The consumer packed goods industry is huge in Texas.
It creates 1.7 million jobs and generates $87.8 billion in
annual income, according to the Consumer Brand Association, which reports one
out of every ten jobs in Texas can be traced back to the CPG industry.
Now, that industry is getting a boost from Austin-based SKU, which recently announced plans to expand into the Dallas-Fort Worth market with its consumer-packaged goods accelerator.
Walter Robb, former Whole Foods Co-CEO, will kick off the
program this fall. It will focus on later-stage startups with $500,000 or more
in annual revenue.
“SKU is an essential and exciting part of the powerhouse
Austin entrepreneur ecosystem and offers support, encouragement and capital for
the next generation of companies,” Robb said in a news release.
SKU plans to select five companies for its eight-week
program, which will begin on Sept. 10th and run through Nov. 11th,
concluding with a pitch event.
DFW CPG is also supporting the program. That organization, founded in 2019 by Richard Riccardi and Rick Jordan, helps to connect and build food and beverage companies in the Dallas Fort Worth area.
“We are thrilled to support SKU’s entry into the DFW market,
the addition of a nationally recognized CPG accelerator to the DFW CPG
community and the utilization of the region’s strength to help build great
companies,” Riccardi said in a news
release.
The SKU program will combine in-person and virtual
programming as the Pandemic continues to impact businesses in Texas.
“One of the common themes that has come up from
entrepreneurs is the need for guidance weathering these uncertain conditions,” SKU
Executive Director Kirstin Ross said in a news release. “SKU’s program provides
emerging brands the mentorship, network and support they need to grow and
thrive.”
In addition to Dallas-Fort
Worth, SKU, founded in 2011, has expanded out of the Texas market with the
completion of its Beyond SKU
program last year in New York, which ran from September through
Demo Day on Dec. 3rd.
SKU
is also expanding into Minneapolis, Minnesota with the launch of SKU Impact, an
accelerator program partnered with Finnovation,
an impact accelerator.
In
Austin, SKU has a track record of success with 50 companies going through its accelerator
programs. Its alumni include Siete Family Foods, Austin Eastciders and EPIC
Bar.
Lawyer
Shari Wynne Ressler and serial entrepreneur Clayton Christopher, founder of
Sweet Leaf Tea and Deep Eddy Vodka, created SKU with the mission of
accelerating CPGs.
The pandemic looks like it may have adversely affected venture-backed deals in the Austin metro area and Texas market.
In the second quarter, Austin-based companies received $257
million invested in 35 deals, according to the latest MoneyTree Report from PwC
and CB Insights. That’s down nearly 32 percent in dollars invested and nearly
26 percent in deal flow, compared to the same quarter in 2019 when Austin based
companies raised $377 million across 47 deals.
Overall, Texas companies attracted $420 million in investment in 59 deals during the second quarter of 2020, which is down 39 percent from $687 million invested in the second quarter of 2019. And deal flow is down 18 percent compared with 72 deals for the same quarter in 2019.
Nationwide, venture capitalists invested $26.9 billion, down 7 percent from the same
quarter a year earlier into 1,374 deals, down 16 percent from the second
quarter in 2019, according to the MoneyTree report.
Texas still only gets a small part of the overall venture
capital invested nationwide. Startups in the top three states of California,
New York and Massachusetts raised 79 percent of all U.S. investments in the
second quarter of 2020.
Despite the pandemic, mega-rounds hit a new record with 69
companies raising rounds worth $100 million or more in the second quarter of
2020.
OJO Labs claimed the top
spot on MoneyTree’s report for top ten deals for Austin. OJO Labs raised $62.5
million in Series D funding during the second quarter. It was also the number
one deal for the entire state of Texas for the quarter.
Other companies on the top
10 list in Austin included Coder with $30 million, Medici Technologies with $25
million, Homeward with $20 million, AlertMedia with $15 million, SourceDay with
$12.5 million, Ontic Technologies with 12 million, Sevco Security $6.75 million,
Alleviant Medical with $6.5 million and Ambiq Micro with $5.05 million.
Top Ten Deals for Austin in the Second Quarter of 2020
OJO Labs
Series D
$62.5
Coder
Series B
30
Medici Technologies
Series B
25
Homeward
Series B
20
AlertMedia
Series C
15
SourceDay
Series C
12.5
Ontic Technologies
Series A
12
Sevco Security
Other
6.75
Alleviant Medical
Other
6.5
Ambiq Micro
Convertible Note
5.05
Source: MoneyTree report, dollar figures in millions
Top Ten Deals for Texas in the Second Quarter of 2020
OJO Labs
Series D
$62.5
Austin
Bestow
Series B
50
Dallas
Coder
Series B
30
Austin
Taysha Gene Therapies
Seed / Angel
30
Dallas
Medici Technologies
Series B
25
Austin
Homeward
Series B
20
Austin
Liongard
Series B
17.5
Houston
AlertMedia
Series C
15
Austin
Stirista
Growth Equity
13
San Antonio
SourceDay
Series C
12.5
Austin
Source: MoneyTree Report from PwC and CB Insights. Dollar figures in millions.
By LAURA LOREK, Publisher of Silicon Hills News and Host of the Ideas to Invoices Podcast
In three seasons of the Ideas to Invoices podcast, Silicon Hills News has interviewed more than 70 highly successful Austin and San Antonio entrepreneurs and many of them recommended books that have helped them with their entrepreneurial journeys.
This is the second list, culled from the individual Ideas to Invoices podcasts, to help aspiring entrepreneurs grow their ventures and succeed.
The Overview Effect: Space Exploration and Human Evolution by Frank White recommended by Ben Lamm, CEO and Founder of Hypergiant. This book will change your perspective, Lamm said. It’s not a traditional business book, but it has changed the way he looks at startup investing and now he’s more focused as an angel investor in investing in startups and entrepreneurs who will have a big impact on the world.
The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing by Al Ries & Jack Trout, recommended by Morris Miller, CEO, and Co-Founder of Xenex Disinfection Services. Miller keeps multiple copies of the book on his shelf. “These are the lessons I reflect on all the time regardless of the business,” Miller said. He has used the ideas in the book to position marketing at a wide variety of businesses including Rackspace, Golfballs.com, and Xenex.
. How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie recommended by Lloyd Armbrust, CEO, and Co-Founder of OwnLocal. He hated the title of the book, and he didn’t read it for a long time, but once he did, he thought it was so good at giving advice on how to relate to people.
The Innovator’s Dilemma and The Innovator’s Solution by Clayton M. Christensen recommended by Will Young, Co-Founder, and CEO of Sana Benefits. Young attended classes taught by Christensen at Harvard Business School. The principles in the books provide excellent guidance for any startup looking to disrupt a large market, Young said.
Anatomy of Greed: The Unshredded Truth from an Enron Insider by Brian Cruver, CEO and Founder of AlertMedia. Cruver wrote this book after leaving Enron. It was also made into a movie. The book and experience also inspired him to found AlertMedia. He said he only wants to be involved with startups that do good in the world.
Venture Deals: Be Smarter Than Your Lawyer and Venture Capitalist by Brad Feld and Jason Mendelson and The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway recommended by Sean Foley, CEO, and Founder of Nine Banded Whiskey. Ventures Deals is pretty straight forward in how it describes the financing side of early-stage companies, Foley said. On the inspiration side, he recommends The Old Man and the Sea. It resonates because at that end of the day, being a business person shouldn’t be that complicated if you have the appropriate knowledge base and experience you can succeed.
Blue Ocean Strategy by W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne recommended by Carey Smith, Founder of Big Ass Fans and Unorthodox Ventures. A lot of people start businesses and they get into a red ocean and there’s a lot of competition and people feel comfortable there, Smith said. But if you want to really make a difference, you should be looking for blue ocean opportunities where there is very little competition, Smith said.
Ben Lamm, CEO, and Founder of Hypergiant, photo by John Davidson
A
well-known serial entrepreneur in Austin’s technology industry, Ben Lamm loves
to solve big hard problems.
That
led him to found Hypergiant Industries in 2018. The Austin-based company focuses
on emerging tech with tentacles in a myriad of different industries including
space, critical infrastructure and defense.
“I
felt like the intersection of critical infrastructure, space and defense
through the lens of AI was a pretty hard problem,” Lamm said.
And
that says a lot for the 38-year-old Austin native who splits his time between
his homes in Dallas and Austin. Previously, he was the founder and CEO of
Conversable acquired by LivePerson and the co-founder and CEO of Chaotic Moon
Studios acquired by Accenture and Team Chaos, acquired by Zynga.
Lamm jokes that a “massive series of character flaws that would make me unemployed at other places” led him to become an entrepreneur. But the real reason is he “loves to create.”
“It’s
a way for you to be like this modern-day explorer and to explore new fields and
you can constantly be learning and meeting new people,” Lamm said.
“There are always new challenges to go and
tackle,” he said.
Hypergiant
is an emerging technology company at its core, Lamm said. He sees a future
where all companies are artificial intelligence companies that harvest data to
make their operations smarter, he said.
Hypergiant’s
North Star is working to demystify some of these things, he said. It helps companies and the military to
leverage data in a more efficient and faster way, he said.
Hypergiant is almost structured like a private equity firm with subsidiaries that have their own profit and loss statements, Lamm said. Hypergiant Industries drives innovation through strategic partners, research and development, and strategic mergers and acquisitions, he said.
Hypergiant creates software and hardware products. And one of its big product is the Hypergiant Eos Bioreactor powered by algae, which pulls CO2 from the atmosphere faster than plants.
Hypergiant’s R&D group gets to solve problems and challenges we identify as a company, Lamm said. One of those things is climate change, he said. The company planned to unveil the latest Hypergiant Eos Bioreactor at South by Southwest earlier this year, but the Pandemic put those plans on hold. Hypergiant will put it on display either virtually or in-person later this year, Lamm said.
Also,
recently Hypergiant Industries made big news with a partnership with the Air
Force to create a new satellite configuration called Hypergiant Project
Chameleon, which will ultimately include 24 to 36 satellites.
Hypergiant
likes to focus on space because it helps to focus on solving hard problems on
earth as well, Lamm said. And to quote Bill Nye “Space brings out the best in
us,” he said. And space is moving from a hardware-based industry to a
software-based industry, and Hypergiant can help to usher in this next wave of
computing in space, Lamm said.
Texas
has a long history in the space industry and is breed into the people and
there’s a tremendous amount of generational and tribal knowledge, Lamm said.
And Texas will continue to be in the forerunner in space, he said.
Hypergiant
with 230 employees is dealing with the Pandemic by having everyone work
remotely, Lamm said. Some of the changes that have been adopted by businesses like
remote work, virtual events and meetings and flexible scheduling will remain
after the Pandemic passes, he said.
“The
Pandemic has caused people and businesses to become more humanized,” Lamm said.
Another big issue coming up this summer is the black lives matter movement with a focus on diversity and inclusion in the tech industry and that’ something everyone in our society should focus on, Lamm said. He thinks entrepreneurs are in a key position to change things for the better by providing equity stakes for African American employees and including them in leadership positions.
For more, listen to the entire podcast, pasted below, or wherever you get your podcasts – available on Google play store, Apple iTunes, Spotify, PlayerFM, Libsyn, and more.
For a lot of people, COVID-19 was like a tsunami they never saw coming;
not Joi Chevalier. The founder of the Cook’s Nook culinary
incubator knows Austin and Travis County’s food landscape—and its gaps. She
understands the brittleness of supply chains and that many people live just one
incident away from food insecurity, without knowing it. She also knew that when
restaurants shut down, that blocked a food path for a secondary population who
benefitted from the overflow. Before many people had even registered what hit
them, Chevalier had founded and gotten approval and funding from Travis County
for Keep Austin
Together, an initiative to deal with a new population of food insecure
Austinites.
“If you think about how transportation works in Travis County, we have
food deserts; we have transportation routes that don’t exist,” Chevalier said.
“Del Valle does not have a grocery store. You were going to have those who
can’t even get to where the supply chain does go, and others who are under
quarantine or immunocompromised who can’t leave their homes.”
Unexpected food insecurity
Chevalier, who narrowly lost a bid to become Texas
Comptroller in 2018, worked in product management and marketing for decades.
She was accustomed to defining a product’s “audience.” The audience for Keep
Austin Together included a lot of people who weren’t necessarily receiving food
assistance prior to COVID: The elderly or people in assisted living facilities; people with
disabilities (physical or mental); community members isolated in rural areas
without access to facilities; people who have been displaced due to COVID-19; people
who are pregnant, postpartum or sole caregivers for infants and small children;
independent youths; people lacking transportation, a kitchen or other resources
including students, people in recovery, people who have recently arrived in the
community, those in supported housing, focused on childcare or home-bound
services, as well as communities in transition or experiencing homelessness
Many of these people would not think of themselves as candidates for a
program like this, so they’d be tough to find, she said. “Finding those
audiences was paramount; they will not speak up for themselves.” Chevalier has
an extensive network in the local food industry. She and her team enlisted the
help of other food programs like Caritas and Keep Austin Fed to identify
recipients and how to connect with and get food to them.
While many food programs provide packaged goods—pasta, beans, milk–this
program needed to provide fully prepared meals for people who didn’t have any place
to prepare their own.
Building the plane in the air
In figuring out the strategy, they focused on institutional kitchens
like hotel kitchens, rather than restaurants. Restaurants, Chevalier said, are
designed around their own menus and aren’t particularly flexible to prepare
different menus of emergency food every few days. Plus, as noted by Mokshika
Sharma, program manager for Keep Austin Together and co-founder of Sigma Lion, they weren’t sure when restaurants would be opening and they’d lose
their meal source.
They ended up working with Sysco, a major food distributor whose normal
customer base includes hotels, stadiums, and university campuses, all of which
were suddenly empty. But they worked with many others, too.
“We worked with a
total of 25 organizations, that spanned from established organizations that
have been around for 25-plus years, to social initiatives that were built just
for COVID response,” said Sharma.
Co-organizer Robert Nathan Allen said that, in addition to paid participants, more than 45 volunteers have donated over 116 hours providing support to The Cook’s Nook and RPM Kitchens, where the food is made. More than half of these volunteers were organized through the Austin Stone Community Church, the rest are just community members who wanted to help.
They make a meal a day for their beneficiaries. In the first eight weeks, they served just over 40,800 meals; by June 30th they will have served about 50,000.
That’s when the program is scheduled to end, though it may have to be
extended as the virus continues to ravage the country. It’s not, Chevalier
notes, a program that would be necessary if everything were working the way
it’s supposed to. But it benefits the community tremendously in times like these
when everything isn’t.
A $1.1 billion Tesla Gigafactory for the Austin area took another big step in becoming a reality.
Travis County Commissioners on Tuesday voted to approve a 20-year economic incentive package for the Colorado River Project, whose sole owner is Tesla.
County Judge Sam Biscoe, Commissioners Jeff Travillion, Brigid
Shea, Gerald Daugherty all voted in favor of granting the incentives to Tesla.
Precinct Four Commissioner Margaret Gomez abstained.
Gomez wanted another week to consider the deal, but after
consulting via Zoom with Rohan Patel, Tesla’s North American Director of Policy
and Business Development, the commissioners decided to take action.
Patel told the commissioners Tesla had met yesterday with another state governor and mayor and needed to move forward with the project. Earlier this month, Elon Musk, Co-Founder and CEO of Tesla, visited Tusla, Oklahoma, and met with the Oklahoma Governor. Tulsa is reported to be in the running as a site for the plant along with Austin.
The property tax abatement for Tesla approved by the county commissioners is worth an estimated $14.65 million as an incentive to have the electric vehicle manufacturing plant locate in Austin.
Travis County’s revised incentive package provides a 70 percent rebate on operations and maintenance taxes for an investment of $1.1 billion in the first five years with additional investment incentivized at 75 percent for investment from $1.1 billion to $2 billion and an 80 percent rebate on investment over $2 billion. Originally, Tesla requested an 80% incentive for the first ten years and a 65% incentive for the second ten years on its Travis County operations and maintenance tax liability related to incremental real and business personal.
Travis County will receive property tax revenue of
approximately $8.8 million net over the first 10 years based on a $1.1 billion
investment.
Construction jobs will start this year with a minimum wage
of $15 an hour.
The Tesla jobs will provide a minimum wage of $15 an hour
for employees with health insurance, paid leave and other benefits. Tesla has
agreed to recruit workers from Del Valle schools, historically black colleges
and universities, and to work with Workforce Solutions Capital Area. It has
also agreed to provide local training and apprenticeship programs, and to work
with the county’s workforce program for residents exiting the criminal justice
system.
Tesla has pledged to hire at least 50 percent of its
employees from Travis Country. Tesla’s jobs will pay more than $35,000 a year
with benefits including equity in the company or its cash equivalent.
Tesla has also agreed to invest the equivalent of 10 percent
of its tax liability to community programs such as affordable housing and
public transportation. It is also partnering with the country to donate right
of way and build a road through the site to serve as Austin’s Colony flood evacuation
route.
“The number of jobs that the project creates will also
provide a significant fiscal impact to the community as a whole,” according to
a report prepared for the county commissioners. “Travis County has over 80,000
unemployed workers. Fully half of those workers are reported to have been
earning less than $30,000 a year before being laid off primarily from
hospitality jobs.”
The plant is proposed to
be located on 2,100 acres at SH 130 and Harold Green Road. It’s currently a
sand and gravel site owned by Martin Marietta. It houses a concrete batch plant
that serves local construction projects. That plant would operate for a while
and then be relocated, according to Tesla’s application. Tesla plans to pay
$5.3 million for the various parcels of land, which are under contract,
according to its filing with the Texas Comptroller’s Office.
Tesla Cybertruck, photo courtesy of Tesla
The
electric vehicle manufacturing plant will make Tesla’s Cyber truck and it will
have one or more product lines totaling four to five million square feet
resulting in a $1 billion investment in new construction and business personal
property, according to the document.
For the past four weeks, Travis County
Commissioners have heard testimony from residents in favor of and against the
plant. On Tuesday, they heard from more callers in favor and against the plant.
Travis County Commissioners Court received more than 400
emails and letters from regional and state residents, union and labor
representatives, Chambers of Commerce, and many others. In past meetings,
Travis County Commissioners also heard from 70 people who called into the court
to comment.
“The majority of the input expressed support for Tesla
locating in Travis County and supported an economic development incentive
agreement that required compliance verification by Travis County,” according to
a court document. “Other public comment requested specific deal terms on wage
floors, unionization rights and worker safety be included in the contract. A
smaller amount of the input requested that Commissioners Court refrain from
entering into an agreement that provides property tax rebates to a large corporation.”
“The terms of the incentive, as negotiated, strike a balance between incentivizing the firm to both locate and expand in Travis County, securing significant community benefits, and ensuring the protection of workers and the environment,” according to the county.
Last week, the Del Valle Independent School District board
of trustees approved a tax incentive deal for Tesla worth nearly $50 million over
10 years.
Travis County Commissioners on Tuesday took no action on granting economic incentives for a proposed $1 billion Tesla Gigafactory in the Austin area.
Following a three-hour-long closed executive session, the commissioners’ court heard again from callers in support and against the Tesla plant. Then they moved to recess its meeting until Wednesday at 1 p.m. to give its economic development personnel time to answer questions brought up in executive session.
Travis County Commissioners are considering whether to grant a 20-year property tax abatement as an incentive to have the electric vehicle manufacturing plant locate here.
Under the agreement, Tesla would pay all of its taxes due on the property and then be rebated 80 percent for the first ten years and 65 percent for the last ten years if it meets all the county’s requirements, according to Diana Ramirez, Travis County’s Director of Economic Development and Strategic Investment. Tesla has also agreed to spend at least 10 percent of its rebate supporting various social service programs in the Austin area.
For the past three weeks, Travis County Commissioners have heard testimony from residents in favor of and against the plant. The court could take action on the project tomorrow.
The $1 billion Tesla plant is not a done deal for Austin. Tesla’s Founder Elon Musk visited Tulsa, Oklahoma over the fourth of July weekend to look at sites there for the proposed Gigafactory. Oklahoma is making a huge push to recruit Tesla.
The agreement the Travis County Commissioners Court is considering is with the Colorado River Project, with Tesla, as the sole owner.
Tesla’s Gigafactory will
create 5,000 new jobs paying at least $15 an hour. The plant’s jobs will have
an average annual salary of $47,147 with full benefits, according to the filing
with the Texas County Commissioners.
The
plant is proposed to be located on 2,100 acres at SH 130 and Harold Green Road.
It’s currently a sand and gravel site owned by Martin Marietta. It houses a
concrete batch plant that serves local construction projects. That plant would
operate for a while and then be relocated, according to Tesla’s application.
Tesla plans to pay $5.3 million for the various parcels of land, which are
under contract, according to its filing with the Texas Comptroller’s Office.
The electric vehicle
manufacturing plant will make Tesla’s Cyber truck and it will have one or more
product lines totaling four to five million square feet resulting in a $1 billion
investment in new construction and business personal property, according to the
document.
Tesla
has said it could begin construction soon pending all required approvals,
according to its application for a tax abatement with the Del Valle Independent
School District, filed with the Texas Comptrollers Office in May, and amended
in July.
Construction is expected
to take two to three years. Tesla is seeking additional incentives from the Del
Valle Independent School District.
Austin-based Hypergiant Industries on Tuesday announced a partnership with the United States Air Force to develop a new type of satellite that can be easily updated and reconfigured in space.
Hypergiant
plans to launch the first live satellite on NG-15, the 15th planned
flight of the Northrup Grumman robotic resupply spacecraft Cygnus in February
of 2021.
“Based on the success of that mission, we intend to start rolling out the rest of the constellation over the next two years,” Ben Lamm, CEO of Hypergiant, wrote in an email in response to questions about the project.
It is known as Hypergiant Project Chameleon, which will ultimately include between 24 to 36 satellites in a constellation configuration, Lamm said. It’s called chameleon because it can change and be reconfigured through software updates.
The
satellites will form a network that will work together and allow them to set up
a computer system in lower earth orbit that can communicate with ground
stations as well, Lamm said.
In
the past, Hypergiant has talked about creating an Internet for outer space to
eventually connect settlements on the moon and Mars.
“While
this is an independent constellation, this is a critical step from a technology
perspective to some of our longer-term ambitions including an interplanetary
comms and relay network,” Lamm said.
Hypergiant
will be able to update the satellites easier and faster than regular satellites
because it is working with the Air Force Platform One system and architecture,
Lamm said.
“This architecture coupled with our hardware and software will allow for a secure environment to update code in real-time,” he said.
The Air Force and Space Force are currently the focus of the constellation, and will be its main users, Lamm said. The Chameleon Constellation is being funded by the Air Force’s Small Business Innovation Research grants. Hypergiant is working towards a $10 million phase three contract with direct Air Force and Space Force weapon system support, Lamm said.
“We
need to be able to put assets in space as quickly as possible and then
continuously improve them to maintain superiority,” U.S. Air Force Major Rob
Slaughter, Director of the Department of Defense’s Platform One, said in a news
statement. “In order for the US to remain competitive and protect the systems
that run the lives of everyday Americans, we created a solution that allows for
continuous software delivery in space. The only difference between a national
security system and space junk is the software that operates it. Americans
deserve the best space protections possible.”
The
space sector is becoming more important than ever and lowering the cost of
launches and additional privatization and commercialization allows more
innovative entrants into the market than just legacy defense partners and
governments, Lamm said.
“The
new space race is here and is being driven by both innovations in hardware and
software,” Lamm said. “The industry is at a transition point shifting from a
predominantly hardware industry to one that is being advanced and innovated
through software.”
Hypergiant
will be able to leverage distributed computing in space for satellite to
satellite machine learning and will be able to reconfigure those satellites on
the fly to tailor them to the needs of a new mission, Lamm said.
“Let’s say a volcano erupts and there isn’t an imaging satellite in range, the Chameleon Constellation could be reconfigured in real-time to support the efforts,” Lamm said. “This planned Chameleon Constellation of 24 to 36 satellites could switch within minutes from providing communications to taking pictures of the disaster and aiding first responders.”
Founded in 2018, Hypergiant Industries has offices in Austin, Dallas, Houston, Seattle, and Washington, DC. The company has 230 employees. The company’s space division, Hypergiant Galactic Systems, focuses on AI-driven software and hardware for the space industry with 24 employees specifically working on space solutions.
The software components
for the project were mostly built in Austin and the hardware was built in
Houston.
“The constellation
will be operated using our H.I.V.E. satellite operations platform which was
designed and developed in Austin,” Lamm said.
In February of 2019, Hypergiant acquired Satellite & Extraterrestrial Operations & Procedures, also known as S.E.O.P.s, a Houston-based satellite deployment, and services provider for the CubeSat and MicroSat markets. Hypergiant has already completed four deployed missions (NG10, NG11, NG12, and NG13) with a 100 percent mission success rate and has worked with NASA, Army Space, DARPA, Lynk, Dynetics, and Amazon Web Services.
“This
is just another measured step for us as we continue to apply our disruptive
development abilities and artificial intelligence expertise into an incredibly
challenging industry that is ripe for disruption,” Lamm said. “We love how
aspirational space is for all mankind and are honored to be moving progress forward
in any way we can. The Chameleon Constellation is one of two Hypergiant-owned
satellite constellations we are developing that leverage our Constellation-as-a-service
infrastructure that we have been using for some of our commercial and federal
clients.”
Main Street Hub Cofounders Andrew Allison and Matt Stuart, photo by John Davidson.
In 2018, GoDaddy bought Main Street Hub in Austin for $125 million plus $50 million more in future earnouts.
On Wednesday, GoDaddy CEO Aman Bhutani announced plans to shut down its Austin operations and layoff 331 employees.
“The Social team in Austin has turned over every stone in
the last three months to address the seismic shift caused by COVID-19,” Bhutani
wrote in a letter to employees. “While the team made strides in selling our new
lower-cost offering, with reduced demand and economics under pressure, we
cannot continue to sell these products the way we do today.”
GoDaddy is closing both its Austin offices. GoDaddy’s main office was at 2010 E 6th St.
The laid-off employees are on paid administrative leave until Sept. 1st and they will keep their same healthcare benefits through Sept. 30th. Then the company will provide 90 days of severance pay and paid healthcare benefits through the end of the year.
GoDaddy is also providing laid-off employees with three months of outplacement services for job service support and employee assistance through the end of the year.
GoDaddy, based in Scottsdale, Arizona, also reported on
Wednesday that the company continues to grow in the face of global economic
challenges resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The company has seen strong demand in its business, led by Domains and its Websites + Marketing offering, and management now expects second-quarter revenue to exceed previously issued guidance of $790 million by approximately 1%,” according to a news release.
Overall, GoDaddy’s
restructuring impacts approximately 814 employees, who are either departing, relocating,
or transitioning to other roles.
“Please know that these changes are a function of our current environment and are not a reflection on any one individual or team,” Bhutani wrote. “You are talented folks who have contributed positively to the company. The core of the GoDaddy business continues to be strong and we will look to hire team members back as we continue to grow.”
David Rubin and John Berkowitz, Co-Founders of OJO Labs Photo by Errich Petersen
OJO Labs on Wednesday announced a $62.5 million round of funding and the acquisition of Movoto, a residential real estate search site.
“It brings together two superpowers overnight,” said John Berkowitz, CEO, and Co-Founder of OJO Labs.
Austin-based OJO Labs, founded in 2015, has been working for the past five years to create a deeply personalized technology and engaging consumer experience, Berkowitz said. The acquisition of Movoto enables OJO Labs to scale rapidly and bring its technology to millions of homebuyers and sellers, he said.
The
Austin VC and tech ecosystem led to the new round and the acquisition,
Berkowitz said.
Krishna Srinivasan, a general partner at LiveOak Venture Partners and an investor in OJO Labs, introduced Berkowitz to Russell Valdez, chief investment officer for Wafra, who lives in Austin. Wafra, the investment platform with $25 billion under management, led the round with participation from Breyer Capital, LiveOak Venture Partners, Royal Bank of Canada, and Northwestern Mutual Future Ventures.
“The way people buy and sell homes is changing,” Jim Breyer, Founder and CEO of Breyer Capital, a premier venture capital firm, and former Facebook and Walmart board member said in a news release. “This evolution has been expedited by recent events, and the real estate industry is on the cusp of something new in the wake of COVID-19. With a clear vision for the future and the technology to back it up, I believe OJO Labs is poised to be a leader in the next era of the homebuying industry.”
OJO Labs raised $45 million last March with the goal of hiring more people and deploying its platform to as many people as possible. In that process, Berkowitz came across Movoto, the only privately held company at the scale that they are at, Berkowitz said.
“The
Movoto team culture, vision all matched,” Berkowitz said.
OJO has created a virtual assistant that helps homebuyers and sellers. Its agent uses natural conversations conducted via mobile messages to help a person find a house. Movoto is “the fastest growing top 5 residential real estate search site in the U.S. with nearly 24 million monthly visits,” according to the news release.
Movoto
allowed OJO to leap to scale, Berkowitz said.
“We’ve
been solving really hard technological problems for the last five years with
end to end solutions,” Berkowitz said. “We’ve been building it to be able to
scale.”
Now with the acquisition of Movoto, we’ve got a massive at scale real estate website with personalization, Berkowitz said.
“This
is something that hasn’t existed in real estate before,” he said.
“Buying and selling a home is complex and high stakes, yet homebuyers are left to navigate much of the journey on their own,” Imtiyaz Haque, CEO of Movoto said in a news release. “We’ve come together to create a solution that guides consumers every step of the way, driving homebuyer, and seller readiness and more confident decision making.”
To date, OJO Labs has raised $138.5 million and Movoto is its third acquisition. Last October, OJO Labs acquired Austin-based RealSavvy to create an even bigger platform for real estate brokers, agents, and teams and the customers they serve. And in 2018, OJO Labs merged with real estate data giant, WolfNet Technologies, based in St. Paul, Minn.
The collective company now has about 350 employees. Movoto, based in San Mateo, California, will keep its office there, although some of those employees may move to Austin, Berkowitz said.
Right now, during the Pandemic, OJO Labs’ employees are working remotely. It has about 100 employees in Austin.
Last August, OJO Labs moved into a beautiful new office space at 1007 South Congress Avenue in the CityView Building and the employees got to enjoy the office for a short time, Berkowitz said.
“We’re
excited to get back to it,” he said.
But
COVID-19 has forced OJO Labs to adapt and evolve, he said. OJO also has offices in St. Paul, and on the
island of St. Lucia in the Caribbean. It was easier to turn its U.S. operations
remote than it was for the St. Lucia operation. But everyone is working remotely
now, Berkowitz said.
And the demand for OJO Lab’s product has been skyrocketing during the Pandemic as people are forced to stay home. Many of them have turned to real estate sites to find a new home with the amenities they want like a home office, backyard, bigger kitchen, swimming pool, etc.
“If we were a publicly-traded company, our stock would be like Zoom,” Berkowitz said. “Every metric is up and to the right.”
“There
is a trend that happens in real estate – over the holidays and end of the year
– people spend a lot of time packed in at home with their families,” Berkowitz
said. That is for just two weeks over the holidays and it leads people to
search for real estate, he said. That trend is exacerbated during the Pandemic.
“The
reality is there is a real shift in how people think about the home and the
wholistic nature of it which is great if you’re in real estate,” Berkowitz
said.
Also,
during the Pandemic, OJO Labs helped other companies get Paycheck Protection
Program loans through the Small Business Administration even though OJO Labs
didn’t take a PPP loan itself, Berkowitz said.
“We
are serious about leaning into social injustice,” Berkowitz said.
“Even
in our darkest day, that money wasn’t meant for us,” Berkowitz said. “I didn’t
want to be part of other companies taking the money that was meant for others.”
OJO
Labs knew it was going to get through the Pandemic and thrive, Berkowitz said.
“That’s
no fun if we thrive but I can’t get a margarita at a restaurant because they
didn’t get PPP money,” he said.
OJO
Labs wanted the money to get into the hands of businesses that needed it more
than they did, Berkowitz said. OJO Labs partnered with Keystone Bank to help
other businesses in Austin get PPP loans and it also helped those businesses
navigate the process and answered their questions.
“It’s
in crisis when people are tested, we showed up for work and did our job,”
Berkowitz said.
Operating a company during a Pandemic is hard, Berkowitz said.
Operating a company and doing good, raising money and buying a company is
really, really hard, he said.
But that’s exactly what the team at OJO Labs has done, Berkowitz
said.
“I’ve asked them to do the impossible and they delivered,” he
said.
