The U.S. Air Force has named Hypergiant Galactic Systems and 28 other companies as awardees on a potential $950 million contract, according to GovConWire.
The contract is to build and operate systems
across land, air, sea, space, electromagnetic spectrum and cyber domains as
part of the Joint All Domain Command Control program.
The companies will compete to provide software
and other solutions to the Department of Defense. The contract is expected to
run through May of 2025.
“We are honored that the Department of Defense has recognized
both the tremendous effort put forth already by Hypergiant and also the
sky-high potential for our team to push DoD capability even further into the
future.,” Bern Lamm, Hypergiant founder said in a news statement. “This award is not only a huge testament to
Hypergiant’s unique value, but also validation that modern software best
practices are alive and well within the DoD. We are incredibly excited about
the potential for JADC2, and are honored to have been selected to play a unique
role in its foundation.”
The installation of solar panels on a residential roof at the first Tesla Solar neighborhood, located in East Austin, photo courtesy of Brookfield Residential
Not only is Tesla building a $1.1 billion Gigafactory in Austin to make trucks and other vehicles, but Tesla Energy is also creating a solar-powered local neighborhood.
Last week, Tesla Energy announced the first Tesla Solar neighborhood called SunHouse at Easton Park, 12 miles east of downtown Austin. Tesla is working with Brookfield Asset Management and Dacra.
“Neighborhood
solar installations across all housing types will reshape how people live,”
Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, said in a news statement. “The feedback we get from
the solar and battery products used in the community will impact how we develop
and launch new products.”
Installation of Tesla V3 solar roof tiles and Powerwall 2 battery storage began in June at select homes in the SunHouse community on land in Brookfield Residential’s Easton Park master-planned residential community.
The houses, being built by various homebuilders, start in the low $300,000s and go up from there.
“This
initiative brings together multiple parts of our organization with innovative
and forward-thinking partners that share a commitment to advance the
development of sustainable communities,” Brian Kingston, CEO of Brookfield’s
Real Estate business. “As consumers increasingly seek out energy security
alongside sustainable places to live, combining Tesla’s solar technology
together with Brookfield’s real estate and renewables development capabilities
will help us meet demand for environmentally responsible communities of the
future.”
“Our goal is to establish that fully sustainable neighborhoods are not only viable, but the best practical and economical choice,” Craig Robins, CEO of Dacra, said in a news release. “Together with Brookfield and Tesla, we are trying to change the world by creating technology-driven, energy-independent communities that make the world a better place.”
The master-planned community of homes seeks to become an energy-neutral, sustainable community and a model for the design and construction of sustainable large-scale housing projects around the world. The community also expects to produce enough energy to supply daily needs and reduce the daily demand on the electric grid. They will also have backup power and they will have the ability to sell excess energy back to the energy grid.
Tesla
Solar will provide ongoing oversight of the homes’ energy systems, and
Brookfield’s renewable power business will integrate a community-wide
solar program to serve broader public use needs and surrounding neighborhoods.
Brookfield Residential will also incorporate a suite of technology features,
including electric vehicle charging stations in each home and throughout the
community.
The
City of Austin and Travis County have both announced commitments to sustainable
development.
“The
City of Austin is excited for the arrival of these affordable options to
housing powered by renewable energy,” Mayor Steve Adler said in a news
release. “I am excited for the Tesla, Brookfield, and Dacra partnership’s
approach to sustainable energy and housing as an example of the out-of-box
thinking that continues to make our community a beacon of innovation for the
rest of the country and world.”
CS Disco, a legal tech startup, filed papers with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for an initial public offering of stock.
The Austin-based company did not set a date to go public or a price for its shares, which will be traded under the stock ticker “LAW.”
CS Disco plans to use the proceeds from the stock sale for “working capital and other general corporate purposes, including developing and enhancing our technical infrastructure, solutions, and services, expanding our research and development efforts and sales and marketing operations, meeting the increased compliance requirements associated with our transition to and operation as a public company and expanding into new markets,” according to the filing. The company could also use the net proceeds to acquire complementary businesses, products, services, or technologies, but it doesn’t have any plans to do so right now.
CS Disco reported revenue of $68.4
million for 2020, compared to revenue of $48.5 million for 2019. It also
reported a net loss of $29.8 million for 2020 and a net loss of $22.8 million
for 2019.
The company gets less than 5
percent of its revenue from international sales, but it plans to expand further.
To date, CS Disco has raised $161 million in venture
capital, according to its filing. The company reported that it had $53.6
million of cash and cash equivalents as of March 31st, 2021.
CS Disco uses artificial intelligence and cloud computing to help lawyers and legal teams. As of March 31, 2021, the company reported it had 909 enterprises, law firms, legal services providers, and government organizations as its customers.
And the market is growing.
“Legal services is a massive,
growing global industry that we believe is significantly underpenetrated by
modern technology solutions,” according to the company’s filing. “According to
Statista, total global legal services spend is forecasted to be $767 billion in
2021 and grow to $846 billion in 2023. Within legal services, DISCO Ediscovery
addresses the ediscovery market. According to International Data Corporation,
the worldwide ediscovery software and services market is forecasted to be $14.7
billion in 2021 and grow to $16.9 billion by 2024.”
Founded in 2013, CS Disco moved its headquarters from Houston to Austin in 2018. As of March, the company had 336 full-time employees.
Skyrocketing health care costs is a problem Sana, a health care startup, has set out to solve since its founding in 2017.
Recently, the Austin-based company took another step in that direction by announcing a partnership with Proactive MD to open a primary health care center, Sana MD in Austin. With the center, Sana and Proactive MD expect to improve care management and reduce health care costs, according to a news release.
The center
is expected to open in late August, said Sheli Wibaux, Sana’s head of direct
care. Sana MD will operate as a subscription-based unlimited care option to
Sana’s health care members, Wibaux said. The nonprofit center will be located
at 1715 W. 35th St. in Austin.
“Sana
believes that exceptional, preventive-focused primary care is the most
effective way to improve health outcomes,” Sana CEO and Co-founder Will Young
said in a statement. “By establishing Sana MD as the foundation of our growing
Sana Care ecosystem, we are empowering members to take advantage of free,
high-quality primary care.”
Sana MD
will include family medicine, urgent and preventive care, reduced
cost-prescriptions through an in-house pharmacy, labs and diagnostics, chronic
disease management, physical therapy and total wellness solutions including
weight loss programs, diabetes education, stress management, smoking cessation,
and wellness coaching. In addition, patient advocacy services will also be
offered including mental health support and more.
“This
partnership with Sana is a huge step toward our ultimate goal of transforming
health care for the good of the patient,” John Collier, Proactive MD’s CEO,
said in a statement. “We believe that primary care is the most powerful tool
for risk management, cost containment, and overall patient wellbeing. Now that
our Advanced Primary Care model has joined Sana’s innovative health plans, our
positive impact on patient lives will be amplified in Austin.”
Sheli Wibaux, Sana’s Head of Care
Other Sana MD Centers could be rolled out to other locations if this one proves successful, Wibaux said.
“If we
find the model works, we would like to expand this offering to our members
nationwide,” she said.
Sana is providing access to Sana MD as an opt-in benefit to its members, Wibaux said. The clinic has the capacity to serve 2,500 members, she said. It also has a 24 hour, seven-day-a-week after-hours helpline and it also provides spots open for same-day appointments, she said.
Sana provides an alternative to big insurance providers like Aetna, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, United Healthcare, Cigna, and Humana. It competes with them by providing insurance that is, on average, 30 percent cheaper, according to the company. Sana’s platform covers health, vision, dental, telemedicine, and maternity, in addition to benefits like ClassPass. Sana moved to Austin in 2018 from San Francisco.
By far, 2020 was the busiest year for Homeward, an Austin-based home finance company.
“No one knew at the beginning of Covid what kind of a recovery it was going to be,” said Matt Thurmond, Homeward’s Chief Strategy Officer.
In fact, in March and April, there was a sharp drop in home sales and listings. But by May and June, people realized this pandemic was here to stay for a while, Thurmond said. That’s when people started shopping for homes with backyards, home offices, swimming pools, updated kitchens, game rooms, and other amenities that make living and working from home nicer.
As a result, Homeward saw a huge surge in business, Thurmond said.
And to help fuel its growth in late May, Homeward announced it had
secured funding of $371 million, including $136 million in equity and $235
million in debt. Norwest Venture Partners led the equity financing, with
participation by Blackstone Alternative Asset Management, Breyer Capital, and
existing investors, Adams Street, Javelin, and LiveOak Venture Partners.
Homeward has created a product that allows its customers to make
all-cash offers to secure their next home before selling their existing home. The Homeward
Cash Offer eliminates the financing, home sale, and appraisal contingencies.
The company plans to use the funds raised to open
additional markets. It currently serves homebuyers in select markets in Texas, Colorado,
and Georgia.
“We
anticipated cash offers becoming standard a few years ago — sellers prefer cash offers
because they are much more certain to close,” Homeward Founder and CEO Tim Heyl
said in a news statement. “We designed our cash offer in a way that enables real estate
agents to make every buyer a cash buyer. Our instincts were right — that’s
obvious from the tremendous demand we’re seeing today.”
Homeward works with real estate agents to
complete the sales. It has partnered with Realty Austin, a brokerage team of
more than 570 agents.
“Customers find a home they love, and we buy it,” Thurmond said. “We
hold it. Then they can buy it back from us when they sell their house.”
That solution came from problems Heyl, a top real estate agent in
Austin, encountered when he was closing deals. Buyers often couldn’t buy a new
home until they sold their old home. So, he created Homeward to provide a
solution.
Homeward also has its own in-house mortgage and title companies
to handle the entire transaction. And the company is hiring across all
divisions, Thurmond said. It grew from just 20 employees a year ago to 220
today and it expects to be at 500 by the end of this year, and 1,000 in 2022,
he said.
All Homeward employees are working remotely, Thurmond said. They
have the option of going into the office, he said. But the office has become
more of a perk, he said.
When the Covid-19 pandemic struck last March, initial bookings to
rent Recreational Vehicles plummeted but that didn’t last long.
“Covid was a big, big spike for the company,” said Jeff Cavins, Outdoorsy’s co-founder and CEO. People realized they could quarantine in RVs and maintain freedom of movement in a controlled environment, he said. As a result, RV sales and rentals are at all-time highs, he said.
A record 20 million people visited Outdoorsy’s RV and outdoor travel marketplace last year and 89 percent of the renters were from Generation Z or Millennials, Cavins said. Today, more than 11 million U.S. households own an RV, according to the RV Industry Association.
“The upswing in RV ownership over the last 10 years is driven by strong interest from younger individuals and families who live an active outdoor lifestyle and Baby Boomers who are entering retirement,” according to the association. That trend only strengthened during the Pandemic because work-from-home arrangements encouraged more people to move and a shortage of houses also prompted people to look for alternative home arrangements like RVs, Cavins said.
In addition, there are thousands of people running businesses on Outdoorsy running mobile bed and breakfast businesses. In fact, one businessman in Atlanta made $8.2 million on Outdoorsy renting out RVs, Cavins said. And a 28-year-old woman in California earned $2.2 million last year, he said.
Outdoorsy’s marketplace is open to anybody that has an RV –
anywhere in the U.S. and Canada. Among its most popular rentals are Class C RVs
which have a bunk over the cab that are popular with families and Class B RVs
which are camper vans popular with couples.
The most popular destinations include anything in the Southwest,
Cavins said. Colorado, Utah, Nevada, and Montana are popular destinations for RV
rental customers, he said. It also changes with the weather, he said. Florida
is popular in the Winter.
The nomadic life seems to suit the Lone Star State. Texas is the
number one market for RV purchases in the world, Cavins said. That makes it a
great home base for Outdoorsy, which moved its headquarters to Austin in 2018.
And to further fuel growth in the RV industry, Outdoorsy announced Thursday that it has raised $120 million in equity and debt financing. To date, the company, founded in 2015, has raised more than $220 million.
Outdoorsy has 90 employees in Austin and 105 overall in Texas.
The company has a total of 250 employees and is hiring.
Outdoorsy’s $120 million raise includes a $90 million private placement equity round led by Moore Strategic Ventures, ADAR1 Partners, Monashee Capital, SiriusPoint, and Convivialite Ventures, the corporate venture group of Pernod Ricard, with participation from existing investors Altos Ventures, iAngels, and Greenspring Associates. Pacific Western Bank provided the $30 million debt facility.
Outdoorsy Launches Roamly
Outdoorsy plans to use the funds raised to scale its operations and to drive growth and expansion of Roamly, its insurtech business.
“Roamly’s digital annual insurance product recently came out of
beta in the U.S.” Cavins said.
Outdoorsy created the product in response to a problem its
customers encountered in the RV rental industry. RV owners couldn’t get their
insurance companies to cover their RVs when they rented them out to others
because the insurance industry doesn’t view the RVs as commercial vehicles,
Cavins said. So Outdoorsy created an insurance product for RV owners who want
to rent their RVs to others on Outdoorsy’s marketplace.
“Roamly is insurance that moves with you,” Cavins said. “It’s a
very unique insurance product.”
The world of RVs is viewed by the insurance industry with a unique classification like jet skis or snowmobiles and it basically considered a toy, Cavins said. And so, they don’t want them commercialized, he said.
“We’ve solved this problem,” Cavins said. “We’ve been working on
it for over three years.”
Outdoorsy plans to expand Roamly’s market in the U.S. and Canada and
launch Roamly in Europe, Cavins said. It will also aid in the expansion of
Outdoorsy’s new accommodations venture with Collective Retreats, he said.
Earlier this month, Outdoorsy announced it is expanding its outdoor experiences
portfolio by partnering with outdoor luxury accommodations operator Collective
Retreats. The companies will work jointly to build a suite of offerings
designed to cater to road travelers and guests looking for an elevated outdoor
accommodation experience. For example, Collective
Retreat specializes in “glamping” or high-end camping experiences with good
food and wine and champagne in places like Vail, Aspen and Governor’s Island,
New York. Outdoorsy will offer its customers access to Collective Retreats
services like good food and wine. It will blend glamorous camping with RV
camping in select locations.
By Kenny Tomlin, Founder and Executive Chairman of AnthemIQ
It’s difficult to believe that the Commercial Real Estate (CRE) industry has continued to operate in essentially the same manner the past 15 years, considering how much technology has advanced and significantly improved most industries. Yet, even the most technically savvy brokers still run their business through a combination of PDFs, Excel spreadsheets, text messages, and email.
One of the primary reasons the CRE industry hasn’t modernized their method of working is because the solution simply hasn’t been there to drive change the way it has for other industries — for example, when a tenant rep broker reviews commercial options for new clients (tenants) looking to lease space, it is a very manual and time-laborious process spread out over many tools and tasks with disparate data having to be pieced together into a word doc or pdf that is non-dynamic with poor usability. Let’s break this down in very familiar terms. Now, imagine that Amazon was merely an online catalog of what could be purchased instead of the super powerful commerce and transaction engine it offers today. Remember what catalog shopping used to be like? Frequently, the price of the item wasn’t included and only a short description and a few photos were provided. The purchase process was often a nightmare as well and might have included contacting the seller to receive pricing, availability, and shipping costs. What a pain!
Out with the Old: Wheel-Reinvention
is a Must
Stepping back into the past is a good way to understand how tenant rep brokers utilize the primary data source in most of today’s CRE transactions. The traditional and generally accepted tactics in today’s CRE pipeline give those involved in the process a general but woefully incomplete view of available options. What results is a dysfunctional and disconnected flow of emails and phone calls between the tenant rep, broker, and the leasing agents, who put together a market survey for the tenant. It sounds like it might be comprehensive, but it is literally just a very long and tedious PDF list of available commercial spaces that are potential options for the tenant to consider.
The slow, laborious and not at all future-forward CRE transaction process continues with the tenant rep preparing to email his or her client the aforementioned “market survey” along with a spreadsheet of financial metrics and links to something like a Dropbox that contains the leasing agent’s marketing flyers, floor plans, and property photos. Imagine how much time is wasted going back and forth between the tenant and tenant rep with these static documents, amongst multiple stakeholders responsible for the leasing decision.
CRE Transactions for the 21st
Century and Beyond
So, how can we reinvent the wheel? What if the CRE industry stepped into the 21st century with technology that creates a centralized platform that benefits all stakeholders (tenant, tenant rep, leasing agent, and landlord)? The results would be astronomical. Gone would be the days of back-and-forth emails, tedious Excel spreadsheets, and pointless PDFs. The whole process would be expedited, meaning clients and landlords would be much happier as tenant reps and leasing agents close more deals.
Think about it. Enhanced technology that streamlines CRE transactions would bring speed, convenience, transparency, and personalization to the transaction process. It would be like the Uber of the CRE world — using it would bring that “aha!” moment where one stops to think “why hasn’t it been done this way all along?”
But, is the global CRE business community ready for this type of disruption? Put bluntly, YES. With the right technology, every CRE transaction would be easier than it currently stands. Technology has been adopted into nearly every aspect of the human experience, so it’s finally time for CRE industry professionals to wake up and keep up — what do they have to lose?
Editor’s note: This is a Guest Article Contribution to Silicon Hills News
SKU, the consumer packaged goods accelerator, along with Naturally Austin, have selected ten companies to participate in its SKU M/O track that focuses on diversity and inclusion.
The accelerator provides
education and mentorship to diverse founders. It’s a combination of Naturally
Austin’s Fellowship program and SKU’s accelerator curriculum.
Cognite, an industrial software as a service company that has its U.S. headquarters in Austin, announced this week that it has closed on a $150 million investment round.
That funding round values the company at $1.6 billion, earning the company’s unicorn status.
TCV, a private equity firm, led the round in Cognite, founded in
2017, which is based in Oslo, Norway. Cognite opened its North American business in
2019 and has grown to over 40 people, with more than half of our
employees in Austin.
TCV has a broad network and
expertise in successfully scaling technology companies, including Netflix,
OSIsoft, Splunk, Airbnb and Spotify.
“Cognite is building the future by redefining modern industrial data management,” Jake Reynolds with TCV said in a news release.
Cognite has
products in data and artificial intelligence which help companies run their
operations more effectively. Its customers include bp, Saudi Aramco, Alfa
Laval, Statnett, and Mitsubishi.“Cognite
is on a strong trajectory to help transform industry, and since our founding
four years ago,
we have managed to attract top global talent, and partner with top industrial
companies to accelerate modern industrial data management worldwide,” John
Markus Lervik, CEO and co-founder of Cognite, said in a news release.
Cognite continues rapid
expansion with over 500 employees across offices in Europe, the United States, Asia, and the Middle East.
Austin-based Hearth, a financial platform for home improvement contractors, announced this week it has raised $23 million.
Human Capital, a San Francisco-based venture firm, led the Series
B funding round.
Other investors include 8VC, Suro Capital, Jay Levine, Barry
Sternlicht, and The Chainsmokers.
To date, Hearth, founded in 2018, has raised $51 million. Previous investors include 8VC, Founders Fund, and Goldcrest Capital.
Hearth’s platform is a one-stop-shop for contractors to finance projects, send digital invoices, collect payments, and obtain general liability and workers’ compensation insurance.
With the funding, Hearth plans to expand its product suite for craftsmen. Hearth is developing a suite of financial and workflow tools specifically tailored to contractors to help them run their business, save time, and protect their profits, Anna Fabian, SVP of Product at Hearth said in a news statement.
The company also plans to double in size from 100 to 200 employees. It has offices in San Francisco as well as Austin.
“Our work at Hearth is about translating the incredible amount of innovation in digital financial services into tools that are accessible and useful to the small to medium-sized contracting businesses,” Anthony Ghosn, Hearth co-founder and CEO, said in a news release. “We were the first in the market to enable the SMB segment with financing and we’re looking to build on our momentum by innovating around the rest of the financial services stack. With this additional capital, we’ll focus on expanding the features and resources available to our customers, as well as quickly growing our team.”
