Category: San Antonio (Page 18 of 62)

SXSW Interactive 2015 to Feature More on Startups and a Robot Petting Zoo

January 21, 2015 / LauraLorek@gmail.com / 2 Comments

By LAURA LOREK
Reporter with Silicon Hills News

Hugh Forrest, director of SXSW Interactive

What startup launched at South by Southwest Interactive in 2009?

One lucky woman attending the SXSW community meetup in San Antonio knew the answer: Uber, the ridesharing alternative to taxi cabs. That bit of trivia earned her a free badge to attend what has become the country’s hottest technology show.

Last year, nearly 33,000 people attended the show. It featured 2,400 speakers and 1,100 conference sessions. This year, the show takes place from March 13-17th and is expected to be even larger.

Hugh Forrest, director of SXSW Interactive, gave an overview of the conference and highlighted some of the things that are new for 2015 during a brief presentation at Geekdom’s new events center in San Antonio. About 100 people attended the event Tuesday night.

“Austin is growing like crazy,” Forrest said. “We have a new downtown hotel, the JW Marriott, with 1,000 more sleeping rooms and four more floors of meeting spaces.”

The JW Marriott at Congress and Second Street opens in February. SXSW Interactive will hold its workshops, meetups and longer sessions in the new space. SXSW Style is moving there also. And a new health and education technology expo is going to be at the new hotel.

“A new medical school will be opening in Austin in the fall of 2016,” Forrest said. “Our push into more health programming kind of parallels what is happening in Austin.”

This year, the SXSW job market will also be at the JW Marriott on March 13 and 14, Forrest said.

SXSW has held the Startup Village for the last five years at the Hilton Hotel across from the convention center.

This year, Startup Village doubles in size, Forrest said. It includes the fourth and sixth floors at the Hilton downtown, he said. That’s where the SXSW Accelerator contest will be held, he said.

“Over the last seven years, accelerator finalists have pulled in more than $1.1 billion in funding,” Forrest said. “It’s a great place to check out the future.”

Another new feature this year is SXSW SouthBites, which explores innovations in the food industry. It will be held at the Driskill Hotel and features meetups, mixers and food trucks.

This year’s keynotes speakers are Paola Antonelli of MoMA, Princess Reema Bint Bandar Al-Saud, Martine Rothblatt of United Therapeutics, Astro Teller of GoogleX and Megan Smith, Chief Technology Officer of the U.S.

“Some of the top trends we think will come out of SXSW Interactive 2015 – the startup economy continues to boom, this is again reflected in our decision to double the space for startup village,” Forrest said.

SXSW is also seeing a lot of growth in international startup market. In 2014, representatives from 82 countries attended the show.

“We think that number will continue to grow in 2015,” Forrest said.

Innovations in the transportation industry are another trend SXSW Interactive organizers expect to continue to grow. And a third trend is the growing and maturation of the robot industry.

For the first time, SXSW will host a robot petting zoo at the 2015 event.

SXSW Interactive will hold a community meetup at Capital Factory Monday evening.

New Web Developers Debut at Codeup’s Demo Day

January 16, 2015 / LauraLorek@gmail.com / 0 Comments

By LAURA LOREK
Reporter with Silicon Hills News

Liz Cole, John Staudt and Jason Birdwell, graduates of Codeup.

For three months Josee Farmer drove daily from North Austin to San Antonio to learn how to become a web developer at Codeup.

“It was totally worth it,” Farmer said.

She recently relocated from North Carolina to Texas and she wanted to get into the technology industry. But she didn’t have a technical background. She previously worked in the healthcare industry. When she got accepted to attend Codeup, a 12 week bootcamp that turns non-coders into proficient coders, she was thrilled.

“I would not have been able to do this on my own without Codeup,” Farmer said. “It was totally worth it.”

Josee Farmer, a recent graduate of Codeup

Last Wednesday, Farmer was one of a group of students who graduated from the latest class of Codeup. She participated in the Codeup Demo Day and showed off work she and her teammates did on a project called Filmseedr, which lets filmmakers crowdfund money for projects.

They presented their projects during a demonstration and reception at Peer 1 at the Pearl.

Since Codeup launched in 2013, 72 students have learned how to become web developers. Codeup has held four Demo Days. And most of the graduates have found jobs locally, Girdley said. He founded Codeup with Jason Straughan and Chris Turner.

Michael Girdley, co-founder of Codeup

“About 85 percent of the people are staying locally,” he said. “People have also gone to Austin, Dallas, Fort Worth and San Jose for jobs.”

Codeup also runs a program for veterans. It recently launched Codeyear, a gap year program, aimed at high school graduates. They spend six months to a year at Codeup learning technical skills and the program gets them an internship with a tech startup, Girdley said.

Students are coming from all over the state and country to attend Codeup, Girdley said.

Paul Kuzma, a recent graduate of Codeup

Paul Kuzma relocated from Indianapolis, Indiana to attend the bootcamp. He was trying to teach himself web development but it wasn’t going very well and he wanted to complete the program by the time his daughter was born.

Kuzma, who previously worked as an elementary and junior high school teacher, said coding bootcamps don’t really exist in the Midwest except for one program in Chicago that was out of his price range.

Kuzma stayed with a friend in San Antonio while participating in the Codeup bootcamp. His wife gave birth to their daughter on New Year’s Day. Kuzma had completed the program. He flew back last week to participate in the Demo Day. His team created WorldMentr.org, a matchmaking service aimed at connecting college students with mentors in their chosen profession.

Kuzma said the program gave him the skills he needs to land a job as a front end and back end web developer. He now knows PHP, MySQL, HTML5 and CSS3, JavaScript and Laravel.

John Staudt, a former high school AP English teacher, needed a change and got into coding gradually over the years. He planned to teach himself to become a developer, but then he found out about Codeup and he joined the program.

He eventually wants to launch his own company. His team built MyLocal.Beer as their project, a Web app that helps people find local beers.

Liz Cole, who previously worked as a personal assistant, also worked on the MyLocal.Beer site. She did the front-end development.

“Before Codeup, I had no coding experience,” Cole said. “I had an art degree. I was kind of floundering trying to figure out what I was going to do.”

Codeup taught her the skills to become a web developer.

“I love the design aspect of it and being able to mix logic with design,” Cole said.

The next Codeup class in web development and software engineering kicks off Feb. 3rd, Girdley said. The class is already two-thirds full, he said. Demand continues to grow for the bootcamps, he said.

“We’ll probably be oversubscribed,” he said.

The New $3 Million Geekdom Fund Invests in Tech Startups

January 15, 2015 / LauraLorek@gmail.com / 0 Comments

The Geekdom Fund has successfully raised $2.96 million to invest in tech startups.

“We raised money locally to put into tech startups here and around the country,” said Michael Girdley, who is one of the partners heading up the new Geekdom Fund.

The other Geekdom Fund partners are Don Douglas, Cole Wollak and Mike Troy.

“The idea is to have a focus on San Antonio but to be open to other good ideas as they come in,” he said.

About 50 local and regional investors contributed to the new Geek Fund, managed by Riverwalk Capital LLC. The fund has already made several investments in startups including Promoter.io, HelpSocial, SmartPicture, Par Level Systems, MergeVR, FlashValet, Testlio and Fashion Metric.

Jackson Walker L.L.P. represented the Geekdom Fund L.P.

Since the fund closed earlier this month, Girdley said he has been meeting with six or seven entrepreneurs every week interested in tapping into the new investment.

The original Geekdom Fund invested $25,000 in a handful of tech startups based in San Antonio. All of that money has been invested, Girdley said. He was one of the investors in that fund also.

More money has been flowing into technology startups in San Antonio in the last three years through seed-stage funds.

John Mosher and Pete Selig previously ran two funds that invested in Techstars cloud companies. They raised $2.4 million for the Cloud Power Seed Fund 2012 which invested the money in the Techstars Cloud 2012 class. They were also raising a second fund worth up to $4 million to invest in the 12 startups that participated in the Techstars Cloud 2013 program

Payment Data Systems Processed Nearly $3 Billion in Transactions in 2014

January 12, 2015 / LauraLorek@gmail.com / 1 Comment

Payment Data Systems, an online bill paying company, reported a record fourth quarter for 2014 in which it processed more than $833 million in payments.

The record breaks the previous record which the company reached in the prior quarter of $796 million.

The San Antonio-based company reported its electronic check processing volumes were up four percent from the previous quarter and were the highest in its history, up 522 percent from 2013. And its credit card processing volumes were also the highest in its history.

Overall, the company processed nearly $3 billion in payments in 2014, up from $630 million in 2013.

“All of our annual transaction processing volumes and associated metrics exceeded our expectations and have led to dramatic growth for our company,” Payment Data Systems CEO Michael Long said in a statement. “This growth has led to a dramatic and positive increase in revenues, gross profit, operating income and net income both for the fourth quarter and the year. We will report record earnings for 2014.”

The company, which is currently traded on the over the counter bulletin board trading system, is positioned for “potential up-listing to the New York Stock Exchange market, Long said.

“We anticipate that we will be filing our application for approval to list on the NYSE shortly after we report or annual earnings for 2014,” Long said.

Payment Data Systems plans to release its annual report at the end of March.

Payment Data System’s subsidiary, Ficentive, last month bought Akimbo Financial Services, a startup in San Antonio, which sells pre-paid credit cards.

Saxena Joins the Board of the Federal Reserve Bank’s San Antonio Branch

January 8, 2015 / LauraLorek@gmail.com / 2 Comments

The Federal Reserve Board of Governors in Washington, D.C. appointed Manoj Saxena to the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas’ San Antonio Branch board of directors

Saxena will serve a three-year term ending Dec. 31, 2017. He has served on the San Antonio Branch board as a Dallas Fed appointment since 2012. “In his role as a board member, Saxena will continue to provide input on regional economic conditions as part of the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy functions,” according to a news release.

Saxena has held leadership positions as a business leader, IT executive and venture capitalist. He currently serves as chairman of Cognitive Scale and founding managing director of The Entrepreneur’s Fund IV. He also is a special advisor to IBM senior leadership.

The San Antonio Branch board consists of seven members, four appointed by the Dallas Fed board and three by the Federal Reserve Board of Governors in Washington, D.C.

Parking Panda Launches in Austin

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

Finding a parking spot in downtown Austin can be a challenge especially during major events.

Now Parking Panda, a free app that lets drivers find, reserve and redeem parking in advance, seeks to make that task a lot easier. It has launched in Austin.

The service is now available statewide with service in Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and Fort Worth.

“What we’ve analyzed with our experience is that Texas has been a great market for parking innovation and we look forward to continue expanding our inventory, growing our partnerships, and providing the best experience for residents and visitors alike,” said Bryan Lozano, Parking Panda spokesman.

Parking Panda’s free mobile app and desktop website lets drivers search and compare all available parking options for their destination in advance. The app provides filtering for daily, monthly or event parking. The driver gets an email confirmation to access their chosen location in advance.

“Currently we have 10 locations in Austin, mostly in the downtown, live on our platform, and like many cities, we’re planning to expand rapidly,” Lozano said.

Parking Panda launched in San Antonio last year. It’s building its partnerships and available locations in that city, Lozano said.

Parking Panda, based in Baltimore and founded in 2011, has raised $4.7 million in two rounds from two investors, according to its CrunchBase profile.

Seven Tech Trends to Watch in Silicon Hills in 2015

December 30, 2014 / LauraLorek@gmail.com / 2 Comments

By LAURA LOREK
Reporter with Silicon Hills News

The central Texas region is thriving and technology is driving a lot of that growth. This is a list of seven tech trends to watch in 2015 particularly tailored to the Austin and San Antonio area.

Image licensed from iStockphoto

3D Printing – The roots of this industry can be traced, in part, to innovators at the University of Texas at Austin. And it’s growing by leaps and bounds every year. Austin-based startup MakeXYZ.com aggregates 3-D printers worldwide, with the goal of being the Kinko’s of 3D Print shops. Other companies include Structured Polymers, re:3D and Zebra Imaging.

Wearables – The Austin-based portal Wearables.com aggregates information and keeps tabs on this emerging industry. Atlas Wearables, a Techstars company based in Austin, also sells a wearable fitness device. And Wisewear in San Antonio is developing one. At the University of Texas at Austin, Nanshu Lu, an assistant professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics at the Cockrell School of Engineering has created a patch or electronic tattoo that monitors all kinds of information from heart rate, muscle movement to dehydration. Wearables are here to stay and will become an increasingly integrated part of our daily life.

1G High-Speed Fiber Internet – Google is rolling out high-speed Internet in Austin. AT&T, Time Warner and Grande also have competing high-speed Internet services. And Google is considering San Antonio for the next wave of rollouts of its 1G Internet speeds. Imagine the possibilities if this entire region get high-speed Internet. It will spawn startups galore with innovative business models that push the limits of what’s possible on the Internet.

Cloud Computing – Rackspace and Dell are both investing a lot of money in data centers and cloud services. John Engates, chief technology officer of Rackspace, provides this blog post on trends in cloud computing for the coming year. They include big data, sensors; cybersecurity needs all driving the demand for cloud storage.

Life Sciences Startups – The Dell Medical School at the University of Texas at Austin is expected to spur growth in biotechnology, medical device and drug development startups in Austin. The life sciences industry with the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio is already the largest industry in San Antonio with an overall economic impact of $29 billion. With the two cities working together, the central Texas region stands to become a powerhouse in the life sciences industry.

Big Data – With more and more devices connected to the Internet and to our homes, cars and bodies, the amount of data being generated is going to continue to grow and grow. The smart startups that can make sense of all that data already stored and the new stuff will find a huge market in providing data analysis, dashboards and analytics marketed to companies and individuals.

Cybersecurity – Big security breaches this year at Target and Sony have created greater awareness for the need to secure all the information stored in the cloud, on the Internet and at point of sale retailers. Luckily, Cybersecurity is a strong point in this region. San Antonio has one of the largest concentrations of security experts outside of the Washington, D.C. area. And startups like Infocyte in San Antonio are helping companies identify security breaches and protect all their information.

Payment Data Systems Buys Akimbo of San Antonio for $3 million

December 16, 2014 / LauraLorek@gmail.com / 4 Comments

Louis Hoch and Houston Frost. Payment Data Systems just bought Frost’s company, Akimbo Financial.

Payment Data Systems, an online payments company, announced Tuesday it has acquired Akimbo Financial for $3 million.

Payment Data Systems is buying the company with common stock in two tranches with up to $300,000 in cash if any liabilities are assumed.

Akimbo, founded in 2010, has raised $850,000 in investment. The company, based at Geekdom, a co-working and accelerator for tech companies based in downtown San Antonio, is one of the first major acquisitions of a Geekdom company.

Payment Data Systems operates FiCentive, a credit card processing platform, and Akimbo sells and markets pre-paid credit cards. The companies are a great fit, said Louis Hoch, president and CEO of FiCentive.

“The Akimbo team has developed a highly innovative cardholder service platform to deliver innovative features and functionality that we believe are necessary to gain market share in the general purpose reloadable prepaid card industry segment,” Hoch said in a news statement. “Not only will FiCentive have access to new and significant prepaid card front-end technology including mobile applications, but will also be acquiring significant human capital with deep prepaid card industry knowledge.”

The Akimbo card program will be transitioned to FiCentive’s back-end prepaid card processing platform over the next few months and future general purpose card programs will be delivered utilizing the Akimbo platform on top of the FiCentive prepaid card processing engine, Hoch said.

Houston Frost, CEO and founder of Akimbo will join FiCentive along with his four employees. FiCentive has 11 employees.

“We believe joining the Payment Data Systems family will help further our goal of reinventing the prepaid card,” Frost said in a news statement. “Integrating with FiCentive’s prepaid card platform will enable new features and functionality, a higher level of customer service and ensure our ability to keep costs low for thousands of Akimbo members.”

Ridesharing Under Heavy Regulation in San Antonio

December 13, 2014 / LauraLorek@gmail.com / 0 Comments

Ridesharing is in the hotseat in San Antonio.

Last Thursday, the San Antonio City Council passed changes to its code to allow services like Lyft and Uber to operate legally in the city.

But Uber and Lyft call the city’s regulations too costly and cumbersome. Uber reported it might leave the city altogether if the regulations passed. Uber even posted an online petition which has garnered 10,877 signatures, to oppose the regulations.

“The proposed ordinance creates extensive, unnecessary requirements for part-time drivers, creates barriers to entry for drivers and significantly deviates from the standards set by every other Texas municipality that has enacted TNC regulations,” according to a letter Uber wrote to the city council.

The new regulations require “transportation network companies,” also known to most people as ride-sharing companies, to train and vet their drivers and require vehicle inspections and insurance.

Uber already complies with the insurance requirements; mandating drivers carry $1 million in automobile liability coverage. It’s the other requirements that would require Uber drivers to pay up to $300 a year to comply with the regulations, according to Uber’s letter. Those regulations would require drivers to get a full physical and eye exam before driving, take a pre-scheduled drug test, complete a defensive driving course, and “have the vehicle subject to expensive, random checks even though they would also be required to have a third-party inspection by an ASE certified mechanic.”

The city leaders think the regulations will make ridesharing safer, according to its statement. But Uber reports that cases of DWI go down in cities in which it operates.

“I am pleased to welcome Lyft, Uber, and other TNCs to San Antonio. We look forward to the convenience and economic benefits this will bring to San Antonio and its residents,” Mayor Ivy R. Taylor said in a statement.

A spokeswoman for Lyft told Reuters that the San Antonio regulations were some of the most burdensome they had encountered. Lyft, founded in 2012, currently operates in 65 cities.

The San Antonio Express News’ Brian Chasnoff wrote a column about taxicab contributions to city council members suggesting money from the incumbent industry influenced the vote.