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Texas Venture Labs Fall Expo Showcases New Startups

December 10, 2014 / LauraLorek@gmail.com / 1 Comment

By LAURA LOREK
Reporter with Silicon Hills News

The Jon Brumley Texas Venture Labs at the Univerity of Texas at Austin showcased 12 Austin startups and three Alumni companies at its Fall 2014 Expo last Friday.

The companies presented in three different categories with the consumer products and services startups kicking off the event at the AT&T Executive Education and Conference Center. The other groups included software and technology and biotechnology and medical devices.

“With the expo today, we’re helping companies raise money,” said Rob Adams, director of TVL. The program doesn’t offer any venture capital but 40 percent of its 102 companies have raised money.

Out of the audience of 300 attending the expo, about 75 of them were investors, Adams said.

To date, companies participating in the program, which was founded five years ago, have raised $240 million, Adams said. TVL takes about a dozen companies every semester for its accelerator.

Ten Acre Organics made a lot of connections through the program, said Michael Hanan, the company’s co-founder with Lloyd Minick. The company is building a 10-acre farm as a model that can be copied in other cities. The farm uses aquaponics in which fish and vegetables are grown together to create a zero waste farming environment.

Ten Acre Organics is raising $600,000 and is also applying for $600,000 in U.S. Department of Agriculture funding, Hanan said. They are planning to spend the money on expanding from a 1,000 square foot greenhouse to a 10,000 square foot greenhouse. They also want to expand to 10 acres on the edge of the city limits for their model farm. They participated in the Unlimited USA incubator as well as TVL.

BeehiveID, an online identity verification platform, enrolled in the Texas Venture Labs program to tap into its research capabilities to help the company gather data on its market size, said Mary Haskett, the company’s CEO and co-founder. BeehiveID is also part of the Austin Technology Incubator. It is also a graduate of the Techstars Seattle program.

“I knew the program had a group of really sharp MBA students, law students and engineering students, and all kinds of students in a variety of disciplines working on stuff and it’s free so to me it would be insane not to apply,” Haskett said.

Texas Venture Labs extends an open invitation to any startup in Austin to apply, so why not, Haskett said.

Share is a credit card that allows people to earn money to give to charities with each purchase. Cardholders can track and see the tangible result of their donations through its app and online platform.

The TVL program helped the early-stage startup refine its business plan, said Stephen Garten, its founder.

“They just really helped us with market validation,” he said.

Texas Venture Labs also brings in a lot of successful entrepreneurs from Austin to give talks to the startups. Larry Warnock of Gazzang and Cotter Cunningham with RetailMeNot gave great talks, he said. The company will also be participating in South by Southwest Interactive’s social good pitch next year.

The other companies participating in the TVL Fall Expo included:

Omganics – a startup founded by two mothers that makes wipes and other organic products for children.

RunTitle – a big data startup for the oil and gas industry which provides a database of mineral title research.

DRAFT – formerly known as Hrvt is an online portfolio management company that uses aggregation and crowd source technology.

Inkscreen – has created Photolink, a secure high-resolution photo storage and sharing app aimed at companies, particularly regulated industries such as insurance, government, energy, healthcare and defense.

Predictalytics – a market intelligence platform for the electricity industry to give power providers the ability to predict prices.

Silexta – this startup has developed patented technology to prolong the life of Li-ion batteries, which are used in electric vehicle applications.

Macromoltek – has created software that provides antibody modeling and analysis tools for drug manufacturers.

Vigilant Devices – the company has created a new system to track drug dosages in hospitals to eliminate waste and theft.

Onko Solutions – a new non-invasive medical device to screen and detect cervical cancer in women.

ENTVantage Diagnostics – has created a diagnostic test to diagnose bacterial sinusitis and differentiate it from viral sinusitis. The test is similar in nature to the rapid strep throat test administered at many doctors’ offices and clinics.

Alumni Presentations:

TeVido BioDevices – is using 3D bio-printing of a women’s own cells to build custom grafts for breast cancer reconstruction.

NutureMe – has created a new category of baby food.

Equipboard – is building the world’s largest database of artists and the gear they use.

The Bunker Austin Launches to Help Veteran Led Startups

December 8, 2014 / LauraLorek@gmail.com / 0 Comments

The Bunker Austin, a program geared to help veterans become entrepreneurs, has launched at the University of Texas at Austin.

Joseph Kopser, founder and CEO of RideScout, and Craig Cummings, co-founder, donated $70,000 to provide a Student Veteran Entrepreneurship Endowment. The seed fund is earmarked for students with veteran status at the University of Texas at Austin. The first award will be the James D. Pippin Veteran Entrepreneurship Award, a prize in the Texas Venture Lab Investment Competition. Pippin is a Retired Command Sergeant Major with the U.S. Army. Kopser and Pippin served together. The Pippin Award will be given to the most promising startup in TVL with one or more veteran co-founders.

The Bunker Austin is going to be a one-stop place for veterans to plug into all the resources available in Austin, Kopser said. To be a success entrepreneur, veterans need time, talent and treasure, he said. The Bunker Austin seeks to provide access to those things for veteran entrepreneurs.

Kopser and Cummings, both U.S. Army Veterans and graduates of the West Point Class of 1993, founded RideScout in 2011 and recently sold the company to Daimler’s car2Go subsidiary for an undisclosed price. RideScout makes a mobile phone app that let consumers search and compare aggregated ground transportation options to find the best one. It’s available in 69 cities in the U.S.

The company participated in the Jon Brumley Texas Ventures Lab program at the University of Texas at Austin.

The Bunker Austin is an offshoot of The Bunker in Chicago, which launched last month and announced plans to expand its veteran-focused accelerator to seven cities nationwide including Austin. The other cities are Los Angeles, Tacoma, Colorado Springs, Kansas City, Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia.

At the Bunker Austin, the veteran-led startups will have access to mentorship, a network of veteran entrepreneurs and help to find venture capital. The program is accepting application for its first cohort through January 10th. The first cohort will begin on Jan. 21st and last six months.

The Bunker Austin will be housed at the Austin Technology Incubator at the University of Texas at Austin.

“We’ve been really lucky that every company that has come through our program and has had a liquidity event has given back,” said Rob Adams, CEO of the Jon Brumley Texas Venture Labs at the University of Texas at Austin. The program does not require them to do so, he said. He thanked the founders of RideScout for sharing their success with the endowment.

TeVido BioDevices Launches IndieGoGo Crowdfunding Campaign

December 8, 2014 / LauraLorek@gmail.com / 1 Comment

TeVido BioDevices, which prints 3D nipples crafted from human cells, has launched a crowdfunding IndieGoGo campaign to raise $35,000.

The Austin-based company recently received a Small Business Innovative Research grant from the National Cancer Institute of the National Institute of Health and a grant from the National Science Foundation for total funding worth $900,000. It is also a graduate of the Jon Brumley Texas Ventures Lab at the University of Texas at Austin.

TeVido is raising the money to cover the costs of filing for patents on its technology and methods. So far, the company has raised $8,428 or 24 percent of its goal. It has 50 days left to meet its funding goal.

“Every dollar counts,” Laura Bosworth, the company’s CEO and co-founder said at the Venture Expo Fall program. She presented an update on her company as an alumni presenter.

“Globally nearly 1.5 million women receive a diagnosis of breast cancer each year, and in the United States it is estimated that forty percent of the nearly 300,000 women diagnosed undergo mastectomy or full removal of the breast tissue as part of their cancer treatment regime,” according to TeVido. “Approximately one-third of all mastectomy patients will undergo breast reconstruction, with the final step in the process involving the nipple areola complex (NAC). Unfortunately, results of currently available NAC reconstruction techniques are unpredictable and studies highlight that patients with loss of the nipple and areola continue to experience psychological distress long after the overall breast shape has been reconstructed. Recreation of the nipple-areola complex has a high correlation with overall patient satisfaction and acceptance of body image.”

TeVido’s patent pending technology called Cellatier uses 3D bioprinting to build custom nipple grafts for patients undergoing reconstructive surgery.

Silicon Hills News did this profile of TeVido Biodevices earlier this year.

Austin-based Revionics Raises $30 Million from Goldman Sachs

December 8, 2014 / LauraLorek@gmail.com / 2 Comments

Revionics, a retail software maker, has announced it raised $30 million in venture capital from Goldman Sachs.

The Austin-based company plans to use the funds to expand its global market share and for research and development on its software products.

As part of the deal, Hillel Moerman, co-head of the Goldman Sachs Private Capital Investing group, plans to join the company’s board of directors.

“Revionics’ best-in-class product, customer base, and management team have positioned the company to be a global leader in merchandise optimization,” Moerman said in a news release. “We are pleased to contribute to Revionics’ product innovation and continued success.”

Revionics creates data-driven shopper analytics for retailers. It has more than 37,000 customers worldwide. The company reports its customers “typically see a 2 percent to 5 percent increase in gross margin, a 2 percent to 7 percent increase in sales and on average a $10 return on every dollar invested.”

“We selected Goldman Sachs as our new financial partner due to their distinguished track record funding fast growing pre-IPO companies. We are thrilled that they see the significant growth opportunity ahead of us,” Marc Hafner, Revionics CEO said in a news release. “Revionics is committed to innovate and provide greater value to our customers. Today we deliver an estimated $2B in additional profit annually to our retail customers. This investment will accelerate key R&D efforts as well as provide us with additional access to capital for future acquisitions.”

Revionics relocated its headquarters to Austin from California in 2013. The company has previously raised $18 million in three rounds from two investors, according to its Crunchbase profile.

Austin-based Boundless Network Acquired by Zazzle

December 8, 2014 / LauraLorek@gmail.com / 0 Comments

Boundless Network, founded in 2005 in Austin, just got acquired by Zazzle, an online promotional products company, according to Promo Marketing Magazine.

The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Austin Ventures has backed Boundless Network, which makes custom-printed promotional items for companies. It has raised an estimated $17 million since its inception, according to this 2011 Austin Business Journal article. Zazzle has raised $46 million since its founding in 1999, according to its Crunchbase profile.

The consolidation is aimed at battling T-shirt newcomer TeeSpring, which is a Y-Combinator company backed by Andreessen Horowitz and Khosla Ventures since 2011 that has raised $56 million in venture capital, according to this TechCrunch article.

“Henrik Johansson, Boundless president and co-founder, will continue to run the company and assume the role of CEO, and Boundless co-founder Jason Black will consult in an advisory role,” according to the Promo Marketing Magazine post.

Building an Innovation Zone in Austin

December 5, 2014 / LauraLorek@gmail.com / 0 Comments

By SUSAN LAHEY
Reporter with Silicon Hills News

Sen. Kirk Watson speaking at the Austin Chamber’s Innovation Summit, photo by Susan Lahey

Austin is poised to become a global center of innovation, especially in the field of life sciences and medical research, but there are some big hurdles to overcome and potential threats that could knock the city off its trajectory, if it’s not careful.

That was the bottom line of the Austin Chamber of Commerce’s Austin Innovation Economy lunch Thursday at the Hyatt.

More than 350 people attended the event which looked at Austin’s plans for an Innovation Zone proposed to be from MLK Blvd. south to the river and from San Jacinto to I-35, according to Texas Sen. Kirk Watson. Watson has been named as incoming chair of the advisory committee for the project. The centerpiece of the project is the Dell Medical School at the University of Texas but Watson said the innovation zone will not only coordinate with Central Health (the county’s public healthcare district) and Seton but will also coalesce around art, software development, media and other elements of the community.

Dr. Clay Johnston, inaugural dean of the Dell Medical School at the Austin Chamber’s Innovation Summit, photo by Susan Lahey

At present, according to Dr. Clay Johnston, inaugural dean of the Dell Medical School, the medical field is leagues behind where it should be in terms of innovation.

“Doctors still use pagers,” he pointed out, “one of the least effective ways to communicate.”

The U.S. has one of the most expensive medical systems in the world, but life expectancy has only risen by less than a decade since the 1960s. In terms of actual care, he said, we’re comparable to Cuba.

The reason the medical field is so far behind is that the financial model for medical care depends on people being sick, on multiple procedures and doctor visits. Innovation creates efficiency, eliminating redundancy and therefore causing a loss of income.

There’s a built-in disincentive to innovate which means it’s time for a revolution in health care. One of the goals of the innovation zone is to make research through the University of Texas Dell Medical School and make it available for entrepreneurs to create that innovation revolution. The innovation center will create better access for collaboration, clinical trials and other advantages of critical mass in a medical practice, university and research setting.

Another speaker, Thomas G. Osha, managing director of innovation and economic development with Wexford Science and Technology which is a real estate investment company that helps develop research and innovation centers, said Austin has some distinct advantages as well as risks.

Much of the funding for medical research, Osha said, has come from the National Institutes of Health and NIH funding is being significantly reduced. At the same time, research and development costs are skyrocketing, making medical research more exclusive. In addition, he said, a lot of people believe we’re creeping up on a new tech bubble “We’ve drifted from the lean startup model and are chasing ever sillier return models.” Moreover, he said, Austin does not have the talent pool yet to support the opportunity in life sciences and medical research.

Each of those situations, he said, presents an opportunity for Austin to differentiate itself.

“You have phenomenal things happening in music, art, culture, the innovation zone should be the thing that stitches all of those things together.” Austin needs to approach the innovation zone in a way that’s exclusively Austin, he said, including “open, thoughtful, creative, inclusive.” Other medical research and life sciences organizations are replacing NIH money with Department of Defense and Homeland Security money, he said. Startups in this space often require an investment of at least $10 million, which generally means the company gets pulled to one of the coasts where there is not only funding but access to institutions and opportunities for clinical trials. The creation of the innovation center, combined with the attractive Austin lifestyle might be able to counter that. People talk a lot about Boulder The lifestyle in Austin, plus the power of proximity can create an advantage that Silicon Valley lacks and Cambridge, Massachusetts is “losing a little bit,” Osha said.

“People always talk about Boulder and how they have five strong clusters. But those clusters never talk to each other. Cross pollination is the way to move forward.”

More Venture Capital Needed for Life Science Startups

December 4, 2014 / LauraLorek@gmail.com / 2 Comments

By LAURA LOREK
Reporter with Silicon Hills News

Building a regional life science ecosystem requires venture capital.

And San Antonio has a shortage of venture capital, said John Kerr with Texas Next Capital.

“The critical factor, I don’t care whether you’re in San Antonio or Timbuktu, for all of these companies, is access to capital,” Kerr said. “These are ventures that are heavily dependent on capital.”

Life science startups also don’t generate a lot of revenue initially, Kerr said.

He spoke Thursday morning on a panel on “Building a Regional Ecosystem to Foster the Growth of Regenerative Medicine and Other Life Science Companies,” at the World Stem Cell Summit 2014 at the Marriott Rivercenter in San Antonio. Other panel members included Ann Stevens, head of BioMed SA, Ed Davis with the San Antonio Economic Development Corp. and Randy Goldsmith with the Texas Technology Development Center. Kenneth P. Trevett, with the Texas Biomedical Research Institute, moderated the panel.

Targeted Technologies is raising a fund focused on the life science industry in San Antonio and Sante Ventures in Austin has a fund for financing life science companies, Kerr said. But more is needed, he said.

The City of San Antonio is providing cash

The City of San Antonio is an investor in local life sciences companies, said Davis with the San Antonio Economic Development Corp..

“What we’re doing is kind of unique,” Davis said. “We’re using public dollars to help fuel our life sciences industry.”

In 2010, the City of San Antonio committed $10 million to invest in InCube Labs through 2015. InCube Labs, a life sciences research lab moved three of its life science startups to the city from San Diego. It also received $9.2 million from the Texas Emerging Technology Fund. The biotech companies include Corhythm, Neurolink and Fe3 Medical.

Last month, the City of San Antonio invested $1.75 million in Covalor Medical, a new medical device development and manufacturing company. The City has also invested $300,000 in Innovative Trauma Care and $200,000 in Stem BioSystems.

“Long term we’re going to create a self-sustaining economic development fund,” Davis said.

Promoter.io Helps Companies Collect Customer Feedback

December 3, 2014 / LauraLorek@gmail.com / 2 Comments

By Laura Lorek
Reporter with Silicon Hills News

The team behind Promoter.io, courtesy photo from the company

How likely are you to recommend our company to a friend or colleague?

That’s the key question behind San Antonio-based Promoter.io, founded by Chad Keck and Ricardo Reyna.

“Our core goal is to help other companies consistently drive new profitable growth,” Keck said.

Promoter.io, a customer analytics and insights platform, helps a company measure its “Net Promoter Score,” a metric for determining customer loyalty. Fred Reichheld, author of The Ultimate Question 2.0, came up with the Net Promoter Score® (also known as NPS), which rates companies on a scale of zero to ten in response to the single question of how likely they are to recommend the company to someone.

Customers who score a nine or ten are a company’s promoters. Those who score between zero to six are known as detractors. A company’s NPS score is the percentage of its promoters minus the percentage of its detractors.

Promoter.io, founded in 2013, recently closed on a $1 million seed stage round and launched into general availability. Its investors include Lew Moorman, Pat Condon, Pat Matthews, all former Rackspace executives, the new Geekdom Fund, John Long, an angel investor, NetDNA and Reichheld, the creator of the Net Promoter System. Its strategic advisors include Rackspace Chairman Graham Weston and AppFog Founder and CEO Lucas Carlson.

“I invested in Promoter for a number of reasons,” said Matthews. “First, I know Chad from our days at Rackspace. He has a really good product sense and good product people make the best entrepreneurs.”

“I also like the partnership he has with Ricardo,” Matthews said. “Building a business is too hard to do alone and they are solid co-founders who are long time friends and complement each other.”

Matthews said he also believes in the Net Promoter concept.

“The Net Promoter Score was the main customer metric we used at both Webmail.us and Rackspace and I think every business in the world can use it to measure and influence customer loyalty,” he said.

Promoter.io helps companies identify and engage their loyal customers to drive organic growth, Keck said. It also gives them meaningful intelligence on why they feel so strong about the brand, he said. Promoter.io also puts companies in touch with their detractors so they can address their needs proactively, he said.

“Not only do we help companies drive growth, we can help them drastically cut churn,” Keck said.

Before launching the company, Keck headed up customer experience at AppFog, which had more than 100,000 developers using the service. He managed the company’s NPS and the experience prompted him to think of the idea for Promoter.io. CenturyLink acquired AppFog in early 2013. That led Keck to join with Reyna to start Promoter.io. Reyna and Andrew Velis, an engineer, moved from San Francisco to join Keck in San Antonio. The company now has five employees and is hiring for several positions.

Promoter.io is the first self-service web platform that takes the Net Promoter System and builds an end-to-end product around it for companies, Keck said.

Based on your NPS you can reliably predict a company’s future growth along with several other bottom-line metrics. Leading Net Promoter companies have also been shown to outgrow their competitors by two or three times, Keck said.

“Promoters are important because they are the most profitable customers themselves,” Keck said. “They stay longer and they spend more money. They are also willing to recommend the product or service to others. They are loyal. When you have a loyal customer and they refer someone else in – it’s like compounded interest. People who are referred to a brand are less price sensitive. They stay longer and they recommend the service to others. It becomes a snowball effect.”

Some people will battle for a brand just because their customer experience was so strong, Keck said. The prime example is Apple, which has customers camped out in front of stores every time they introduce a new version of the iPhone.

Practically every Fortune 1000 company measures NPS, but many small and medium businesses don’t for a multitude of reasons. Promoter.io seeks to bring the NPS concept to the masses, Keck said.

“We want to make this available and affordable to every business,” he said.

So far, Promoter.io customers’ include Rackspace, TeamSnap, ZenPayroll, SmugMug, MaxCDN, Greenling, Groove, LiveChat, Baremetrics, and dozens more.

“What we help companies do has a direct revenue impact,” Keck said.

Measuring and subsequently engaging customers using Promoter.io and the Net Promoter System® will have a measurable return for a company every month, Keck said.

The average score for U.S. companies in 2013 was in the mid to high 20s on a scale from negative 100 to positive 100, Keck said.

“It takes a lot of loyal promoters to offset the detractors,” he said.

Scores up to 50 are good. Scores from 50 to 75 are excellent. Companies scoring above 75 are world-class. USAA has a world-class score along with brands such as Zappos and Nordstrom, Keck said.

“An excellent or world-class score can be hard to achieve, but the focus on taking care of the customer over the long-term will have an extremely beneficial impact on a business,” he said.

TeamSnap started using Promoter.io in mid-2013, said H. Wade Minter, its CTO. Promoter.io has an easy to use interface that has made it simple for the company to integrate Net Promoter Score into its business metrics, he said.”
“I’m quite impressed with it – the dashboard is very clear, the data breakdown is solid, and you can get access to the raw data set in a CSV file for more advanced or specialized analytics,” Minter said. “We’ve seen scores and feedback that let us know what we’re doing well, as well as areas where we’re lacking. We take the NPS results very seriously as a company, and they have provided valuable insight.”

Minter highly recommends Promter.io.

“Ultimately, if your customers are out there singing your praises, you’ll be successful,” he said. “Promoter.io gives us the data we need to understand customer sentiment and act on it.”

The World Stem Cell Summit Kicks Off in San Antonio Tuesday

December 1, 2014 / LauraLorek@gmail.com / 0 Comments

Researchers have used Stem Cells, known as the body’s master cells, to treat a variety of illnesses.

The cells, taken from adults or embryos, “offer the possibility of a renewable source of replacement cells and tissues to treat diseases including macular degeneration, spinal cord injury, stroke, burns, heart disease, diabetes, osteoarthritis, and rheumatoid arthritis,” according to the National Institutes of Health.

And now the public can find out even more about this exciting new field of medical research at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio Tuesday. It is teaming up with the World Stem Cell Summit to offer a free public education day.

The Health Science Center will host a series of talks from experts in the field of stem cells and regenerative medicine Tuesday morning and afternoon. The event immediately precedes the 2014 World Stem Cell Summit which begins Wednesday and runs through Friday at the Marriott Rivercenter.

The public event begins Tuesday at 9 a.m. with a special lecture on “Stem Cells: Their Biology and Promise for Regenerative Medicine” by Elaine Fuchs, PhD, Rockefeller University. The event will be held at the Holly Auditorium at 7703 Floyd Curl Drive. The event continues in the afternoon, starting at 1 p.m. and running until 4 p.m.

“The Health Science Center is committed to stem cell research, including applications to oral health, aging, neuroscience, diabetes and cancer,” Dr. William Henrich, president of the UT Health Science Center at San Antonio, said in a news release. “The World Stem Cell Summit is an opportunity to showcase our work on the global stage and establish new connections with national and international partners. The stem cells and regenerative medicine field has the potential to transform medicine, but also to transform the Texas economy.”

It’s Time to Sign Up for Google Fiber in Austin

December 1, 2014 / LauraLorek@gmail.com / 27 Comments

Google Fiber sign ups have gone live in South and Southeast Austin.

Residents in those areas can now sign up for Internet that’s 100 times faster than today’s basic speeds.

“This is just the beginning,” Mark Strama, head of Google Fiber Austin wrote in a blog post Monday. “We’ll be opening new areas of the city for signups on an ongoing basis, and we hope to bring Fiber to every neighborhood in Austin that wants it.”

It costs $70 for data and $130 for data and TV for consumers. Google also offers a small business plan for $100 a month through its Early Access Program for Google Fiber for Small Business.

“Austin is already booming with ambitious and creative entrepreneurs, and we can’t wait to see what small businesses do with Fiber,” Strama wrote in his post.

There’s also deadlines listed for signing up.

For more information, Google has opened its Fiber Space in downtown Austin at 201 Colorado Street. The public can stop by and “take Google Fiber for a spin, sign up for service, and see firsthand why speed matters,” according to Strama. “The Fiber Space is also a gathering place for the Austin community, so be sure to check out the schedule of events happening this month.”