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Vote for 13 SXSW Interactive Panels with an Austin Focus

August 30, 2015 / LauraLorek@gmail.com / 0 Comments

By LAURA LOREK
Reporter with Silicon Hills News

Every year, Silicon Hills News highlights South by Southwest Interactive PanelPicker pitches put forth by the Austin community.

One of the best parts of SXSW Interactive is it lets you tap into the minds of some of the best and brightest in Austin to learn first hand from them. This year, the ideas are spot-on about topics like digital inclusion, racism, autonomous vehicles, biotechnology, international startups, food startups and on-demand delivery.

Overall, SXSW reports health-related PanelPicker submissions are up 33 percent this year. It is also seeing strong interest on issues related to the delivery-on-demand economy.

Those trends are reflected in the local submission we’ve highlighted. Here are our top 13 picks for this year. Don’t procrastinate, vote now for your favorite panels today because voting ends on Friday. And if you’ve got a panel that I left off the list, and you think it deserves to be on there please add it to the comments.

Food+City: How Austin Feeds Itself During SXSW: Robyn Metcalfe, director of the Food Lab at the University of Texas, now a non-profit organization called Food+City, joins a distinguished panel of experts to discuss the marvel of the modern day food system. For more on that topic, read is Is Austin the Next Hotbed for Food Startups featuring an interview with Metcalfe.

More, Now, Again: How on Demand Changed Our Lives: a panel of delivery startups featuring Ben Doherty, co-founder of Favor, Christian Bjelland of Hello Alfred, Cory Rellas with Drizly and Jordan Metzner with Washio. They will discuss how on demand delivery is changing people’s lives including their own.

From Success to Significance: Josh Baer, cofounder of Capital Factory and a major force in the Austin entrepreneur community, has spent the past few years travelling around the world on fellowships. He has participated in some exclusive and high profile fellowships including Aspen Institute Henry Crown Fellowship and the Eisenhower Fellowship. In this panel, he talks about how to get fellowships and make the most of those opportunities.

Austin: Leading the Way for Digital Inclusion: A panel of experts from the city, the University of Texas, Austin Free-Net and Skillpoint Alliance discuss solutions to getting people who aren’t connected to the Internet and technology online in Austin and equipping them with the skills they need in an increasingly wired world.

The Dragon Was Never Asleep: Race in Austin & USA: A discussion about race relations in the U.S. and Austin featuring panelists from KUT and the University of Texas at Austin.

Transportation and Mobility – the Austin Angle: A panel discussion led by RideScout’s Joseph Kopser which will focus on autonomous cars, transportations as a service and other issues Austin and cities face with growing populations and worsening traffic problems. It’s a hot topic right now as Google just announced its self-driving prototype cars will soon hit the streets of Austin.

The Biomedical Revolution in Austin and Beyond: A panel discussion by the University of Texas Dell Medical School on the impact that institution will have on healthcare in Austin. Central Texas is already booming when it comes to biomedical innovations as we’ve reported in our latest life sciences edition of Silicon Hills News. The addition of the Dell Medical School will only increase that activity.

Save the Weird: Preserving Austin’s Culture: this title alone tugs at the heartstrings of everyone who knows and loves Austin. Duff Stewart with GSD&M will join Austin Mayor Steve Adler to discuss how to cope with growth and keep Austin weird.

Supporting US Entrepreneurs: America’s Number One Job: this panel also features Austin Mayor Steve Adler, Dell, 1776 incubator and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce talking about the best governmental policies to foster an entrepreneurial ecosystem and encourage innovators.

For the People by the People: The Human Algorithm: a panel discussion on helping government identify and meet their citizens needs through data and analysis. The panel features Kerry O’Connor, chief innovation officer with the City of Austin, Dave Snowden with Cognitive Edge and Gal Alon with Insights.

Take No Sh*T: Thriving as a XX in an XY World: great title for a great panel of women in technology discussing how to succeed in an industry that is predominantly male. The panelists include Heather Brunner, CEO of WP Engine, Julie Huls, President of the Austin Technology Council and Sara Spivey with Bazaarvoice.

International Startups: US Markets/Funding: this panel talks about helping international entrepreneurs move to Austin. The panel features Angelos Angelou with Angelou Economics, Phil Pompa with the International Accelerator, Jason Finkelman with Finkelman Law Firm and Carmelo Gordian with Andrews & Kurth. Given that entrepreneurs from nearly 200 countries attend SXSW Interactive every year this is a particularly hot topic.

5 Critical Steps to Building a Successful Startup: Austinite Dean Drako, a serial entrepreneur who has founded Barracuda Networks, Eagle Eye Networks and Drako Motors, will talk about common mistakes entrepreneurs often make and ways to succeed with a startup.

Google’s Prototype Self-Driving Cars Coming to Austin for Testing

August 30, 2015 / LauraLorek@gmail.com / 0 Comments

By LAURA LOREK
Reporter with Silicon Hills News

Troy Livingston, CEO, The Thinkery, Chris Urmson, Director, Google Self-Driving Car Project, Austin Mayor Steve Adler and City Councilwoman Ann Kitchen in front of the Google autonomous car prototype

Google is bringing its autonomous vehicle prototype to Austin for testing.

The compact two door, two-seater white cars, which Google has created in partnership with Roush Industries in Detroit, will be hitting the roads of Austin in the next week or so.

The cute little electric cars kind of resemble a miniature Volkswagen beetle combined with the futuristic styling of a George Jetson Aerocar. The prototype cars don’t have a steering wheel, brake pedal or an accelerator because Google says the cars don’t need them. But that equipment will be onboard during testing for the ride-along drivers to take over, if needed. The cars rely on Google’s sensors and software and GPS to navigate the roads.

Austin is the first city outside of Google’s hometown of Mountain View where it is testing its self-driving car technology. For the past two months, Google has been testing its self-driving Lexus RX450h SUVs in Austin. But those cars have been adapted to handle Google’s equipment. The prototype cars are specially designed and built by Google partners as autonomous vehicles.

Google’s self-driving car prototype coming to the streets of Austin

On Saturday, Mayor Steve Adler joined Chris Urmson, director of Google Self-Driving Car Project, Jennifer Haroon, the project’s head of business operations and Troy Livingston, CEO of The Thinkery, at a press conference at the Thinkery to introduce Google’s prototype cars to Austin. Google had one on display inside the Thinkery Children’s Museum.

Austin is a hotbed of activity for innovators and entrepreneurs, Adler said. And thousands of people are moving to Austin for the amazing quality of life from music to food to Barton Springs and the outdoors to institutions like the Thinkery that make Austin a wonderful place, he said.

“And we have the traffic to prove it,” Adler said.

Last week, Texas A&M Transportation Institute reported Austin residents waste 52 hours a year stuck in traffic, making it the 12th worst city in the nation for traffic.

The city has already surpassed last year’s number of traffic fatalities and Austin has seen an increase in pedestrian deaths, Adler said.

“Fortunately we might have a long term solution to these problems already right here,” Adler said. “I’m so proud Google has chosen Austin as the first city outside of its hometown for testing of its self driving car. This technology holds enormous promise. And Austin is the ideal community for testing.”

Innovation is part of the DNA of Austin, Adler said. That’s why the city is a perfect place for testing Google’s autonomous vehicle technology, he said.

A few of the prototype vehicles will arrive next week and they will be driven with test drivers aboard on the roads in a small area north and northeast of downtown, according to Google.

Google’s prototype car is designed to take anyone, anywhere with just a push of a button and few spoken instructions.

Austin Mayor Steve Adler announcing Google will be bringing its self-driving prototype cars to Austin.

“These are pretty cute little cars,” Adler said. “And they represent the transformation in transportation.”

Google designed its prototype from the ground up to operate safely and autonomously, Adler said.

The goal is to cut down on accidents primarily caused by human error, reduce the amount of time wasted in traffic each day and provide transportation to blind, disabled and other people who can longer drive like some senior citizens. Autonomous cars can reshape the future of the city, Adler said.

“The potential benefits to Austin and society are enormous,” Adler said.

The problem Google is trying to tackle is huge. In the U.S., 33,000 people die on the road every year. That’s the equivalent of one 737 plane crashing every day, said Urmson, director of the Google Self-Driving Car Project. Google’s self-driving cars are the answer to eliminating most of those tragic accidents, Urmson said.

Google’s sensors onboard the self-driving cars remove blind spots and they can detect objects out a distance of more than two football fields in all directions, Urmson said. That’s particularly helpful at busy intersections, he said. Google’s prototype cars can only go up to 25 miles per hour and have all kinds of built-in safety features, he said.

“The vehicle itself is designed to be safe,” Urmson said. “It is designed with new materials.”

For example, the front end is made of foam and the windshield is soft and flexible to mitigate any accidents that may happen, Urmson said.

Chris Urmson, Director, Google Self-Driving Car Project, talks about the benefits of Google’s self-driving cars.

So far, Google’s fleet of self-driving cars have logged more than one million miles on the roads. Every week, the fleet of self driving cars logs about 10,000 miles. Google began working on this project six years ago, Urmson said. It has been driving its fleet of Prius and Lexus cars on the highway for a year and a half, he said.

Google’s cars are also programmed to pick up on subtle clues and unexpected situations they may encounter on the roads from other vehicles, bikes and pedestrians, Urmson said.

One of the more unusual situations took place on a residential street in California when one of Google’s self-driving cars encountered a woman in a wheelchair chasing a duck around in the middle of the street with a broom, Urmson said. The car simply stopped and waited for the street to clear before proceeding on its way, he said.

One Google self-driving car encounter with a bicyclist in Austin befuddled the car, according to a Washington Post story. The bicyclist, riding a fixed gear bike, performed a move known as a track-stand at an intersection in which he balanced on the bike by swaying back and forth. Apparently, the Google autonomous vehicle didn’t know what to do in that situation and kept starting and stopping.

For two months, Google’s Lexus self-driving cars have been travelling around Austin with great success, said Haroon, head of business operations of Google’s Self Driving Car Project. Austin has six self-driving cars so far and three of the prototype vehicles on the way in the next few weeks.

“One of the questions I get asked a lot is how does the vehicle deal with deer,” Haroon said. “Yes, it can handle deer, even at night.”

Jennifer Haroon, Head of Business Operations, Google Self-Driving Car Project, says the cars have performed well in Austin for the past two months.

Austin is known as an innovative city and that’s why Google chose to test its cars here, Haroon said. It’s also known as a “vocal” city and she wants Austin citizens to provide Google with feedback on how the cars are operating on the road, she said. Every car has an Internet address, known as a URL, on the back and Google provides information online about the project for citizens, Haroon said.

Besides the deer, the Google cars have had to adjust for horizontal traffic lights, Haroon said. But they are performing well in Austin, she said.

Within four years, Google hopes to have the autonomous vehicles commercially available and citizens throughout the U.S. regularly riding in them, Urmson said. Google is not going to sacrifice safety to get there, but that’s its goal, he said. Urmson has two sons and one is about to turn 12. He told him that when he turns 16 he will not need to get a driver’s license. He will simply ride in a self-driving car.

Is Austin the Next Hotbed for Food Startups?

August 28, 2015 / LauraLorek@gmail.com / 1 Comment

By LAURA LOREK
Reporter with Silicon Hills News

Robyn Metcalfe, courtesy photo.

In 1795, Napoleon Bonaparte and the French government offered a cash prize to anyone who could come up with a way to preserve food for his troops on the battlefield.

Nicholas Appert won the reward in 1810 by devising a way to use heat to preserve food in glass jars sealed with wax.

Robyn Metcalfe, a food historian, recalled that example as a successful use of a cash prize to encourage innovation in the food industry.

“History is a way to create context for the future,” Metcalfe said.

Now she is hoping to spur food and tech innovators to come up with the next big ideas by offering $50,000 in cash prizes in the Food+City Challenge Prize. It’s an early stage business startup competition, which first kicked off last year as the Food Challenge Prize. The competition is open to anyone in the world with submissions starting Sept. 1 and running through Oct. 15th. The prizes will be awarded on Feb. 6th during a showcase day at UT featuring the 20 finalists pitching their startups.

Ten Acre Organics won the first competition with a grand prize of $10,000. It is building a 10-acre farm in Austin based on aquaponics, in which fish and vegetables are grown together to create zero waste.

Metcalfe serves as director of Food+City, a nonprofit organization that evolved out of the Food Lab at the University of Texas at Austin, which she created. Since launching in the fall of 2011, the Food Lab has helped to create a food study certificate at UT. It has also brought together different groups in Austin, UT and Texas to focus on innovation in the food industry including its partnership with Texas A&M University.

Metcalfe has also garnered attention worldwide for penning an article for TechCrunch, which highlighted what she identified as a bubble in the booming food technology industry.

The bubble is still floating but it has lost some air and has seen some fallout already, Metcalfe said. Most notably, Farmstr, Chefler, Chef Day, Pop-Up Pantry and Fresh Dish have all failed, according to a recent Forbes article. And the food tech startup, Hampton Creek in San Francisco, which has raised $120 million in venture capital, is facing some struggles, according to a Business Insider article.

Despite some of the failures, Metcalfe says the interest in food startups is continuing.

“There are a lot of people who are interested in food and technology and who want to do good things for the world,” Metcalfe said

Insects as an alternative protein source have received a lot of attention as startups launch to grow bugs for consumption. In fact, a few cricket-based products pitched as finalists at the last food challenge.

“The tough challenge is to convince people to overcome their cultural barriers,” Metcalfe said. “That’s a tough mountain to climb.”

And alternative food sources like Soylent, a meal replacement drink, have also garnered a lot of attention.

But Metcalfe sees some of the biggest innovations coming from biologics, precision agriculture, robotics, genomics, drones and GPS monitoring. Products that change and challenge the food system, Metcalfe said.

Could Austin be the next hotbed for food business innovations? That’s a question Metcalfe is pondering. She is participating in a panel on Sept. 22 at the McCombs Business School with alumni groups from Rice, Harvard, UT and Boston University to discuss Austin’s food industry.

“Is there something unique about our food entrepreneurs and culture in Austin?” Metcalfe said. “We’re entertaining that conversation on a large scale.”

The event will feature startups showcasing their product samples, networking and a panel of industry experts. Topics will include venture capital, startups, urban design and government organization.

In the future, Food+City could launch an incubator for food tech startups like those in Boston and San Francisco, Metcalfe said.

And to get insights on the food and technology innovations of the future, Metcalfe draws from a deep and rich historical perspective.

“We are building on the shoulders of those who came before,” she said.

Fashion Metric Builds a Strong Data Science Team in Austin

August 27, 2015 / LauraLorek@gmail.com / 4 Comments

Fashion Metric’s team in Austin, courtesy photo

Fashion Metric is working to solve the problem of ill-fitting clothes by employing data science.

The startup created software, which it calls a virtual tailor, to help online shoppers find clothes that fit by calculating their detailed body measurements. It does this by simply asking a few questions online and then processing that information through its proprietary algorithm and database to come up with the correct size and fit.

“What we’ve been focused on building is a really strong data science team in Austin,” said Morgan Linton, co-founder of Fashion Metric.

Fashion Metric moved from Los Angeles to Austin last year to participate in Techstars Austin. But the startup decided to make Austin its home after the program ended. Daina Linton is Fashion Metric’s CEO and co-founder with her husband Morgan Linton.

In January, the company raised $1 million in financing, bringing to $1.4 million its total funds raised to date. And Fashion Metric has moved into 1,500 square feet of office space downtown at the IBC Bank Building and it has hired seven employees and has two job openings.

And recently, Fashion Metric hired two senior heavy hitters in the Austin data science community: Andy Terrel as chief technology officer and Travis Brady, director of data science, to build out its products, Linton said.

Terrel, who previously worked as chief science officer at Continuum Analytics, says he joined Fashion Metric for the opportunity and the team.

“The idea that the fashion industry hasn’t embraced the data revolution is a bit shocking,” Terrel said in a statement. “As we move to an online economy with almost instant delivery, the world is moving on from the brick and mortar stores. Yet, there is a major gap in serving the average shopper’s clothing need. The fashion industry as a whole is losing money because of it. Fashion Metric has the opportunity to completely change the way we buy clothes and create markets not tapped due to the clunkiness of the status quo.”

Brady, who previously worked at People Pattern, Mass Relevance and Zynga, said machine learning is at the core of Fashion Metric’s business and it’s driven by a real need in the massive apparel market.

“Fashion Metric is introducing recent advances in machine learning to problems that have existed in a huge industry for decades,” Brady said in a statement. “This technology genuinely has an opportunity to make a revolutionary change to one of the world’s largest industries.”

Fashion Metric has 20 paying e-commerce customers since launching its virtual tailor product in June. Its customers include Custom Shirts Monthly and Menguin, an online tuxedo rental shop. Menguin has seen its exchanges drop from 50 percent to 10 percent after using Fashion Metric’s technology, Linton said.

Fashion Metric has also expanded internationally with customers in the Netherlands and Singapore.

“The technology that we have can be used anywhere in the world,” Linton said.

Since its launch, Fashion Metric has been focused on men’s fashion. But it is going to be rolling out the virtual tailor product for women later this year, Linton said.

Fashion is at the core of what Fashion Metric does, but it doesn’t have a dress code at its offices, Linton said. Most people wear jeans and t-shirts, he said. But Linton likes to wear button down shirts from the companies Fashion Metric work with, he said.

Xenex Sees Big Market for Germ Zapping Robots

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

By LAURA LOREK
Reporter with Silicon Hills News

Xenex’s germ zapping robots eradicate dangerous bacteria and viruses leading to lower cases of infectious diseases in the nation’s hospitals, according to several studies.

“On a daily basis we are cleaning 5,000 to 7,000 rooms,” said Morris Miller, CEO of Xenex.

Xenex created a mobile robot that looks like R2D2. It rolls into a hospital room. Everyone then vacates and the robot extends its light tower and starts sending out pulsating ultraviolet rays to kill viruses, bacteria, mold, fungus and bacterial spores. It only takes five to ten minutes to clean a room and it kills germs on 99.9 percent of the surfaces including under beds, in the folds of shades or curtains, light switches, doorknobs and floors. Each robot can disinfect 30 to 62 rooms per day.

The robots destroy the microorganisms that cause Hospital Acquired Infections, known as HAIs.

And getting an infection in a hospital is a huge problem.

In fact, the Centers for Disease Control released a study, based on a large sample of U.S. acute care hospitals, that found on any given day about one in 25 hospital patients has at least one healthcare-associated infection. In 2011, 722,000 patients in the U.S. acquired an infection in a hospital and 75,000 patients died as a result of an infection they acquired during their hospitalizations.

Photos courtesy of Xenex

Today, more than 300 hospitals, Veterans Affairs facilities, skilled nursing facilities, ambulatory surgery centers and long-term acute care facilities in the U.S. use Xenex robots.

The biotech startup gathers data from all of its robots in hospitals and other facilities nationwide and keeps a running tab displayed on a giant screen at its San Antonio headquarters.

That data is key to showing hospitals how effective the robots can be in reducing infections in healthcare facilities that own one, Miller said.

In July, a new report from the Westchester Medical Center in Valhalla, New York, showed the hospital reduced Clostridium difficile, known as C.diff infection rates in its intensive care unit by 70 percent by using the Xenex robot to disinfect rooms.

Another study, done by the Orlando Health South Seminole Hospital in Florida reported a 61 percent decrease in MRSA, VRE and C.diff, in its intensive care unit and a 41 percent decrease in C.diff infections facility-wide resulting from deploying the Xenex robot to disinfect its facility. The hospital reported the reduction in infections saved the facility $730,000 during a 22 month period.

In San Antonio, Morningside Ministries at The Manor, a long-term care facility, also reported a nearly 77 percent decrease in C.diff infections after they began using a Xenex robot to clean rooms.

Overall, hospitals that purchased Xenex robots have reported greater than 50 percent decreases in Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus, known as MRSA, Miller said.

“This is a bigger problem than Polio was at the time and we’re determined to solve it,” Miller said.

Getting the hospitals educated about the abilities of Xenex’s robots effectiveness in disinfecting rooms is one of the main focuses of the company, Miller said. There’s some confusion in the market because Xenex competes against 59 companies that sell a mercury-bulb-based disinfection system that isn’t as effective, he said.

Yet Xenex is so confident its robots will reduce infection at healthcare facilities that use it, the company offers an infection reduction guarantee, Miller said. It provides a full refund if in the first 12 months of use customers do not save enough money to pay for the $105,000 robot.

A hospital that has a germ-zapping robot also sees a competitive advantage in the marketplace, Miller said. Because patients can now use a website called Hospitalcompare.hhs.gov to investigate and compare hospital acquired infection rates, he said.

“Eventually they are going to say to their doctor I don’t want to get my surgery done there because their infection rates are too high,” Miller said.

Some of the hospitals that have purchased the robots have created billboards and commercials with them. They’ve also used social media to host naming contests for the robot.

“It’s a real differentiator,” Miller said.

Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas used its Xenex robot to disinfect after a patient died from Ebola and two nurses became infected with Ebola last year. The hospital has two Xenex robots.

The Ebola infection in the U.S. helped to fuel demand for the Xenex robots, according to the company.

Modern Healthcare, the leader in healthcare news, research and data, estimated the market for disinfection robots at $30 million in 2014 soaring to $80 million by 2017.

Xenex recently expanded its sales to Spain, Ireland and the United Kingdom, Miller said.

Globally, people are concerned about antibiotic resistance and the spread of deadly viruses like MERS and Ebola, Miller said.

Xenex is also expanding its sales force in the United States, Miller said. Xenex is also looking at the application of its disinfection system outside the hospital.

“We’ve had different requests for different versions and we’re researching how to do that,” Miller said. “We’ve designed something that can easily be used in a cruise ship, nursery school or gym lockers.”

In January, Xenex, which is privately held, raised $25 million in venture capital for product development, international expansion and to hire more employees. The company currently has around 100 employees. To date, Xenex has raised about $54 million.

Xenex is an example of a much needed, high value, quite disruptive technology, said Paul Castella, co-founder of the Targeted Technology Fund I and II, an investor in Xenex.

“They are executing well in their chosen field and there’s a ton of possibilities for expansion into other areas,” Castella said.

“I shouldn’t be going to sleep until we’re in every single healthcare facility in the U.S.,” Miller said. Every year, patients get infections and 75,000 are dying, he said. About. 70 percent wouldn’t get the infection if Xenex robots disinfected the facilities, he said.

Even with the best janitorial staff, studies show that 32 percent of the surfaces in a room don’t get clean, Miller said. Xenex is the tool to solve the problem, he said.

“We know it works, its proven to work, it pays itself back to the hospital,” Miller said.

Miller, a serial entrepreneur, previously co-founded Rackspace. In 2008, he invested in Xenex. He also became its CEO and moved its headquarters and manufacturing operations from Austin to San Antonio.

“Sometimes you feel very excited about a business,” Miller said.

With Xenex, the startup is focused on saving lives, he said.

“It’s a bundle of proven potential that as the market hears about it and discovers it, it will be kind of like magic,” Miller said.

Intel Seeks Inventors for New Reality TV Show with $1 Million Prize

August 25, 2015 / LauraLorek@gmail.com / 1 Comment

Courtesy photo from Intel

A new television series “America’s Greatest Makers” is looking for inventors, makers, designers and engineers who are creating the next big wearable or smart-connected device.

The competition, backed by Intel, Turner Broadcasting Mark Burnett, the producer of “Shark Tank,” “Survivor” and “The Apprentice,” will award a $1 million grand prize and other prizes for the final five.

Intel is taking its “Make It Wearable” challenge to the next level and is looking nationwide for contestants to create the next big wearable or smart-connected device using Intel’s Curie Module.

This new series will chronicle the competition among the finalists who will be mentored by Intel engineers to make their ideas a reality.

For more information and to apply, go to America’s Greatest Makers. The deadline to apply is Oct. 2. and applicants must be at least 15 years old.

Favor Launches Internationally with Service in Canada

August 25, 2015 / LauraLorek@gmail.com / 1 Comment

Favour app, courtesy photo

Favor, an app-based delivery service, is going international with its first delivery service set to launch in Toronto, Canada on Thursday.

And the Austin-based startup will rename itself Favour in Canada to adapt to the local culture and customs. It offers delivery daily from 11 a.m. until 9 p.m. in most of the Toronto metro area.

The company said it plans to deliver city favorites in Toronto from eateries like Khao San Road, Burrito Boyz and Pizzeria Libretto in less than one hour. For the launch, Favour is offering deliveries at $2 plus 5 percent of total delivered items for the first two months. Also, the company is offering first-time customers a free delivery with the promo code TORONTO.

Favor has come along way in a short time since Zac Maurais and Ben Doherty, its founders, launched the company in San Luis Obispo and then moved to Austin in 2013. It has more than 50 full time employees and more than 3,000 contractors who work as Favor runners donning the company’s trademark blue and white faux tuxedo shirts. Toronto is Favor’s 11th city. The company recently opened in Denver, Miami, Fort Worth and Nashville.

“Since launching in Austin two years ago, we’ve been able to fine-tune our delivery model, making it easy launch in new markets. We are continually looking to expand in the U.S., but saw Toronto as a massive international opportunity that we felt we could tackle,” Maurais, co-founder and CMO of Favor, said in a news release.

In March, the company landed $13 million in Series A venture capital from Silverton Partners, S3 Ventures and Tim Draper. To date, the company has raised $16.9 million in four rounds of funding.

Able Lands $6 Million in Venture Capital and Expands Nationwide

August 25, 2015 / LauraLorek@gmail.com / 1 Comment

Able, a non-bank commercial lender, Tuesday announced it has closed on $6 million in venture capital and plans to expand its services nationwide.

Blumberg Capital and RPM Ventures led the round with participation from Peterson Partners and Expansion Ventures AngelList Syndicate.

The Austin-based startup plans to use the money to begin offering loans in 40 states and the District of Columbia. It has 25 employees and expects to hire five more soon. It also plans to use the money to scale its technology and refine operations. The company is also moving to bigger offices within a block of its current downtown headquarters.

Able has created a new kind of “collaborative” loan which requires its borrowers to recruit friends, families and customers to fund 25 percent of their total loan. The company makes loans for as much as $500,000 at rates that average between eight and twelve percent.

Able recently completed a pilot project with a portfolio of 24 local companies. Its customers include soap makers, clothing makers, beer brewers and more. One of its customers, Hops & Grain borrowed $250,000 to expand its operations. It is now applying for a second loan of $350,000 for further expansion. Another customer, Kammok borrowed $500,000 to make hammocks and other camping gear.

“Our loans work really well for people who have that cash conversion cycle,” said Evan Baehr, co-founder of Able.

Able’s loans are like an SBA loan but powered by people, Baehr said. Eight out of ten SBA loans get withdrawn or rejected. Able seeks to fill that gap in lending. Its average time from application to approval is 48 hours.

“We can have companies funded within a week of their approval,” said Will Davis, co-founder of Able.

Able plans to make $100 million in loans to 750 companies nationwide within the next 18 months, Baehr said.

“One thing we’re really excited about is we’ve had zero defaults and zero late payments,” Davis said.

The startup has also launched an “Ask Able” program. It found one of the biggest needs for small businesses after capital was access to non-financial resources.

“What we learned is most people running small businesses at 1 a.m. they’re sweeping the floor,” Davis said. “They don’t know people that have quick information.”

So on the first Friday of every month, the entire team at Able takes pre-scheduled 30 minute phone calls with small business owners. They provide them with help on design, branding, sales and marketing, legal and accounting issues.

“That’s our way of saying to the broad universe of small business owners that we’re there for you,” Davis said.

Able competes with other so-called fin-tech startups including Funding Circle, Lending Club, Prosper and OnDeck. It distinguishes itself by offering dramatically lower interest rates on its loans and great customer service, Davis said.

“Many online lenders offer the equivalent of a payday loan for your business,” Davis said. “We’re building something different. When we fund a business they are ecstatic to get our loan.”

Silicon Hills News did this profile of the company late last year.

Get Smart Content Lands $3.5 Million in Venture Capital

August 24, 2015 / LauraLorek@gmail.com / 0 Comments

Get Smart Content announced Monday it has closed on a $3.5 million funding round.

Origin Ventures led the round with participation from Chicago Ventures and Virgo Capital. To date, the company has raised just over $6.4 million, according to a news release.

The Austin-based company runs an online platform that allows marketers to create personalized content for their websites. The company’s clients include HP, Siemens, Iron Mountain and Rockwell Automation. Its partners include Oracle Marketing Cloud and LinkedIn.

Get Smart Content plans to use the funds to hire more sales and customer support staff. It will also support research and development of the Get Smart Content technology platform.

“Get Smart Content is already powering the content personalization of some of the biggest B2B brands, and the company has a bold vision for the future – a vision that goes well beyond A/B testing and personalization to enable optimized, cross-channel, content-driven experiences,” Brent Hill, partner at Origin Ventures said in a news statement. “This is a massive market, and we’re excited to put our support behind a leader with vision and momentum.”

PotentiaMetrics Harnesses Data to Improve Patient Care

August 24, 2015 / LauraLorek@gmail.com / 1 Comment

By HOJUN CHOI
Special Contributor to Silicon Hills News

Robert Palmer, CEO and founder of PotentiaMetrics, photo by John Davidson

Austin’s growing tech scene and vibrant entrepreneurial community convinced Robert Palmer, CEO and founder of PotentiaMetrics, to move his startup from St. Louis to Austin last year.

The company, developed through a partnership with the Office of Clinical Research Outcomes at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, does data analysis. It compares large sets of data and helps businesses and institutions make better sense of complex variables that need to be considered when evaluating patient care.

PotentiaMed, one of the startup’s featured products, collects patient data from multiple hospitals and hospital systems to help physicians come up with the best possible treatment options for their patients. Palmer said physicians have the difficult task of finding out the best solution for each patient, as many variables can affect how an illness affects the body.

Healthcare institutions have had tools that can make broad inferences about the institution’s patient population, Palmer said. But those tools are limited in scope, and do not take into account the complex variables that set each of these patients apart from one another, he said.

“What our tools address is a more personalized view of healthcare,” Palmer said. “Because you don’t treat populations; you treat patients.”

In 2010, when PotentiaMetrics was still being developed, Palmer’s father was diagnosed with prostate cancer. The experience he had with his father, who passed away in 2011, is a motivating force behind the company.

“A lot of the challenge we dealt with in terms of deciding what treatment was best for my father drove me to create these tools so that others do not have to go through the same experience,” Palmer said.

Despite the doctor’s best intentions, Palmer said the lack of a technology that looked at patients’ conditions in a more personalized way largely led to their choosing a suboptimal treatment plan for his father.

PotentiaMetrics now offers a platform for healthcare professionals to compare more specific patient circumstances. Because this type of analysis takes large amounts of data for comparative analysis, one of the early challenges of the company was convincing healthcare systems to share their information, Palmer said.

“The basis is of our company is really around comparatives,” Palmer said. “In order to compare, the first thing we have to do through our outcomes products is to collect the data.”

The reputation of Washington University’s medical school helped open the lines of communication with other health institutions across the country, Palmer said. Teaching hospitals, which make up a large portion of the startup’s current clientele, were more willing to share their data due to the startup’s partnership with the university, he said.

“A big part of why we receive data from participating institutions is that they want to know how they’re doing compared to other institutions,” Palmer said.

PotentiaMetrics takes a neutral stance in all of its analysis, and said that it does not release information that could help identify the source of a specific set of data, Palmer said. The service, in other words, is not designed to judge the quality of care at a hospital through a ranking system.

By providing information about how well a certain procedure or treatment is performing in relation to other methods, the service provides analysis on complex sets of data that could help even the best doctors with treatment decisions.

“There is no way that an unaided human mind can make these calculations, when you consider the many variables that make each patient different from one another, whether it’s gender, ethnicity or in many cases another condition,” Palmer said.

The startup, which officially launched in 2013, has closed a total of 12 contracts, all of which were obtained through referrals. Hospital systems, as well as medical technology companies, have chosen to use the company’s platform and services, which are sold through subscriptions.

PotentiaMetrics, which began its move to Austin earlier this year, has raised about $4 million through grants, strategic investors and bootstrapping money. The company is now looking for institutional funds, largely to expand its marketing team, Palmer said.

“This isn’t going to be about selling as much as it is about marketing our product and letting people know its purpose,” Palmer said. “Our marketing approach will focus on making relationships with institutions.”

PotentiaMetrics’ current team has the technical and clinical background to supplement its marketing push. Todd Steussie, a former-NFL offensive lineman who was a part of the Carolina Panthers’ 2003 Superbowl team, has brought his experiences and connections from his career as a professional athlete to manage PotentiaPro, another platform offered by the company.

“One of the great things with my experience in the NFL is that they opened up a lot of doors for conversations with significant people in the industry,” Steussie said.

Without going into details, Steussie told Silicon Hills News that the company is in the process of pursuing a potentially groundbreaking deal with an organization with “close ties” to the professional football league.

Similar to PotentiaMed, the sport analysis platform takes granular statistics from professional sports teams, and with the help of experts in the industry, provides reports and analysis that can aid team owners and managers.

“You can’t just go off box scores that are recorded,” Steussie said. “You have to think about the situations that affect the game, as well as the aspects of the game that inflates or deflates the data.”

Steussie, one of the 11 founders of the startup, said he met Palmer through a mutual connection while earning his MBA at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. Though it wasn’t easy, Steussie said that his successful transition from a professional athlete to an entrepreneur in the data analytics industry is deeply rooted in his love for putting in the work to meet the challenge at hand.

“You have to love the process,” Steussie said. “You go forward trusting that the patience and time that goes into a company will pay off, similar to the way that patience and time in the film room makes a difference on the field.”