Category: San Antonio (Page 17 of 62)

Burpy Cars, Lake Travis Iceberg, Google Fiber Dial Up and iHarpRadio and More April Fools’ Jokes

April 1, 2015 / LauraLorek@gmail.com / 1 Comment

Got a hankering for a new Mercedes Benz and some Cheetos?

Then Burpy, the Austin-based startup that delivers groceries, has got you covered. The company announced today the launch of same day delivery of cars to consumers in Austin, San Antonio and Houston.

“We believe including cars into our product listings will not only interest people, but will serve as an efficient and innovative means to avoid the stress and hassle of car dealerships,” Aseem Ali, co-founder and CEO of Burpy, said in a news release.

Now who hasn’t sat around and said I wish I could buy a car online and get it delivered today?

Burpy has the solution to that problem. It charges just a $99 delivery fee when a customer places a car order. And it guarantees delivery within three hours or less.

Hm…let’s see. The company sent out the release at 2:30 a.m. on April 1st, which is what? April Fools’ Day!! Burpy has the cars listed on its special page, which goes away after a person visits the site and comes back, according to a spokeswoman.

And Indeed.com, the world’s largest job site, saw a big need in the marketplace to give pets a job. Today, the Austin-based company announced its news feature “Jobs for Pets.” If you’ve got a lazy dog or cat that just lounges around the house waiting for the next treat, here’s a way to have them earn their keep as a physical therapist, fitness manager and more. After all, “Pets are the future of the workforce,” according to Indeed.

And everyone is trying to be just a little more green these days. The folks at Austin-based Whole Foods are totally tuned into that trend. They’ve announced Underplants, plant-based underwear – a product we all can use.

“From local gardens straight to your drawers, we bring you Underplants, the first compostable, plant-based underwear made of organic fruits and vegetables,” according to Whole Foods. Founders Seymour Beets and Cora Jette have a patent on vegetebras, planties and men’s boxer leafs.

“These aren’t your standard coconut bras and fig leaves,” Jette said in a blog post. “We’ve worked hard to put the delicata in your delicates.”

And for further proof we’re living in a hipster’s paradise check out Eric Bandholz, founder of Beard Brand. In a Youtube video released today and a blog post, Bandholz announced the startup’s launch of Beard Brand’s Yeard E-Z $299.99 beard extension made from real human hair.

“This stuff is phenomenal,” Bandholz said.

And in other news, TheZebra.com, an insurance research site, is reporting that “the average U.S. citizen sees more of Progressive’s perky spokeswoman, Flo, than they do their own mother. The study, conducted in early 2015, brings attention to the ever-growing quality time crisis in this country, and also highlights just how connected we are to screens as a society.”

This may be a joke, but it also might be a good time to give your mother a call or pay her a visit.

Lake Travis Lifestyle is also reporting that Lake Travis will be full by Fourth of July thanks to the Lower Colorado River Authority’s purchase of an iceberg, which is being selected right now.

“Scheduled for the first week of May, the three-week journey will begin west of Greenland in Baffin Bay,” according to Lake Travis Lifestyle. “The iceberg will be lassoed by large tow boats that will pull the massive ice cube through the ocean waters. They’ll head south along the East Coast of the United States, through the North Atlantic Ocean, down and around Florida through the Gulf of Mexico and up to Galveston.”

And in other Austin news at the University of Texas at Austin, a $374 million development will convert the UT Tower and surrounding mall into a luxury mixed use development featuring 200 condo units and 70,000 square feet of retail space.

The development will feature “global brands like the Apple Store and West Elm with homegrown businesses like Bird’s Barbershop, Antone’s, Juiceland, Pure Austin Fitness, Lucy’s Fried Chicken, a gluten-free bakery, and a not-yet-named bone-broth dispensary. It will also boast a terrace-level dog park and food trailer courtyard exclusively for residents.”

And in San Antonio, iHeartRadio has changed its name and its format to iHarpRadio. I must say, it’s a very soothing site. No more rock and roll, rap music and whatever else the kids are listening to today. A throwback to good old fashion values and awesome harp music. Tune in and check it out for yourself. My personal favorites are “Piece of My Harp” by Janis Joplin and “Harpbreaker” by Pat Benatar. We think you’ll be signing up for harp lessons toot sweet!

And Google Fiber, which launched in Austin recently, has launched Google Fiber dial up mode to give Internet surfers slower speeds to give them more time to relax.

So far, those are the best local April Fool’s Day pranks we’ve seen. But we’re on the hunt for more. Please send April Fool’s press releases and prank citing’s to Laura Lorek.

Mashable has a great list of 2015 April Fool’s jokes.

Google seems to love this holiday. It has released the Google Panda, PacMan Google Maps, Smartbox by Inbox #ChromeSelfie, the backwards Google Domain and Google Japan’s Keyless keyboard.

The Dell ATC Policy Labs at SXSW Interactive

March 10, 2015 / LauraLorek@gmail.com / 0 Comments

The Austin Technology Council announced Tuesday that is has teamed up with Dell to create the Dell ATC Policy Labs at South by Southwest Interactive.

The Dell ATC Policy Labs is new initiative to educate and engage the Central Texas technology community on important federal issues.

The SXSW Dell ATC Policy Labs event will feature six sessions on “Politics of Innovation: DC, Tech Working Together Can Washington Protect the New Economy?; Net Infrastructure: The Economy’s Hidden Backbone; The Cake is Not a Lie: Gamers and the U.S. Workforce; Making Sense of the Competitive Comms Landscape and Re-imagining Privacy for Consumers and Developers.”

The Dell ATC Policy Labs at SXSW takes place Saturday from 9:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. in the Capital Ballroom at the Omni Downtown at 700 San Jacinto.

“Entrepreneurs and tech innovation move at astounding speed and sometimes it’s difficult for Washington to keep up,” Cris Turner, Director of North American Government Affairs for Dell said in a news release. “Austin, SXSW, and the Dell ATC Policy Labs provide the ideal alternative to Washington for innovators and policymakers to explore federal policy solutions in the context of a diverse, thriving regional tech economy.”

“The Policy Labs at SXSW embody one of our main missions as a festival – to serve as a platform to bring together thought leaders and the community to not only discuss issues of our time, but also to come away with tangible, actionable solutions,” Hugh Forrest, Director of SXSW Interactive said in a news release. “We are excited to see that Washington is investing in Austin’s innovative approach and are proud to partner with Dell and ATC for these sessions.”

“Austin is quickly gaining momentum as a mecca for technological innovation and entrepreneurship,” Julie Huls, President and CEO of ATC, said in a news release. “Washington is increasingly paying attention to Austin’s ability to not only foster tech talent and creativity, but also our potential to serve as a catalyst in national policy discussions. Launching the Dell ATC Policy Labs in Austin, and specifically with an official, full-day of panels at SXSW, is directly reflective of this fact.”

Rackspace’s Videographer Launches Kickstarter for Short Film

March 5, 2015 / LauraLorek@gmail.com / 0 Comments

Photo courtesy of Dave Sims

Dave Sims, filmmaker and storyteller at Rackspace, has launched a Kickstarter to produce a 15 to 20 minute short film set in the Joshua Tree National Park in Southern California.

“The film tells the story of a woman who while hiking in the remote desert stumbles upon an unconscious man, prompting a haunting story of survival,” according to Sims.

The Kickstarter has eight days left to run and has already raised more than $15,000, or 77 percent of its $20,000 goal with nearly 70 backers.

Sims is well known in the San Antonio technology community. He has produced videos for Rackspace for years. A lot of the support for his current project comes from “Rackers,” (the name Rackspace employees call themselves,” Sims said.

Sims budget includes all the costs to make the film for the case and crew of between six and eight people.

“Monies raised in addition to the $20,000 will cover post-production and distribution costs such as studio time to record the original soundtrack and submission fees to film festivals,” according to Sims.

Sims, a graduate of the London Film School, has produced, shot and edited four feature films and more than 50 commercials.

Perks Help to Attract and Retain High Tech Talent

March 4, 2015 / LauraLorek@gmail.com / 0 Comments

By Laura Lorek
Reporter with Silicon Hills News

BigCommerce photos courtesy of the company.

Back in the highflying dot com days, the perks at high tech companies flowed as freely as the beer from onsite kegs on Fridays.

Today, the competitive landscape for tech workers has meant another resurgence of perks to lure employees and keep them happy. And whiskey Fridays and beer bashes are back.

The perks have gone as high-tech as the companies. Last year, Apple and Facebook added egg freezing to its employee benefits package.

An informal survey of tech workers in Austin, shows some of the popular local perks include flexible work hours, comprehensive healthcare benefits programs, free lunches, fully stocked refrigerators and pantries full of snacks, telecommuting, gym memberships, pets in the workplace, standing desks, free parking and liberal vacation policies.

With more companies setting up shop in Central Texas every year, the demand for high-tech talent continues to grow.

In Austin, high tech workers make up 9 percent of the workforce or about 100,000 jobs, but the tech industry supports more than one third of all jobs in the economy, according to the Austin Technology Council. The ATC reports the tech sector contributes $21 billion annually to the local economy and tech workers, with average salaries of $155,000, are a big part of that.

BigCommerce, which provides websites and services to more than 55,000 stores, has been growing like gangbusters in Austin. It now has 280 employees

Anna Thoni, manager of enterprise accounts, joined BigCommerce two months ago from Rackspace.

One of her favorite perks is breakfast in the company kitchen. She bonds with her co-workers over oatmeal and coffee.

“It’s like being at home and being productive,” she said.

Throughout the day, she’ll pop into the snack room for Topo Chico water, nuts, fruit, cheese and little things that keep her going.

And when she needs to de-stress, she goes to the “Chillax,” relaxation room equipped with a massage chair, noise cancellation machine and dim lighting.
When she wants a little more activity, she might hop on one of the swings suspended from the ceiling near the game room.

The employees decide what kind of perks BigCommerce offers, said Steven Donnelly, its human resources director. And perks do help attract talent, he said.

“If you look at any high tech company in Austin they are touting perks on their website,” he said. Employees expect them, he said.

Yet not all wishes get granted. When BigCommerce raised its latest funding round, some employees suggested the company get a helicopter, but that didn’t seem like a good use of investor money, Donnelly said.

BigCommerce also offers good medical insurance coverage, an open vacation policy that lets people take as much time off as they wish, maternity and paternity policies, Tuesday catered lunches, scooters and skateboards to get around the office and happy hour on Fridays and the swings.

“We wanted to bring the playground into the office,” Donnelly said. “It’s OK to have a little fun when you’re at work.”

At its headquarters in San Antonio, Rackspace has a two-story spiral slide that’s quite popular with employees. It also has four Gondolas from Breckenridge Park that workers use for meeting places. The company also has food truck days in which employees can dine outside at picnic tables.

One of the popular perks at SpareFoot in downtown Austin is bring your pet to work day, said Cathy Guthrie, the company’s human resource director.

“Perks absolutely play a big role in how we are able to recruit in a hot market,” Guthrie said.

And another popular perk is its food. Everyday, the company has a chef prepare a hot meal. Recently, the chef prepared Italian sausage; herb roasted chicken, roasted new potatoes and a squash casserole for vegetarians.

SpareFoot also pays 100 percent of its employees’ health insurance premiums and offers an overall competitive benefits package and gym membership. And every employee is a stockholder.

“We have a no vacation policy, policy – you take what you need and schedule it as an adult – you self-manage,” Guthrie said. “We believe that you can balance your real life and your work life in a harmonious way.”

SpareFoot is also active in the Austin Startup Games, which it has won several years in a row. It hosts game nights and has more than 30 social and service events on its calendar for employees to participate in outside of work.

The company is hiring and expects to have 280 employees by the end of the year, Guthrie said. In the face of tremendous growth, SpareFoot also strives to maintain its fun-loving company culture, she said. Its CEO Chuck Gordon has fireside chats with employees about every six weeks.

At Capital Factory, the downtown incubator, accelerator and coworking space, employees get four weeks of paid vacation, a parking spot and a benefits package. But the real attraction is the opportunity to meet people like Peter Thiel, Slash from Guns & Roses and President Barack Obama, said Josh Baer, Capital Factory’s founder.

Capital Factory has 25 employees. But many more employees work at its startups based there. And they all get Capital Factory’s premiere downtown location, inspiring space and great views along with a stocked kitchen and catered meals twice a week, Baer said.

Perks are important in attracting talent, but companies ultimately don’t compete on perks, he said.

If a company doesn’t have a great workplace and culture, it will be hard to attract and retain employees in Austin’s hot tech market, Baer said.

“The big attraction of working at Capital Factory is you are plugged into this energy and all of this stuff going on,” he said.

Correction: the original version of this story misspelled Cathy Guthrie’s name

Ways to Get Startup Bucks in Silicon Hills

March 3, 2015 / LauraLorek@gmail.com / 3 Comments

By Laura Lorek
Reporter with Silicon Hills News

The funding landscape for startups in Central Texas has changed dramatically in the last five years.

New firms have launched like LiveOak Venture Partners in Austin and the Geekdom Fund in San Antonio.

And old firms have faded away like Austin Ventures, the big daddy of Austin’s venture capital firms.

Earlier this year, Austin Ventures reported it would not be raising another fund.

And Fortune Magazine published an article titled “The Death of Austin Ventures.”

“For decades, Austin Ventures was more than just the largest and most powerful venture capital firm in Texas. It was one of the largest and most powerful venture capital firms in the world,” according to the Fortune article. “But now it’s a zombie, slowing decaying into little more than a memory.”

Austin Ventures raised its last fund of $900 million in 2008.

And while overall venture capital deals in Austin have been on the rise, Austin Ventures’ participation has been on the decline, according to CB Insights, a venture capital research firm.

“In 2010, Austin Ventures accounted for 15% of new investment deals in Austin but, five years later, that figure had fallen to 4%,” CB Insights reported.

Despite Austin Ventures’ pullback, overall, venture capital funding is on the rise. Venture Capitalists nationwide invested $48.3 billion in 4,356 deals in 2014, up 61 percent in dollars and 4 percent increase in deals, compared to 2013, according to the MoneyTree report by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association, based on data from Thomson Reuters.

Austin had 114 deals, which raised $620.5 million in venture capital last year, and San Antonio had nine deals with $109.5 invested.

“The change at AV isn’t failure, it’s evolution,” Joshua Baer, founder of Capital Factory, wrote in a post on Medium.
Other funding diversified sources have taken root in Austin to fill the needs of tech entrepreneurs looking to launch ventures. A few of those sources are listed below.

Equity-based crowdfunding – The Texas State Securities Commission has approved several new portals that allow entrepreneurs to raise money directly from the public for their ventures. Mass Venture in San Antonio is the first portal to receive approval. It focuses on real estate investment. The state has approved two other portals: Crudefunders and TruCrowd, both are based in Houston.

Central Texas Angel Network – one of the nation’s top five most active angel investment groups. CTAN’s investments range from $250,000 to $2 million or more. CTAN has invested more than $45 million in more than 100 companies since 2006.

LiveOak Venture Partners – Focuses on early stage tech startups throughout Texas with its $100 million fund. Its minimum investment is usually $250,000.

Silverton Partners – an Austin based company that mostly invests in tech companies. It has a partnership with Capital Factory to provide select Capital Factory accelerator startups with funding. Silverton generally invests between $200,000 and $2 million.

Geekdom Fund – a new fund, launched this year, has raised nearly $3 million to invest in early-stage tech startups in Austin and San Antonio.

Seven Women Run Tech Startups in San Antonio to Watch

March 2, 2015 / LauraLorek@gmail.com / 0 Comments

Magaly Chocano, founder of Sweb Development, photo by Gary Hartman.

By LAURA LOREK
Reporter with Silicon Hills News

San Antonio is the nation’s seventh largest city, yet it doesn’t have a lot of tech startups run by women and backed by venture capital.

But San Antonio’s booming life sciences industry holds a lot of promise for women-led ventures. Two women, both biotech industry veterans, lead two of the startups on this list.

San Antonio also has had some very successful technology companies run by women. In 2008, Nancy Kudla sold dNovus, a company she co-founded with her husband Frank, to Kforce for $38 million.

And Janie Gonzalez, an early Internet pioneer, founded Webhead Technologies in 1994. The web design and consulting firm is still going strong.

Bluegrass Vascular Technologies – Dr. Gabriele Niederauer took over the reins of this life sciences startup last September as president and CEO. The company is creating devices and methods to let doctors easily access veins. Last year, the company moved from Kentucky to San Antonio and landed $4.5 million in venture funding.

VentureLab – Cristal Glangchai, CEO and Founder of VentureLab, created the startup with the goal of increasing the participation of girls and women in entrepreneurial activities and the Science Technology Engineering and Math fields in San Antonio. She also wants to fill the gap of women in the workforce by reaching girls earlier and encouraging them to pursue STEM fields. The startup conducts workshops, camps and other programs targeted at girls as young as five.

InnerAlly – Cynthia Phelps co-founded this startup, which created a platform that lets people perform simple actions to stabilize their mental health. “Every year billions of dollars are forfeited to lost productivity of employees suffering from depression, anxiety, and other mental health issues,” according to the company. “By empowering workers to maintain their mental health we can dramatically reduce those losses.”

Firecat Studio – Susan Price founded this Web design and online marketing company. She also runs First Friday Co-Working in San Antonio and the annual TedXSanAntonio conference.

Sweb Development – Magaly Chocano founded her startup in 2008. She saw the market developing for iPhone apps. She launched the first do it yourself platform online for creating iPhone apps. She also landed some major clients and developed native apps for them. Her firm also does social media marketing.

Webtegrity – Kori Ashton co-founded this web design firm. The startup also offers technical classes and training. It also specializes in search engine optimization, consulting services and social media marketing. She also organized the first Wordcamp San Antonio along with Michelle Lowery.

Leto Solutions – Becky Ariana serves as CEO of this medical device company that spun out of the University of Texas at San Antonio. The startup, led by a team of four engineers, created the Aquilonix Prosthesis Cooling System. The thermoelectric cooling device fits into the socket of a prosthetic limb and runs on a five-hour battery which can be turned on or off by the wearer.

The Open Cloud Institute Launches at UTSA

February 26, 2015 / LauraLorek@gmail.com / 0 Comments

The University of Texas at San Antonio on Thursday announced the creation of the Open Cloud Institute with $9 million in backing.

The Open Cloud Institute will focus on creating degree programs in cloud computing and big data. It will also work closely with companies in the cloud computing industry.

The 80/20 Foundation has pledged “$4.8 million to support four endowed professorships, up to two faculty research positions, 10 graduate student endowments and research funding,” according to a news release.

UTSA also received in-kind donations from Rackspace, AMD, Intel, Mellanox Technologies and Seagate. The university also received support from the Open Computer Project and OpenStack Foundation.

“By recruiting the nation’s most sought-after scholars, UTSA has developed tremendous expertise in cloud, cyber, computing and analytics. The Open Cloud Institute further builds on that strength,” UTSA President Ricardo Romo said in a news release.

“As adoption of cloud computing accelerates, the next industry that will get to harness this powerful and complex resource is academia. This will allow for increased innovation in scientific research and help to solve some of society’s grand challenges,” Graham Weston, chairman at 80/20 Foundation and Rackspace, said in a news release. “UTSA is emerging as a global leader in academic research built upon open technologies. The Open Cloud Institute will enhance UTSA’s capabilities, while boosting the supply of cloud engineers that all of our businesses need in order to power the technology companies of the future.”

Mass Venture of San Antonio Approved as Texas’ First Equity-Based Crowdfunding Portal

February 13, 2015 / LauraLorek@gmail.com / 4 Comments

By LAURA LOREK
Reporter with Silicon Hills News

Nathan Roach, CEO of Mass Venture, an equity-based crowdfunding portal in Texas

Mass Venture is the first equity-based crowdfunding portal to receive certification from the Texas State Securities Board under its new intrastate crowdfunding rules.

The San Antonio-based crowdfunding portal will focus on raising money for real estate ventures, but it is open to all types of equity-based crowdfunding ventures, said Nathan Roach, the company’s CEO. The portal is based at Geekdom in San Antonio.

It’s the first crowdfunding portal approved to receive investment from anyone – not just “accredited investors,” who are also known as high net worth individuals, under the Texas State Securities Board’s new intrastate crowdfunding rules.

The first crowdfunding project is set to launch on the site March 1st, Roach said. The minimum investment a Texas resident can make through the Mass Venture site in a company is $500, Roach said.

Any business can raise up to $1 million on the Mass Venture crowdfunding portal, but Roach expects the sweet spot for fundraising to be around $500,000.

Mass Venture, controlled by a parent company called Hive Equity, has several registered users, Roach said. It’s in the process of vetting the companies now, he said.

Mass Venture received its certificate of registration Feb. 9th, said Bob Elder, spokesman for the Texas State Securities Board. The second portal to be approved is CrudeFunders Portal in Houston. It received a certificate of registration Friday, he said. CrudeFunders is focused on raising money for companies specialized in the oil industry, according to its website.

In addition to the portals that have received certification, six applications to operate equity-based crowdfunding portals in Texas are currently pending, Elder said.

Approving the portals is one of the first steps to getting deals funded in Texas. The next step is for the portals to vet the companies and for deals to go live on their websites. That means that the average person, registered with one of the portals, will be able to invest in a company and have ownership in that company.

Equity-based crowdfunding differs from mainstream crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter and IndieGoGo which allow people to raise funds for a project or company. In those cases, the crowdfunding is rewards-based. That means people backing the project do not have ownership of the ventures. They simply receive a reward for giving them money. In some cases, it’s pre-sales at a discounted price of a new product that the inventor wants to take to market.

Equity-based crowdfunding from accredited investors has been legal in Texas and nationwide

The Texas State Securities Board approved the state’s equity-based intrastate crowdfunding rules Nov. 17th, Elder said. Those rules allow a company to raise money from mom and pop or the general public for their ventures through state approved crowdfunding portals.

Texas’ rules allow a company to raise up to $1 million a year through an approved Texas crowdfunding portal. Any resident of Texas can invest up to $5,000 per company. But only accredited investors, high net worth individuals who have assets of more than $1 million excluding their home and net income annually of $200,000, may invest any amount.

And only Texas residents are able to invest in the deals. And only Texas crowdfunding portals are able to manage those investments.

Texas is one of a handful of states that has adopted its own crowdfunding rules. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is expected to finalize national rules to make equity-based crowdfunding legal nationwide as a provision of the JOBS Act of 2012. But the rules have not yet been released. So some states passed their own regulations in advance of the SEC.

For more information on Texas’ crowdfunding rules, please visit the Texas State Securities Board.

San Antonio-based SeatSmart Launches Online Ticket Marketplace

February 6, 2015 / LauraLorek@gmail.com / 0 Comments

A new online broker to fan ticket marketplace, SeatSmart has launched.

The San Antonio-based startup has raised $750,000 of its $1 million seed round funding led by angel investors Lew Moorman and Pat Matthews, both former Rackspace executives. Additional investors include ten large brokers nationwide.

SeatSmart plans to use the money to hire additional employees, continue product development and on marketing.

SeatSmart features hundreds of thousands of tickets to sporting events, concerts and theater shows for sale at five to 50 percent less than other ticket brokers such as StubHub and SeatGeek, according to Brett Cohen, the company’s CEO and co-founder.

SeatSmart, which has five employees, spun out of Best Tickets, a ticket broker in San Antonio, which Cohen’s father founded 20 years ago. Cohen saw an opportunity to create a new online ticket broker to fan marketplace. The advantage is that the broker doesn’t have to pay large markup fees to the marketplace or platform operator and the consumer doesn’t have to pay add-on fees for purchasing tickets online. The other co-founders are Jerome Cohen, chairman of the board, Aaron Pearson, chief technical officer and Andrew Powell-Morse, chief marketing officer.

“It’s a new business model to help consumers save money and brokers make more money,” Cohen said.

The site launched early last month and already has more than $100 million of preferred tickets listed from brokers, Cohen said. It launched just before the Super Bowl and several people bought tickets through the site at a discount from other online ticket marketplaces, Cohen said.

“This is the type of business model that can be disruptive,” said Matthews, an investor in SeatSmart. The key is that SeatSmart charges brokers a flat fee to list their inventory and doesn’t charge the customer any mark up fees. By cutting out middlemen from the websites, SeatSmart created a better marketplace by connecting brokers to consumers, Matthews said.

“Everybody wants to save money,” Cohen said. SeatSmart helps customers avoid expensive markup fees, he said. SeatSmart also lets brokers control the end price of their tickets and to gain new customers. “We have real deep relationships with a lot of these brokers throughout the country. For us, it was important to allow these other brokers to sell directly to fans.”

Xenex Lands $25 Million in Venture Capital

January 28, 2015 / LauraLorek@gmail.com / 0 Comments

Mark Stibich, PhD, founder of Xenex and Morris Miller, CEO of Xenex. Photo by Gary Hartman

Xenex Disinfection Services, a startup that created germ-zapping robots for hospitals, has landed $25 million in venture capital.

The San Antonio-based company has raised $54.3 million so far, according to a post in the Wall Street Journal.

The investment came from Brandon Point Industries Limited and existing investors Battery Ventures, Targeted Technology Fund II and RK Ventures.

Xenes plans to use the funds for product development, international expansion and to hire more employees. Xenex currently has about 120 employees.

Xenex created a mobile robot that looks like R2D2 that rolls into a hospital room and sends out pulsated ultraviolet rays that kills viruses, bacteria, mold, fungus and bacterial spores.

“Hospital acquired infections are a global problem and we have proven that the use of our germ- zapping robot provides a cleaner, and therefore safer healthcare environment,” Morris Miller, CEO of Xenex said in a news release.

More than 250 hospitals and other healthcare facilities are using Xenex’s technology.