Austin-based TrustRadius, a crowdsource software review site for companies, landed $5 million in Series A financing from Mayfield Fund.
Rajeev Batra, Mayfield Fund partner, will also join its board of directors.
Last November, the company debuted at Innotech Austin’s Beta Summit.
TrustRadius has a platform that allows people to review major software programs so other companies and organizations know what to expect from them and whether they meet their needs. The company compares its software review site to consumer-facing applications like Angie’s List, Yelp and TripAdvisor.
“We’re thrilled to collaborate with Mayfield, a leading global venture capital firm with a strong record of backing companies that have changed the way the world operates and, in the process, become industry leaders – 3PAR, Marketo, Solarcity and StorSimple, to name a few,” Vinay Bhagat, Cofounder and CEO, TrustRadius, said in a news release. “Mayfield shares our vision which is to empower enterprise technology buyers and users everywhere in a way that will forever change the way technology is bought and sold.”
Before Trust Radius, Bhagat founded Convio, which went public in 2010 and was acquired last year for $325 million.
“Although U.S. businesses spend nearly $3.8 trillion annually on enterprise technology and services, until now, they have had to evaluate and select solutions based on biased and/or patchy information,” according to the company.
With the latest round of funding, TrustRadius plans to hire more employees, increase membership, expand its base of reviews and other content and further develop its product.
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The LoneStarRuby Conference kicks off Thursday and runs through Saturday at the Norris Conference Center in Austin.
The event features more than 25 speakers and a RailsBridge training day for women, teens, and recent grads seeking to learn how to program. The training, made possible by a donation from Rackspace, is free and open to the public but registration is required .
The event is one of a handful of regional conferences that draw hundreds of startups, IT executives, and developers focused on Ruby on Rails, the open source web application framework that runs on the object-programming language known as Ruby.
According to Lance Vaughn, Executive Director of the LoneStarRuby Foundation (), the event organizer, the purpose of the conference is to address the market opportunities, challenges and future of Ruby on Rails.
“We put together this year’s conference to address how design can impact communities, and vice-versa, in a way that can lead to positive change in our world,” Vaughn said. “The Ruby community has long been one of the most diverse communities in the world of software development, so this year we wanted our speakers to reflect that richness in background, culture, gender and values.”
Speakers include Sandi Metz, Steve Klabnik, Katrina Owen and Avdi Grimm. The conference also features the following:
• Ruby Rogues panel and live podcast
• Cloud panel featuring speakers from Rackspace, Heroku, Engine Yard, and HP Cloud
• Dave Thomas, author of The Pragmatic Programmer, presenting Elixir
• Ashe Dryden speaking on diversity in the computer programming culture
The conference is open for registration.
By SUSAN LAHEY
Reporter with Silicon Hills News
CanWe Studios just rolled out its first app, CanWeNetwork, in iTunes and Google Play. The app uses geolocation, LinkedIn and other data to help people with mutual interests find one another at networking events or conferences…or possibly just walking down the street.
According to co-founder Greg Braswell, the app’s “secret sauce” is offering “models that we bring to a not-so-obvious match,” such as business skills, social skills and personal skills. “It involves taxonomy, ontology, it grades hundreds, if not thousands of vector points and comes up with the potential commonalities or interests of two individuals. LinkedIn is a starting point.”
“If the person is analytical, here are other skills and social skills that the person may have. It helps you discover opportunities,” Braswell said.
So the app can help a person find someone in a similar industry, or it can find a match based on other attributes or needs that may lead to a collaboration between diverse individuals. Although the ability to match two people currently requires both to have the app, in coming weeks, that will change, Braswell said. At present, the app will allow you to learn more about people at an event and build files on them so you can set an appointment with them later.
CanWe started with a dating app idea, Braswell said, but during beta testing in San Marcos, Austin, Boston, Chicago and a few other places, realized that a pivot might be wise. There were connectivity issues in some bars, for example. Plus they decided the app would be far more valuable in the B2B and B2C space.
In March, private investors, including the company’s president Dan Kloiber, invested $1.5 million to help get the app launched.
The app is free for consumers, who, in the future, will be able to get notifications of possible matches being someone living, say in Austin, and someone visiting. The app will inform the two smartphone holders of the proximity of the other and suggest a meeting place.
The company plans to monetize the app via the event and conference space, allowing people attending the event to schedule meetings before or after speakers, allowing individuals to connect with vendors and the like.
CanWe also intends to market to enterprises to create more social connections among employees, of, say IBM either locally or when many members travel to a conference.
“A lot of companies are trying to figure out better ways to add more social connections among employees because employee retention becomes much higher,” Braswell said. “Also there might be skill sets that employees have that they’re not using in their roles. For example, they might be in finance but on the side they love to code in PHP and the company has a project that can marry these two skills.”
In the future, CanWe hopes to release the app on platforms other than iTunes and Google Play.
In a blog post, Rackspace announced that it has remade its app for Android mobile phones.
The app lets users manage their cloud servers hosted at Rackspace from Android-powered smartphones.
Other features include the ability to manage multiple accounts; reboot, rename, resize and rebuild servers; change root passwords; check system status; ping servers from multiple data centers; and call Rackspace support directly from the app.
“And now we’re being more Fanatical in how we approach the app and support – it’s been built to provide an easy-to-use experience backed by the support and performance that you’ve come to expect from us,” according to the blog post.
The Android app is available now via Google Play.
By SUSAN LAHEY
Reporter with Silicon Hills News
Erick Schonfeld, executive producer of DEMO. photos by Susan Lahey
DEMO Executive Producer Erick Shonfeld has traveled the world looking for companies to pitch at DEMO’s event October 15-17 in Silicon Valley. During the day, the DEMO team, along with Capital Factory mentors, heard pitches from applicants and gave them feedback. Thursday night they threw a party at Bourbon Girl and some of the companies from earlier in the day, as well as some volunteers from the audience, made 90 second pitches.
“I Tweeted out today that when I look at Austin startups, I see real tech focused on real business models,” Shonfeld said. “I didn’t see a lot of frivolous consumer apps. I saw products that are really well thought out, they’re going after a specific market, they know what that market is and they know how they’re going to make money. That’s unusual these days.”
What I like about Austin startups: real tech with real business models #DEMOTour @ Capital Factory http://t.co/GrmK6DTz6E
— Erick Schonfeld (@erickschonfeld) July 11, 2013
Companies that wanted to pitch had to apply and had to meet several criteria, one of which was that the company was pre-launch.
“For the most part, nobody can know about it, it has to launch on stage. DEMO has to be its public debut. It has to be a technology business, consumer or enterprise, that’s pushing the boundaries of technology or markets in a new way or tagging new markets.”
Attorney Chris Murphy pitched Lawful.ly, photo by Susan Lahey
“In our case it validated a lot of what we thought…a lot of it was you’ve got to prove that you’re the team that knows how to do this,” Murphy said. Then they encouraged him to keep in touch as his startup evolves and attracts customers.
Some of the companies that pitched at Capital Factory didn’t attend the DEMO party so other local companies had a chance to pitch, including Beyonic, which helps African nations transition into mobile payments.
Even that had value, said Ronald Miller, VP of marketing and PR for Beyonic.
After his brief pitch they met several people who could prove useful for the company, including a VC who works in the same area they do.
Previous Austin alumni of DEMO include Ube, which won a People’s Choice award in fall 2012, Toopher, Itography, Gelato Dating and Infochimps.
By ANDREW MOORE
Reporter with Silicon Hills News
Ever want something from the store – a sandwich, milk, batteries – but didn’t have time to get it? If you’re in central Austin, you can now use Favor.
Favor is an app based delivery service that gets customers food, drinks, or whatever else they need delivered right to the user’s location. The service is active between the hours of 11 a.m. to midnight Sunday through Wednesday and available until 2 a.m.Thursday through Saturday. Favor has a $5.00 delivery fee plus $2.00 minimum tip on top of whatever you ordered. Customers can order virtually anything as long as they have the local store name and an item description.
Favor serves the central Austin area – as far south as Oltorf and as far north as 55th street. They currently have 12 runners and are still hiring.
Founded by high school friends Zac Maurais and Ben Doherty, Favor started out in San Luis Obispo, Calif. delivering burritos and beer. The startup went though the boost incubator in San Mateo, Calif. where it was eventually funded by venture capitalist Tim Draper. Favor moved its operation to Austin as of June 5 to access a larger customer base. It has seen 2000 downloads in its first month of operations.
Favor is currently looking for a Sencha touch developer to help build more features into their app.
Appconomy, founded in 2010 with operations in Austin and Shanghai, China, filed papers with the Securities and Exchange Commission revealing it has raised $2.9 million.
The Austin Business Journal first reported on the funding.
The Austin American-Statesman’s story says the company has completed $4 million in financing.
The company says it plans to raise a total of $6 million in its latest filing with federal regulators.
In December of 2011, Appconomy landed $10 million in Series A funding.
Then a year later, Appconomy announced it had raised an additional $6 million to complete its Series A round of $16 million total.
Appconomy offers a merchant payment system called AppWallet and offers an app for smartphones, tablets and feature phones.
The University of Texas’ Health Affairs has a new leader.
Dr. Raymond Greenberg of the Medical University of South Carolina announced today that he is leaving his post there to move to Austin to become executive vice chancellor for Health Affairs in the University of Texas System.
Greenberg, who will leave in late August, will oversee six health sciences institutions at UT including four medical schools, according to a story in the Charleston Post and Courier.
In Texas, Greenberg will succeed Dr. Kenneth Shine who retired last year and had served in that role since 2003.
Greenberg was selected after a comprehensive national search and will begin his duties in September, University of Texas Chancellor Francisco Cigarroa said in a news release.
“After receiving his undergraduate training from the University of North Carolina, Greenberg earned a medical degree from Duke University, a master of public health degree from Harvard University, and a doctorate in epidemiology from the University of North Carolina. Greenberg also holds honorary degrees from the College of Charleston, Simpson College and The Citadel,” according to the news release.
“There has never been a more important time for the UT System to make major advancements in academic health. With two medical schools on the horizon in Austin and South Texas and the opportunity to expand our global leadership role in the clinical, research and educational areas, Dr. Greenberg is the right person at the right time,” Cigarroa said in a news statement. “Dr. Greenberg substantively advanced excellence across education, healthcare and biomedical research at the Medical University of South Carolina during his tenure both as Provost and President.”
Greenberg will oversee the new Dell Medical School.
Since April, a committee has been searching for the first dean of the Dell Medical School in Austin. It is expected to accept its first class in 2016.
The economy must be approving because now it seems like everyone is flush with cash to outsource all the annoying tasks of life like cleaning.
And HomeJoy, a Y-Combinator tech cleaning startup from San Francisco, just launched its services in Austin. It launched last month in San Antonio.
And the company got $1.7 million in seed funding (for a cleaning service people!!!!), according to this TechCrunch post.
Never mind that there are a gazillion cleaning service companies already in the market and competition online exists from TaskRabbit, which allows people to post tasks to pay others to complete like house cleaning.
HomeJoy, which bills itself as maid service for the masses, allows anyone in the markets they serve to go online and book a cleaner, who has been vetted with a background check, for $20 an hour. Customers can also check out the profile of the cleaner assigned to their house for references.
Aaron and Adora Cheung, brother and sister founders, launched the company in 2012 and have since expanded nationwide to more than a dozen markets.
Houston-based Idera has bought CopperEgg, an Austin-based startup that specialized in software to manage cloud-based applications.
The terms of the deal were not disclosed.
To date, CopperEgg has raised $4.1 million and it makes software that can monitor public, private and hybrid cloud configurations online. It’s available as a software as a service model to companies.
“The acquisition of CopperEgg expands our value proposition by combining Idera’s robust database monitoring and CopperEgg’s server and application performance management,” Randy Jacops, CEO of Idera, said in a news release. “With the recent acquisition of Precise Software, I’m confident that the combination of Idera, CopperEgg, and Precise will give our customers unprecedented visibility and control over their IT infrastructure.”
CopperEgg has more than 500 customers and thousands of users, said Bob Quillin, its CEO.
Idera makes application and server management software and has more than 12,000 customers.