Handshakez announced Wednesday that it has closed $3.6 million in venture capital financing.
Austin Ventures led the Series A round along with with First Round Capital, FLOODGATE, CrunchFund, Valhalla Partners and Thinktiv.
The Austin-based startup is “led by Jason Wesbecher, previously VP of Strategic Accounts at Jive Software; Scott Brittain, previously VP Engineering at Solarwinds; and Michael Osborne, previously Chief Revenue Officer at Bazaarvoice,” according to a news release
Handshakez has 50 customers on its customer relationship collaboration and analytics platform.
“The act of shaking hands is as old as commerce itself — and signals engagement, trust and balance between two people,” Handshakez co-founder and CEO Jason Wesbecher said in a news release. “This engagement has been under enormous strain in the last two decades by CRM technologies that have not kept up with the needs of the modern customer. The term CRM itself is wildly out of touch: customers don’t want to be managed, they want to be engaged. Handshakez is solving this today by humanizing and simplifying front end processes to put the customer at the center of the relationship.”
“There is a tremendous opportunity to take customer relationships out of email and bring new levels of collaboration to an age old sales process,” Thomas Ball, General Partner at Austin Ventures, said in a news release. “Successful enterprise companies like Jive and Yammer have proven that engagement, not record keeping, is the future. Handshakez has what it takes to build an industry-leading company in this space: seasoned leadership, an insider’s understanding of the market, and the vision to re-shape front-end enterprise applications around the customer.”

Right before South by Southwest kicks off, Taskbox is making a lot of news.
The Austin-based startup Taskbox, which makes a popular iPhone app to manage an email inbox, announced it has raised $600,000 in seed stage funding from angel investors with the Central Texas Angel Network.
The company also released the 2.0 version of its social task management app for email. The app turns email into prioritized tasks.
Silicon Hills News did this spotlight on the company last October when it had a campaign going on Kickstarter to raise $30,000. That campaign was not successful.
“Taskbox is transforming the process of reading, prioritizing and following up on emails and action items,” Andrew Eye, CEO of Taskbox, said in a news release. “Taskbox isn’t only for casual use. Our customers have been asking us for features that would allow them to organize both their personal and professional lives in one tool.”
“With Taskbox, users can experience the best aspects of task management without ever leaving their inboxes,” Rick Timmins of the Central Texas Angel Network said in a news release. “Taskbox is not only making it faster to manage email workflows, but its bringing transparency and accountability back to the email process. People can finally close the loop on every outstanding message. If that isn’t providing value in today’s world, I don’t know what is.”
Taskbox also made GigaOm’s list of the 10 startups to visit with at SXSW Interactive 2013. And Taskbox is one of 12 finalists chose to pitch at the Hatch startup competition on Sunday.

Bloomfire announced today that it has raised another $8 million in financing from founding investors at Austin Ventures and Redpoint Ventures.
The Austin-based company comes as the company’s has landed 200 paying customers and 65,000 users.
To date, Bloomfire has raised $18 million. The company plans to use the money for engineering, sales and marketing.
Founded in 2010, Bloomfire bills itself as a software company that has created a “knowledge sharing platform.” Today, it also announced improvements to its flagship product to connect its customers to multimedia content, real time Q&A and social networks.
“The way people discover, consume and share information has fundamentally shifted, as mobile and social platforms continue to reshape how we communicate and interact across every aspect of our lives, especially in the workplace,” Chris Pacitti, General Partner at Austin Ventures, said in a news release. “By unifying the information silos created by mobile, social and cloud technologies, Bloomfire is poised to make a huge impact on how enterprise workforces collaborate. We look forward to continuing to support them in that mission.”
“Bloomfire has taken a leadership position in addressing the critical unsolved problem of capturing and sharing valuable informal knowledge and delivering it exactly where and when it is needed,” Jeff Brody, Partner at Redpoint Ventures said in a news release. “Craig Malloy and his veteran team of entrepreneurs have worked together for years in previous businesses that Redpoint and I have funded. They have made impressive progress in Bloomfire’s first full year of operation and made our investment decision very easy.”

Geekdom, the collaborative coworking site in downtown San Antonio, has launched GeekdomX, a new affiliate in which it will seek partners globally to open similar coworking sites.
Geekdom, which launched a little over a year ago, has 600 members. Its first GeekdomX location will open in San Francisco this summer.
Nick Longo and Graham Weston, cofounders of Geekdom, have plans to expand the concept nationally and internationally through select partnerships. Already six cities and one country have expressed interest in establishing a GeekdomX.
“We’re looking for people with tech cred,” Longo said. “This isn’t about collecting royalties. It isn’t a franchise. This is not about world domination. This is about finding the right people in their community to build a tech city.”
Today, Geekdom unveiled the program along with a new Website. Longo, director of Geekdom, is also speaking on alternative financing for coworking spaces this afternoon at the Global Coworking Unconference Conference. Geekdom is a sponsor of the event and has a booth at the Austin Music Hall, where the two-day conference is taking place, to provide information on its new program.

Geekdom is a sponsor of Silicon Hills News and SHN is a media sponsor of the Global Coworking Unconference Conference

BY L.A. LOREK
Founder of Silicon Hills News

Traditional work is killing people so they are looking for alternatives and coworking fills that void.
That’s the view of Gervais Tompkin with Gensler, a global design firm. He spoke Tuesday morning on a panel on trends in coworking at the Global Coworking Unconference Conference. An estimated 300 people are attending the two-day conference at the Austin Music Hall.
“Modern work has pushed everything we’re doing onto little screens,” Tompkin said. “Work in a traditional office environment is literally killing people.”
Coworking can make people more active, Tompkin said. The computer and Internet age has resulted in workers leading more sedentary lives. That coupled with a poor diet in the U.S. has led to an obesity epidemic. Coworking can bring more balance into people’s lives and lead to a healthier lifestyle, Tompkin said.
Coworking is a movement that is about 10 years old but in the last few years it has grown tremendously.
Work is changing, said Jean-Yves Huwart, an expert in organizational models with Global Enterprise, and the panel’s moderator.
Coworking is becoming a specialized industry, said Liz Elam, GCUC founder who runs Link Coworking in Austin. Coworking sites that specialize in food, technology, maker spaces and more are popping up around the country.
More than 110,000 people worldwide work in one of the nearly 2,500 coworking spaces worldwide, according to deskmag, a coworking magazine which covers the industry. Its annual report shows that coworking spaces increased 83 percent last year and membership at those spaces grew 117 percent.
An explosion in the number of coworking venues allows employees more flexibility on how and where they do their jobs, according to panelists. Austin has more than a dozen coworking space scattered around the city. San Antonio has Geekdom, the state’s largest coworking space with more than 500 members.
Coworking spaces allow people to work remotely in a workplace with others. The businesses provide desks, Internet access, networking and coffee. Some are run as nonprofit ventures, but the majority are for profit ventures. The workplaces encourage collaboration and provide workers a more social and interactive environment than working from home.
“It’s the new health club you can get your workout and get your work done,” said Tompkin with Gensler. “People come to cowork with an intention.”
The coworking movement is a phenomena that is taking people by surprise, Tompkin said. He estimates that 77 percent of all relationship’s are virtual so people need contact with others to be happy and productive.
“We need these extremely divergent experiences to keep us human,” he said.
The U.S. has the most coworking spaces with 781, ahead of Germany’s 230, Spain’s 199, Great Britain’s 154 and Japan’s 129, according to deskmag. Altogether, 83 countries have coworking facilities.
The industry is not going to slow down, said Kevin Kuske, chief brand anthropologist with turnstone, and panelist.
“The things that drove coworking to be popular are not slowing down,” he said.
He estimated that there will be 1.3 billion virtual workers in the next decade. And energy costs and carbon emissions is also driving that behavior, he said.
At a later panel on corporate coworking, company representatives said coworking gives their employees flexibility and the ability to save time commuting to a remote office.

Disclosures: Silicon Hills News is a media sponsor of the Global Coworking Unconference Conference. And Geekdom is a sponsor of Silicon Hills News.

The Austin Technology Council Monday announced a free Gateway to Austin’s Best app to showcase Austin’s coolest technologies, food and entertainment.
ATC’s Gateway to Austin’s Best app has been developed in partnership with Circuit of the Americas, MapMyFitness, Tabbedout, the Austin Food Blogger Alliance, Austin Startup Games and RED Method. The Gateway mobile app for iPhone and Android is a guide to the food, tech and entertainment. The app provides Austin’s best maps, lists, links and picks to help navigate Austin during South by Southwest.
People who download and use the Gateway to Austin’s Best app will be entered to win two tickets to any 2013 event at Austin’s Circuit of the Americas. Winners will be announced at the ATC CEO Summit on May 8th.
“We will only be successful in Austin as a global competitor if we work collectively to showcase what we all know and love about Austin tech,” ATC President Julie Huls said in a news release. “We get to experience the best and brightest in Austin everyday– we have amazing executives; hundreds of available tech jobs; and a cool scene to support a strong workforce. Now, it’s time to showcase what we know and love to the rest of the world.”
ATC, with more than 7,000 members, is hosting its first “Very Important Tech or VIT” Gateway Party, Thursday, March 7, at ACL Live at The Moody Theater from 5 p.m. until 10 p.m. for its members. Reserve a ticket on its website. The party features music by the White Ghost Shivers, LED dancers and executive networking.

A new travel startup, Localeur launched today in Austin.
The site, aimed at Millennial travellers, provides local travel recommendations from “a curated community of local insiders,” according to the company’s news release.
Localeur is only available in Austin right now, but plans to expand to other cities this year.
Joah Spearman and Chase White, former employees with Austin-based ratings-and-review software company Bazaarvoice, founded the company.
“Localeur gives Millennials the confidence of having a local experience by putting the recommendations in the hands of local insiders,” Spearman, CEO, said in a news release. “Review sites don’t get to the heart of a city and travel books get outdated too quickly.”
“Austin is a perfect fit to launch Localeur and a model city for the kind of local travel Millennials want,” said White, president. “People in Austin are very attuned to eating and shopping local, and our curated, screened group of Localeurs offer recommendations that only fellow Austinites could know.”
Early investors in Localeur include Austin-based serial entrepreneur and investor Chris Shonk, Sweet Leaf Tea and Deep Eddy Vodka co-founder and CEO Clayton Christopher and Austin City Limits executive producer Terry Lickona. Other Austin investors include identity protection industry leader Joe Ross and Spredfast co-founder Ken Cho. The company also has investors outside of Austin.

Localeur | Experience Local™ from Localeur on Vimeo.

The University of Texas at Austin wants student entrepreneurs to receive as much recognition and support as the school’s athletes, according to Bob Metcalfe.
Metcalfe, UT professor of innovation and a successful entrepreneur, innovator and venture capitalist, heads up the university’s Longhorn Startup Program, previously known as One Semester Startup, along with serial entrepreneur Joshua Baer. That program has helped dozens of student entrepreneurs launch companies and seek investment capital.
This week, the University of Texas puts the spotlight on campus innovators with UT Entrepreneurship Week, which is a week of events designed to develop student entrepreneurs and their new ventures. The full list of events can be found on its website.
This evening, Metcalfe will discuss the importance of student entrepreneurship to kick off the UT Entrepreneurship Student Startup Expo, which highlights 15 student run companies. The event is hosted by Scientific Entrepreneurial Society and run by Taylor Barnett.
“The goal for E Week is to engage the student body in supporting these students and considering the entrepreneurial lifestyle,” according to Nick Spiller, one of its organizers.
The event includes a special Longhorn Entrepreneur Awards Dinner on Wednesday at 7:30. For the first time, the university’s student government will recognize a Student Entrepreneur of the Year.