red cowboy hat, jeans, a button-down white shirt, a jade necklace and a necklace of crystals, Adeo Ressi doesn’t look like the typical startup founder.
And he’s not.
Ressi, who has founded and sold two $1 billion companies, now serves as CEO of Founder Institute, which runs an early-stage startup program in 200 cities worldwide, including Austin. He visited Austin during South by Southwest and gave a speech at SXSW on finding your purpose and turning that into a business.
“A startup fails when the founder gives up,” Ressi said. “So, people
always ask is it money, is it the market, or the model, or management. It’s
none of the above. It’s always the drive and passion of the founder. When the
founder is pursuing their purpose wholeheartedly by running the company, that
company can achieve really miraculous things.”
Purpose is driven from the heart, not from the mind, Ressi said.
“Your purpose is something you feel,” he said. “Your heart is driven by
love.”
It’s important for entrepreneurs to get in touch with their feelings and
emotions through guided mediation to feel what their heart is telling them, Ressi
said. Founders can also do it through journaling, he said.
Ressi also spent time at Galvanize with graduates of the Founder Institute Austin program. And he took some time to talk about entrepreneurship on this Ideas to Invoices podcast.
During the podcast, Ressi talks about a whole range of issues. Ressi has done a lot of work with psychometrics and the only thing that alters a person’s personality to create more openness is psychedelic mushrooms, he said. It can help you find your purpose, but journaling is a lot safer and less dramatic method, Ressi said.
Mediation and yoga are also good alternatives, he said.
Working with a coach or adviser can also help a person find their purpose,
Ressi said.
“I think everyone should go on that journey,” he said.
At SXSW this year, a lot of talks focused on authenticity and truth. The rise of vanity metrics has had a counter effect on authenticity in the digital age, Ressi said.
“Obviously you don’t want to post ugly photos on Instagram,” Ressi said.
“But then what happens you get to the point where you start manufacturing
photos that are not real in any way to get followers essentially and build
these vanity metrics.”
There’s almost an instinctual negative reaction that’s happening to
that, he said.
“Where there is a flight to authenticity and vulnerability,” Ressi said.
People just aren’t vulnerable and honest about their feelings, situations, and struggles, Ressi said.
“We have, as humanity, a great deal of trauma that has been passed down for generations,” he said.
Now, there are tools today to heal trauma and it’s important to use them to break inter-generational trauma cycles and build great companies that are good for humanity, Ressi said. He calls that the “neo-enlightenment.”
Fake it till you make it has been a mantra of Silicon Valley for
decades. It comes from entrepreneurs with big ideas showing rigged demos of
their products and creating fantastic revenue charts for where they want their
startups to go. But with the Theranos collapse, that way of doing business has
been called into question. Elizabeth Holmes, founder of Theranos raised $400
million to create a machine that could easily process a small finger-prick sample
of blood and test it for 200 diseases. The only problem was the machine didn’t
work and the company went bust but not before defrauding customers, investors
and employees.
Theranos is an outlier, Ressi said. Everything worked fine up until when Holmes began lying to investors, customers and everyone else, he said. Another recent social media-driven fraud case is Fyre Festival, which raised millions of dollars and promised customers an exotic musical festival in luxury tents on a private island in the Bahamas. Models and social media influencers promoted the festival through paid posts on Instagram, Twitter, and other social media platforms. The music festival turned out to be a huge fraud and didn’t deliver on its promises. Billy McFarland, its founder, is in jail. And Theranos’ Holmes is awaiting a criminal trial.
“As a founder, you run a delicate balance between having that unbridled
optimism and then also having to be genuine and honest,” Ressi said.
The examples of abuse are far less than the examples of success, Ressi
said.
For more on Ressi and his thoughts on traits for a successful entrepreneur and the rise of China and other emerging technology markets, please listen to the whole podcast.
