Oracle announced last Friday that it has acquired StackEngine, a year old Austin-based startup focused on cloud computing.

All of the employees of StackEngine will join Oracle, the company announced. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Last October, StackEngine, a platform for Docker apps, announced it had raised $1 million in seed funding from Silverton Partners and LiveOak Venture Partners. In June of this year, the company raised $3.5 million in a Series A round.

Bob Quillin, Eric Anderson and Robert Gordon, formerly of CopperEgg, Hyper9 and VMware, founded the company.

StackEngine’s sale to Oracle is the first exit for LiveOak Venture Partners, a $109 million venture capital firm based in Austin.

“This is a great outcome for the team, the investors and the Austin technology community at large,” Krishna Srinivasan, co-founding general partner at LiveOak Venture Partners and previously a board member at StackEngine, said in a news release. “StackEngine perfectly fits the mold of us being the first institutional investors behind visionary entrepreneurs who disrupt the status quo with exciting technologies here in Texas. We look forward to many more exciting outcomes from the 13 companies in our portfolio and future investments.”

By BOB METCALFE
Reprinted with permission

Ahoy!

What is today’s single most impactful driver of human progress?

Connectivity AKA Networking AKA The Internet.

The Internet is spreading rapidly, already reaching half the human race since turn-on in 1969. And with the Internet’s spread come freedom and prosperity. Democracy and Free Enterprise.

The Internet’s speed is increasing — we are now building out the Gigabit Internet. Not so long ago we carried ASCII on the Kilobit Internet, starting in the 1970s. Then Powerpoint. Then voice. Now video on the Megabit Internet, since the 1990s. Soon the Gigabit Internet and what? augmented and virtual reality…

The Internet’s mobility is increasing as smart mobile phones proliferate. A big next step will be the Internet of Things (IoT) — we’re just now finding out some of the earlier “things” to be networked — phones, thermostats, watches, cars, robots…

And we continued being surprised by the new innovations that are enabled by this new connectivity, delivering on network effects. We are befuddled by the Unicorns, all enabled by the Internet and the power of its connectivity.

Industry after industry is being disrupted, for the good, as each has its uber moment. We were surprised by the Internet’s disruptions of computing, memos, mail, telephone, television, journalism, advertising, books, music…

Next up, way bigger industries: energy, education, healthcare…

The status quo is big and mean — am looking at you, FCC — but it’s quickly overwhelmed by network effects.

Connectivity. Networking. The Internet.

Merry Christmas! and Happy New Year!

Bob Metcalfe is professor of innovation at the Cockrell School of Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin, visiting innovation fellow at MIT, Ethernet co-inventor, 3Com founder and partner emeritus at Polaris Partners. This post was reprinted with permission. It first appeared on Facebook.

Bob Metcalfe

Diversity Fund recently launched in Austin and aims to help startups and ongoing businesses raise capital through equity-based crowdfunding.

In particular, Diversity Fund, founded by Charlie Jackson, aims to help women, LGBT and minority-led businesses get financing directly from investors through debt or equity funding up to $1 million a year for any Texas business.

The portal also helps investors find deals to put their money into. Jackson recently answered some questions about the business and why it’s needed in Austin and Texas.

Q. What is the Diversity Fund?

A. Diversity Fund is an online finance portal, operating under the new securities crowdfunding rules, that allows business to sell equity to or borrow money directly from investors. (We are currently operating under the Texas State Securities Board equity crowdfunding rules.)

Q. How does the Diversity Fund portal work?

A. Businesses decide how much money they need to raise, sign up, select whether they want to offer Rewards, Lending, Equity or any combination and launch their deal. When their “deal” goes live, investors are then able to finance these businesses directly from the business (securities rules require that deals be available for a minimum of 21 days for investors to view, ask questions, and perform their own due diligence) and invest in local businesses right in their own city. Under these new rules, ANY Texan can now be an investor regardless of income (previously only “accredited” investors had access to such deals).

Q. Why did you decide to create it?

A. Businesses always have a challenge raising capital unless they already have assets or have been in business more than two years. We wanted to provide them a faster and easier way to get financing using the crowdfunding model while at the same time provide investors a way to participate directly in business finance.

Q. Who is your customer?

A. We specifically focus on women, LGBT, and minority-led businesses. Although these make up the majority of all small businesses, they traditionally have had a harder time achieving funding.

Q. What sets you apart from your competition?

A. We offer a simplified way for businesses to raise capital and for investors to directly participate in the funding of Texas businesses.

Q. Are you bootstrapped? Do you have VC funds or Angel investment?

A. Bootstrapped so far. No outside financing to date.

Q. Why is this fund needed in Austin?

A. Austin has lots of entrepreneurs and a great support system for hi-tech startups, but has lacked in good financing for other types of business.

Q. What is your biggest accomplishment so far?

A. We’ve already gone live with three businesses and have many more seeking us out to participate in the portal.

Q. What is your biggest mistake?

A. Like many startups, it has taken us a bit longer to launch than we originally planned.

Q. How do you get the word out about Diversity Fund?

A. We market through a variety of channels, particularly by focusing or organizations (online and offline) that support entrepreneurs in our target market.

Q. How many employees do you have?

A. We have a team of six.

Q. Where are you located in Austin?

A. We don’t yet have offices, but plan to locate downtown.

Q. What Austin resources have you drawn on to help launch Diversity Fund?

A. Network of friends and contacts (I’ve worked on hi-tech startups in Austin for the past 20 years).

Q. What else would you like to mention?

A. Although we’re relatively new, we are excited about this business model, already expanding throughout Texas and look forward to a national launch in 2016.

By GRAHAM DICKIE
Special contributor to Silicon Hills News

Right up the hill from the pandemonium of this month’s Trail of Lights and inside a former accounting firm is the office of Everfest, a tiny Austin startup working on the fringes of the same festival industry but forging a worldwide path.

On a recent Monday it is a low-key scene there. Two coders are slouched over in the backroom working on a beta version of the company’s app, a box fan hazardously tied to the ceiling acts as air conditioning, and founder Paul Cross is sitting down to wax philosophically about Everfest’s mission.

Cross dubs Everfest, which is vying to build the definitive digital ecosystem for all kinds of real-world festivals, “a giant positive memory dispenser.” He talks about a time he hiked to a remote Scottish beach that doubled as his “aha! moment” for the startup. And, sounding like a Burning Man attendee on the comedown, he balls his hands up to mimic the shape of a brain, “this ball of gray matter,” to discuss societal shifts he has been researching that have created the conditions for Everfest to succeed.

A veteran of entrepreneurialism, Cross has the eccentric, self-mythologizing startup spiel down to a tee.

He explains that, as he deciphered it when Everfest was in utero, young people today care about the value of experience more than the value of commodities. He says they want to be memory-rich, not cash-rich, a shift that likely has contributed to today’s booming festival culture. (Almost one-tenth of the US population attended a music festival in 2014, according to Billboard.)

The abundance of festivals, Cross continues, presented a couple of untouched areas for Everfest to capitalize on: festival enthusiasts had no comprehensive authority to look to online, and many festivals couldn’t provide their own digital frameworks.

Established in late 2014 by Cross and his friends Brad Dixon and Jay Manickam, Everfest wants to be that authority. The company now has a staff of “10-ish,” employee Adam Greenspan said. It has positions devoted to festival outreach and coding, but it is at a pre-funding stage where titles are not important and office doors can be torn off the hinges to be used as beer pong tables. (There is also a sign near the front door laying out formal beer pong rules.)

As a service, Everfest is straight-forward. It consists of two major parts – a website and an app. Together they are supposed to encompass the before, after, and during of a festival visit.

The website is like an index, serving up the essentials of individual events: their line-ups, when and where they are happening, links to social media pages, and other relevant information. The app resembles large festivals’ current offerings. Its purpose is to give users what they need to know – like where the bathrooms are – and then to get “the hell out of the way” Greenspan said. Because of Facebook integration, you can find your friends and stage a meet-up point with a built-in map interface.

Everfest is not limited to music festivals like Austin City Limits. On its website it lists 11 additional categories, ranging from “Faith” to “Historical.” In a section labeled “Unique,” you can find gatherings like the Texan Onion Fest or the Pushkar Camel Fair in India (it lasts for more than two weeks in late November). The company estimates its database encompasses around 8,000 events, and what is unique is how it has consolidated them all under one roof.

Cross hopes people will eventually use the service to inform, index and record their experiences at all these types of festivals, sharing and adding to Everfest’s catalogue in the process – turning it into a kind of rich, personal wiki for large events.

The concerns right now for the company are building up the website; strengthening the mobile app, which is available on iPhone and Android and should enter beta soon (“I wish they would give us some credit for just building the first alpha version,” Cross laments at one point when asked about negative reviews); and continuing to court promoters around the world.

“What we’ve made is a free mobile app that we’re giving away that gives [festivals] all the benefits of their own mobile app,” festival outreach coordinator Amir Mozafari said. “It’s a true partnership. We help them out, they help us out.”

The Pecan Street Festival, a bi-annual arts event that takes place on Sixth Street, is a good example of how Everfest works with festivals. Pecan Street, which is run by a non-profit organization, chose Everfest as its official app and main sponsor this year. It was a gesture of goodwill from both sides, which Everfest says it is eager to extend to other festivals that are not about making money.

This is not the first time the Pecan Street Festival has had an app, but it is the first time it has gotten one for free. Around four years ago, they paid an independent developer a hefty sum to build them one, festival organizer Luis Zapata said. Two years later, though, the developer abruptly disappeared and the app disintegrated from the marketplace without their approval.

Paying tens of thousands of dollars for another app, a reality that many small festivals face, was out of the question until Everfest approached the Pecan Street heads.

“Everfest came along and basically answered all of our prayers on that front,” Executive Director Debbie Russell said. “There hasn’t been a database of festivals to date. This is filling that void.”

While Everfest worked closely with the promoters to design the Pecan Street Festival’s profile, in the future they hope to build an interface that is intuitive enough for festivals to design their own assets – maps and so on – for the app.

“We’ll work with anybody,” Mozafari said. “Any genre, any kind of size.”

Cross and Greenspan said that for interested promoters and the users Everfest will continue to be free at some level, adding that revenue could come in the future from things like booking travel accommodations for out-of-towners.

“We know that if we get certain levels of traffic we’ll be able to monetize that traffic,” Greenspan said. “It’s kind of scary to do that but it’s an approach. That’s what we’re doing, man.”

Thinking back to his hike in Scotland that birthed Everfest and his central axiom of how an experience like it is worth more than a dollar, Cross also has other goals in mind aside from money.

“This is a mission to bring this thing together,” Cross said. “We need more and more people to enjoy festivals together. I need them to do that.”

By SUSAN LAHEY
Reporter with Silicon Hills News

Getting a book published the old fashioned way—through the agents and publishers who have the power to lift the work from obscurity—has a lot in common with finding investors for your startup.

Just getting to “No” is a torturous process.

First you have to find the companies that deal with your particular kind of book—and god forbid it doesn’t fit neatly into a genre box. You have to collect tons of information on things you never knew mattered—like whether you have a platform and how many books like yours have sold recently. And once you’ve submitted it all, you have to wait for the inevitable rejection before you can do it all again for a different agent or publisher.

Monica Landers had done that process for a book she wrote on her adventures as a producer for ABC News, which inspired her to co-found Authors.me. Authors.me is a platform to connect writers to agents or publishers. It helps writers create a profile with all the information agents and publishers need, and can arrange the connection between, say a Young Adult Science Fiction/Fantasy writer and the companies that are looking for that kind of book. Since the site launched in July, they’ve facilitated 15 book deals.

It’s all about user experience. From the author side, said Landers “Trying to talk to publishers is very repetitive, you get no feedback, it’s just a soul crushing experience.” From the publisher side “They have to make sure they don’t miss the next best seller. But they get queries that don’t have enough information even to know if it’s a good fit. It takes a lot of back and forth.” Unfortunately, when publishers or agents start asking questions, authors assume they’re about to get a book deal when, in fact, the agent or publisher may just be gathering enough information to confidently say no.

“Publishers do have a heart and this is the least favorite part of their job. That’s why writers don’t hear back,” Landers said.

Matchmaking for Authors/ Publishers

Authors.me lets writers know when agents or publishers have taken a peek and when they have taken the book “in-house” for a closer look. It gives both parties a place to communicate without a hailstorm of emails.
One of the most groundbreaking features is the platform’s “Discovery” feature that pings publishers and agents when a certain type of project comes in, even if the author hasn’t specifically queried them, giving more books an opportunity to be found.

That’s one of Francesca Lampert’s favorite features. Lampert is the chair of the acquisitions committee for Little Pickle Press in the Bay Area, a children’s book publisher that prides itself on being early adopters. They were among Authors.me’s first publishing houses, migrating from the company’s biggest competitor, Submittable.

“The user interface is one of the most important parts,” Lampert said. “Submittable didn’t have the photos, it wasn’t color coded, it didn’t have the bios.” With Authors.me, she said, there are opportunities to make notes on each work and have reminders about where each submission is in the process.
It’s free for authors to use the service to create queries but if they want feedback, want the “Discovery” feature, want Authors.me to match them with agents and publishers and some other features it costs $19 a month.

Launching a Solution

Self-publishing, which seems like the obvious solution to running the gauntlet of finding a publisher, has produced a flood of books—about 600,000 in 2014 alone. But as Authors.me subscriber, writer Andy Cole points out, there are no gatekeepers. It’s so easy and inexpensive to self-publish a book, that anyone can do it within a matter of hours and it’s difficult for readers to distinguish between the good books and the slush. With a professionally published book, at least certain standards are assumed.

Author and journalist John Christensen self-published Perfect Swing, Imperfect Lies: The Legacy of Golf’s Longest Hitter. A long time freelance writer who has written about and encountered many celebrities over his career, Christensen was baffled by Perfect Swing’s lackluster success, especially given golf’s popularity. He signed up for Authors.me as soon as he learned about it, then met David O’Brien, co-founder of Authors.me, at a book fair in Christensen’s home town of Decatur, Georgia.

Since writing a book is such a time consuming labor of love, Christensen was thrilled to learn that—since he’s published two books already—just submitting a treatment of his next book project on Authors.me was sufficient to possibly generate a deal.

Landers and O’Brien and developer Henrik Kjallbring, started building Authors.me in December of 2014. Landers had written a book about her experiences as a reporter and had loved that part of the project. But when she started the process of selling it to agents or publishers, she realized, the fun part was over. She never published that book. Later she worked as director of content for Pagewise, vice president of media innovation for Demand Media and vice president of operations for Written.com. O’Brien is a writer, and founder of FanU, Gold Brothers Entertainment and GBE Interactive. They began by thinking through all the problems they could solve with the right platform, then interviewed publishers and agents about what would make the whole arrangement easier for them. Publishers and agents who use the site have a link that lets authors submit through it, streamlining their process. The company has a ways to go to build its critical mass of writers, agents and publishers before everyone finds a match. The bulk of its publishers, right now, publish fiction. The company recently opened a New York office to connect with the publishing world there, and is currently raising seed investment.

“We really looked for how we can instantly impact writers, publishers and agents, even before we have 10,000 writers onboard,” Landers said. “On the other hand, having a small population right now gives them an opportunity to massively stand out.”

RetailMeNot, the world’s biggest online deal site, brought a lot of Christmas joy to the 73 residents of Coupon, Pennsylvania.

The Austin-based company gave the town a surprise recently. RetailMeNot collected the Christmas wish lists of people from the town of Coupon. But they weren’t wishes for themselves. They were presents for their neighbors. And then RetailMeNot purchased the gifts and held a big party at one of the resident’s houses to give them away. One family got a new porch swing. Another got a new refrigerator. And one couple with two young little girls got an all expense paid trip to Disneyland.

The true spirit of Christmas is it’s better to give than to receive, said Brian Hoyt, spokesman for RetailMeNot. RetailMeNot offers online coupons and it has a mobile app that allows consumers to save money on purchases.

RetailMeNot created the #SaveItForward campaign as a way to promote goodwill and charitable causes throughout the holidays.

Chiron Health, which provides telemedicine healthcare consultation for doctors with patients remotely over the Internet, announced Wednesday it has raised $2.3 million in seed stage funding.

The Austin-based company also released its iPhone and iPad app for patients.

“The telemedicine industry has been experiencing enormous growth over the last 12 months, and video visits are quickly becoming a mainstream form of healthcare delivery,” Andrew O’Hara, Chiron Health’s founder and CEO, said in a news release.

Chiron is working with 20 healthcare providers including Athenahealth. It focuses on helping physician practices.

“We believe that telemedicine should be used as a tool to strengthen the physician-patient relationship,” O’Hara said. “While on-demand telemedicine is good for keeping patients out of the emergency department, the real promise of telemedicine will be realized when patients have easy access to their own healthcare providers.”

In Austin, Amazon Tuesday announced the launch of its restaurant delivery service for its Prime Now customers.

With the service, customers can get one-hour delivery from Austin restaurants and food trucks including Boteco ATX, Chi’Lantro, Clay Pit, Michi Ramen, Moonshine Patio Bar & Grill, Southside Flying Pizza, Sugar Mama’s Bakeshop, Terry Black’s Barbecue, The Backspace and many more.

With Amazon’s Prime Now mobile app, customers can look up restaurants, browse menus, place orders and track the status. Prime Now is a $99 membership with Amazon that provides perks like streaming video and music, two day free delivery of packages and more.

“Austin is a haven for people who love great music, great weather and great food,” Gus Lopez, general manager, Amazon Restaurants, said in a news release. “That’s a perfect fit with restaurant delivery on Prime Now: we take care of mealtime so our customers have more time for the things they love.”

The Amazon restaurant delivery service is available for 15 Austin zip codes around downtown and the surrounding area. Amazon plans to expand the service to other zip codes in the future.

Participating Austin restaurants include:

100 Pizzitas
416 Bar & Grille
aRoma Italian Kitchen & Bar
Arpeggio Grill
ATX Boudain Hut
Austin Daily Press
Austin’s Habibi
Bacon
Barlata Tapas Bar
Benji’s Cantina
Billie Jean’s Burger Pub
Bombay Dhaba
Boteco ATX
Cazamance
Chi’Lantro
Chinatown
Clay Pit
Conscious Cravings
Cool Beans
Daily Juice Cafe
Delicious Thai
Dock & Roll Diner
Emerald Tavern Games & Cafe
Fat Sal’s Deli
Gus’s World Famous Friend Chicken
Heros Gyros
Il Forte
J. Black’s Feel Good Kitchen & Lounge
Juice Austin
Kesos Taco House
La Cocina de Consuelo
Llama’s Peruvian Creole
Mama V’s Quezzadillaville
Michi Ramen
Mighty Bird
Monkey Nest Coffee
Moonshine Patio Bar & Grill
NO VA Kitchen & Bar
People’s RX
PhoNatic
Pie Plante
Pommes Frites Etc
Rebel Pizza Bar
Republic of Sandwich
Rockaway Beach ATX
Rollin Smoke Barbecue
Royal Jelly
Saffron
Sagra
Sala & Betty
Shawarma Point
Slake Cafe
Snap Kitchen
Southside Flying Pizza
Sugar Mama’s Bakeshop
Taco Flats
Tamale House East
Tea Haus
Terry Black’s Barbecue
The Backspace
The Halal Bros
Thistle Cafe
Way South Philly
Xian Sushi and Noodle

Perk.com announced Monday it has signed an asset purchase agreement with New York-based Viggle Inc., a mobile and web-based entertainment marketing platform.

Austin-based Perk will pay 1.5 million common shares, valued at $4.7 million, based on the closing price per Perk share of $4.30 on the Toronto Stock Exchange on Dec. 11th, along with warrants and the assumption of certain of Viggle’s liabilities. Perk is also lending Viggle $1 million prior to the transaction closing.

The board of directors of Perk and Viggle have unanimously approved the deal, which is subject to shareholder and regulatory approval. The deal is expected to close in the first quarter of 2016.

The deal gives Perk the rights to the Viggle name, brand and its Viggle App, a mobile and tablet application that uses incentives to make content consumption and discovery more rewarding for media companies, brands and consumers. And Perk will hire Viggle’s existing sales team and intends to continue operating out of its New York office location.

Launched in 2012, the Viggle App is an advertising platform that works on mobile phones and tablets allowing users to earn rewards by watching TV and listening to music. The Viggle app reported revenues of $4 million for the fiscal first quarter of 2016, ended Sept. 30 and had more than 10 million registered users. The two companies will have a combined user base of more than 20 million registered users.

By LAURA LOREK
Reporter with Silicon Hills News

At the University of Texas at Austin, professors dream up all kinds of applications that could change the world.

But they’ve also got to teach students and oversee the next generation of inventors and entrepreneurs. So how do they get those ideas out of the classroom and into the commercial market?

That’s where the Center for Innovation at the Cockrell School of Engineering at UT Austin steps in. It helps professor-led startups find funding, partnerships, customers, apply for grants and form companies.

Bob Metcalfe, professor of innovation at UT Austin and Louise Epstein, managing director, run the center. Ben Dyer is an Entrepreneur in Residence. Every month, they host the Professor StARTup Studio to showcase three new companies.

WeWork Austin, the UT Office of Technology Commercialization and the Austin Chamber of Commerce sponsor the invitation-only monthly events.

In a private room at the historic Driskill Hotel last Thursday, about 50 people gathered to drink wine, schmooze and hear presentations from the startups. They included Apptronik, a company that makes robots and exoskeletons, Squarecap, a mobile phone app which engages students in the classroom and Pond Life Technology, which manipulations proteins in algae to create a mosquito insecticide.

The first presenter, Luis Sentis, pitched Apptronik, which creates the guts of NASA’s bipedal humanoid Valkyrie robot. The company has four patents and more pending on its high performance robotic actuators, embedded electronics and real-time control software.

Sentis also leads the Human Centered Robotics Laboratory at UT Austin. And he served as the lead for the DARPA’s Robotics Challenge with NASA Johnson Space Center. He has raised $3.7 million in funding for robotics research through research grants with the Office of Naval Research, NASA, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and others, according to his online bio.

“NASA is interested in superhuman strength robots that can go to space and perform complex tasks,” Sentis said.

Sentis and his team moved to NASA’s Johnson Space Center for 18 months to work on the Valkyrie robots. NASA is using his team’s operating system and actuators in the robot’s torso, legs and arms. NASA now has three of the humanoid robots Sentis’ team helped to build.

The Valkyrie robot is being prepped to send on a NASA mission to Mars. The robots can be programmed to work with tools and complete complex tasks like changing out parts or building in space.

“We are focused on making system level, mission ready capable robots,” Sentis said.

The robots also have applications for the military and law enforcement, Sentis said. They can look for survivors in disasters, detect and disarm bombs and more, he said.

In addition to the humanoid robots, Apptronik is creating exoskeletons for applications in the healthcare industry to allow disabled people to walk and move easily without a wheelchair.

The second presenter, Sata Sathasivan, a senior lecturer who teaches cell and molecular biology courses at UT Austin, founded Squarecap, a personalized learning platform, two years ago.

He started the company to help students graduate.

“I’ve been a teacher at the University of Texas for the last 25 years and I have seen students come with dreams of becoming doctors or engineers or scientists or whatever they want to be but one out of three do not make it to graduate,” Sathasivan said.

His wife is also a teacher in mathematics so this is a conversation they had frequently and they wanted to address, Sathasivan said. Now his son serves as the company’s chief technology officer. They have four full time employees and seven part time employees, all graduates of UT Austin, he said.

Squarecap makes a mobile app that professors use to engage their students through their smartphones, tablets or laptops. The Squarecap app can conduct quizzes, allow students to ask questions anonymously and it gathers data and analytics on student attendance and performance.

Today, 10,000 students at UT Austin use the app, which costs $10 per semester, per student for unlimited classes, Sathasivan said. And for all the professors using Squarecap, the company has 100 percent retention.

“One fourth of the UT Austin undergraduate student population is using the program,” Sathasivan said.

Next year, Squarecap plans to expand to more campuses nationwide and 50,000 students.

“The core area we want to focus on is to help our students succeed and make sure they receive a square cap,” Sathasivan said.

Squarecap has raised funding from angel investors and is looking at raising a Series A round, Sathasivan said.

What is Squarecap? from Squarecap Admin on Vimeo.

The last presenter, David Herrin, a professor of biology at UT Austin, presented Pond Life Technology. The startup won a National Science Foundation Small Business Innovation Research $150,000 Phase I grant this year to use green algal strains to kill mosquitos, which carry West Nile virus.

In the U.S., West Nile virus killed hundreds of people in the last few years, Herrin said. There is no vaccine for the virus so mosquito control is the way to deal with the problem, he said.

Also, controlling West Nile virus reduces the transmission of other disease like Dengue.

Herrin is working to create a product, based on algae, that is more effective than chemical pesticides and does less harm to the environment, Herrin said.

In a nutshell, Pond Life Technologies’ mosquito control products consist of its yummy eukaryotic green algae called Chlamydomonas that can swim and reproduce in water. The algae can be sprayed into areas with standing water. Then the mosquitos come along and land on the stuff and eat it up and die.

Herrin is the process of applying for Phase II SBIR grant to provide more research funding. Once that research is complete, the company will apply to the U.S. Environmental Protection agency and complete safety testing trials on its impact on humans and animals.