Verb, an Austin-based startup focused on teaching leadership skills, announced recently that it has raised $6.4 million in seed-stage funding.

The funding came from angel investors including Brett Hurt, Nav Sooch, Andy Roddick, Leon Chen, and Barshop Ventures.

Verb plans to use the money for sales and marketing as well as the development of its business to business software as a service platform offering leadership development training.

 Leadership development is not just for senior executives, said Verb co-founder and CEO Suzi Sosa.

“We find there is a universal pain point around that first layer of managers – first-time managers,” Sosa said. “These leadership skills have never been taught before and there is a humongous market for managers directly above them or directly below them.”

 Verb’s platform is focused on training employees on soft skills by using a blended learning model.

 “Verb provided us with the opportunity to offer leadership development as a benefit to our team members,” Whole Foods Market CEO John Mackey said in a news statement.

With the latest investment, Verb also plans to do key product enhancements, including personalized learning, expanding the content library, and a new mobile app.

Sosa co-founded Verb in 2013 along with Tom Meredith. The startup spun out of the University of Texas at Austin where Sosa led the social entrepreneurship program from 2010 to 2013. In 2015, the company announced it had raised $2.3 million in seed-stage funding. At that time, Verb focused on connecting large corporations and foundations to thousands of social entrepreneurs worldwide through competitions and its platforms.

In 2017, Verb pivoted to focus on providing leadership training to companies through a subscription-based business model, Sosa said.

Its customers are mid-market companies and large enterprises looking for a turnkey leadership development solution that they can use with their entire employee base, Sosa said. Whole Foods is one of its customers, she said.

“There wasn’t an affordable and high-quality scalable solution for leadership training for all employees,” Sosa said.

Verb makes its own content spearheaded by Jessica Agneessens, Verb’s senior vice president of learning strategy, Sosa said. Previously, Agneessens spent 20 years at Whole Foods where she led an internal leadership academy and created a modern model of leadership development, Sosa said.

That training includes basics for managers like giving and receiving feedback and setting goals and working in teams, but also contemporary skills like having a growth mindset and self-awareness, Sosa said.

“The way that adults learn best is through interactive learning,” Sosa said.

Verb’s leadership lessons are comprised of 15-minute activities that layer onto each other, Sosa said. In a typical activity, a person might watch a short video clip and then they are required to write or create something in the platform to put it into practice, she said. Verb also has team-based learning modules that link everyone together in a group on Verb’s platform. And Verb gives companies the tools to run workshops and training exercises at their own companies, Sosa said.

“Our platform is intended to be highly interactive and experiential,” Sosa said.

Verb is trying to impact skillsets and mindsets with training on how to have a difficult conversation, how to set goals, how to prioritize time, Sosa said. It is also focused on the growth mindset, being aware of your unconscious biases and even confidence – developing confidence as a leader, she said.

Since a lot of the training on leadership is expensive, it has been reserved for the elites in companies, Sosa said. Minorities are often not there, she said. So, the platform is an affordable and scalable way companies can deliver this to everyone with a focus on diversity and inclusion, she said.

“Cultivating leadership more democratically across an organization,” Sosa said.

“We hope this will help companies identify leadership talent that may be more diverse,” she said. “It gives them visibility they didn’t have before.”

Verb’s platform varies in cost depending on the size of the company, the range is from $120 to $500 a year per employee, Sosa said.

In the first quarter next year, Verb plans to launch a new mobile app.

Verb has 30 employees and plans to move its headquarters to Owen’s Garage in East Austin early next year, Sosa said.  

Personal transformation and leadership development are something companies are looking for, Sosa said.

“We need people who are confident purpose-driven leaders,” she said.

Austin has become a hotbed of activity for consumer-packaged goods companies.

And Sku Accelerator, founded in 2011, has been a major catalyst for helping brands do well.

And now SKU is teaming up with another well-known name in Austin – WeWork, which has seven locations throughout Austin. The newest site is WeWork at the SXSW Center at 1400 Lavaca Street. WeWork SXSW Center has more than 65,000 square feet across three floors. It features large floor to ceiling windows and an expansion rooftop terrace with a view of the State Capitol.

And on Tuesday, WeWork announced it was establishing WeWork Food Labs, the company’s first incubator focused on food startups. It’s the first Food Labs space in Texas and the third nationwide behind San Francisco and New York, according to a news release.

The WeWork space includes a merchandising area and pantry, as well as commons areas for events.

WeWork is partnering with Sku to provide mentorship to members as well as host events for those in the food entrepreneurship and innovation space.

Sku is about to launch its eighth accelerator class in January. Its alumni companies include Grocery Pup, Shade Tree Lemonade, Siete Foods, Austin Eastciders, and Epic Performance Bars.

“We believe innovation in the CPG industry can be accelerated when we work together with others,” Kirstin Ross, managing director of Sku, said in a news statement. “With much of the food and CPG industry working in tandem, we are excited to be partnering with WeWork Food Labs, to give startups and legacy food brands the space, resources and expertise needed to continue innovating within the food industry.” 

Adam Yee, a serial entrepreneur who most recently built The Better Meat Co., which provides plant-based proteins for food service providers and meat processors, is heading up the WeWork Food Labs in Austin as its manager. Yee’s previous company recently partnered with Perdue.

“We’re very excited to be entering the center of the Austin food scene and see incredibly creative and disruptive solutions born out of our latest WeWork Food Labs location,” Yee, manager of WeWork Food Labs Austin, said in a news statement. “We hope that by providing the space, programming, mentorship and network that food startups in Austin need, we will continue to help drive innovation in the food industry and power a more sustainable future in food.”

WeWork Food Labs is also home to a number of food startups including OHi Superfood Bar, a company creating plant-based, refrigerated bars, and Naturally Austin, a community for the natural product industry in Central Texas.

A consulting company focused on data and artificial intelligence, Sense Corp., is moving its corporate headquarters from St. Louis to Austin.

The company, founded in 1996, already had an office in Austin. It also has operations in Dallas, Houston, Columbus, and Minneapolis.

“While a large portion of our business has always come from Texas, we are excited to strengthen our presence in Austin,” Keat Wilkins, Sense Corp CEO, said in a news release. “Moving home to Austin and relocating the headquarters brings us back to our roots.”

Sense plans to create 200 new jobs and invest more than $80 million in Texas during the next five years, according to a news release.

 “I am proud to welcome the new Sense Corp headquarters to the Lone Star State, and I am grateful for the hundreds of new jobs they will create in the city of Austin,” Governor Greg Abbott said in a news release. “Texas is a national leader in economic growth and job creation thanks to investments from companies like Sense Corp, and we look forward to this continued partnership. Working together, we will keep Texas the number one state for innovation, economic opportunity, and prosperity.”

“This move highlights our focus on digital transformation within the commercial and government sectors,” Jimmy Schatte, Senior Vice President of Public Sector at Sense Corp., said in a news release. “We’ll be better positioned to serve our agency customers here in Texas and nationwide.”

Sense’s Austin office focuses on commercial, public sector, technology, and marketing divisions. The Sense Corp headquarters is located at 2500 Bee Cave Rd. Building 3, Suite 100.

“We’ve experienced a 125 percent increase in headcount within the Austin office in the last two years,” Wilkins said. “Given this explosive growth, we wanted the new headquarters to improve innovation, collaboration and cost-competitiveness, while providing an exceptional state-of-the-art work environment for our employees.”

Sense Corp plans to continue to have a strong presence in St. Louis, supporting administration, finance, training, and IT functions.

Connectivity is not new, said Bob Metcalfe, inventor of Ethernet and professor of innovation at the University of Texas at Austin.

It harkens back to rivers and roads. The Chinese expression is “If you want to get rich, first build a road,” he said.

His ancestor, Blind Jack Metcalf, built the first 180 miles of road out of Yorkshire, England, at the start of the Industrial Revolution.

Metcalfe, born in 1946, said he was lucky to be born at that time because so many inventions were happening including the wireless TV. But chief among them, in 1947, Bell Labs invented the transistor and that began the movement of connectivity from atoms to bits, he said.

“The roads to the Internet,” he said.

Metcalfe gave a talk Thursday afternoon reflecting on the 50^th anniversary of the Internet in the Mulva Auditorium in the Engineering and Education Research Center at UT Austin.

The official birth date of the Internet is Oct. 29^th, 1969, when a UCLA student, Charley Kline, sent the first online message to the Stanford Research Institute over a link on the ARPANET, the predecessor to the Internet. The routing computer for ARPANET was made by BBN, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and was created by a team headed up Frank Heart.

When Kline tried to send the message “Login” the system crashed after he typed Lo – so the first message was Lo. It was later spun into “Lo and behold the Internet.”

In 1969, Metcalfe was working on a four-person team on a senior project at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to build a computer. He got the job of building the computer’s memory. When it came time to present the project, the other three students had dropped out of the class and Metcalfe had memory but no computer. He did get an A in the class. Most importantly, that project taught him how to send bits down a very long wire one at a time, he said.

At that time, the ARPANET had four connections or “nodes” which included UCLA, Stanford Research Institute, U.C. Santa Barbara, and the University of Utah.

Around that time, Metcalfe got a job at MIT to connect four of the university’s computers to the ARPANET. He created the “PDP-10 IMP Interface, MIT Project MAC, 1970” that ran for 13 years, he said.

During his presentation, Metcalfe showed a chart with all the early connections made to ARPANET. The first country, outside the United States, to connect was Norway.

Metcalfe joined the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, known as Xerox PARC, in 1972.

The reason Ethernet got developed was Xerox PARC was building what arguably was to become the first personal computer, Metcalfe said. They needed someone to build a network to tie them all together, he said.

Metcalfe invented Ethernet with Dave Boggs, an electrical engineer, and researcher at PARC. The first Ethernet board in 1973 ran at 2.94 megabits per second, Metcalfe said.

“The speed of this network was determined by the space on this board,” he said.

Metcalfe showed a slide of his 1973 sketch of his original “Ethernet” vision.

Ethernet had to wait 25 years for Wireless Internet (WiFi)  A lot of yellow (the official color of Ethernet) wires got strung in the meantime, Metcalfe said.

But the invention of Ethernet did not mean it automatically became a standard in the computing industry.

General Motors and IBM also approached the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers with competing standards. The IEEE made all three standards: Ethernet was 802.3, General Motors’ Token Bus was 802.4 and 802.5 was IBM Token Ring.  They battled it out in the marketplace and eventually Ethernet won as the standard, Metcalfe said.

In 1979, Metcalfe left Xerox PARC and founded 3Com. And in 1982, as a sales tool, he coined a phrase that has come to be known as Metcalfe’s Law that “the value of a telecommunications network is proportional to the square of the number of connected users of the system.” George Gilder in Forbes Magazine in 1995 and in his book “Telecosm” named it Metcalfe’s Law.

This year, as the Internet turns 50 years old, and the World Wide Web turns 30 years, already 4.49 billion people are connected online, up nine percent from 2018, Metcalfe said. That is already 57 percent of the 7.7 billion people on the planet, he said.

“This rush of connectivity is highly correlated with accelerating freedom and prosperity,” Metcalfe said.

It’s also led to web publishing and innovations in search with Google in 1998 and e-commerce with Amazon in 1994, followed by the rise of social networks with Facebook in 2004 and Twitter in 2006.

There has been a convergence of voice, video, data industries that led to giant industry disruptions, Metcalfe said. The next big disruptions will also be very big, and they will be in education, energy and health, he said.

The Internet has also created a lot of what Metcalfe calls “pathologies of sudden connectivity” that has led to the proliferation of online porn, spam, polarization, radicalization, addiction, erosion of privacy, breaches of security, hate speech, and the spread of fake news.

Metcalfe quit posting to Twitter when his Apple watch told him he was spending 3.5 hours a day on Twitter. He went cold turkey in January of this year and hasn’t tweeted since then he said.

And the pace of change is only accelerating. The first 50 years of the Internet is only just the beginning, Metcalfe said. More and greater disruptions are on the horizon.

The “augmented video mobile gigabit Internet of Things” is here and it is leading to even more connectivity, Metcalfe said. There are already eight billion things connected to the Internet, outnumbering the number of people on this planet.

“Connectivity is a new frontier,” Metcalfe said. “It’s open. It’s not closed.”

Infinitum Electric, an electric motor maker, announced Thursday that is has raised $12.5 million in funding.

The Austin-based startup, founded in 2016, closed the Series B round of funding led by Cottonwood Technology Fund with participation from Chevron Technology Ventures and AJAX Strategies and other investors.

The latest funding follows a $1.8 million Series A round of funding the company closed in January. To date, Infinitum Electric has raised $15.2 million.

The company plans to use the funds to hire new employees and open its global headquarters and manufacturing facility in Austin.

Infinitum Electric has six patents on its electric motor technology and another 15 patents pending. The company’s motor technology is focused on the HVAC, oil and gas and aerospace industries.

“Since participating in the Series A round in December, we’ve seen Infinitum advance tremendously. They’ve added key leaders to the team, signed multiple customer contracts and are prepared to ramp their own manufacturing facility,” Dave Blivin, managing director, CTF said in a news release. “We’re proud to have led the Series B round, and we’re excited to see Infinitum attract the support of leading investors who will further enhance their success in the growing electric motor industry — one that is ripe for the type of disruptive innovation Infinitum provides.” 

“Our patented motor technology will completely transform the electric motor market, a market that has changed very little since inception more than 100 years ago,” Ben Schuler, CEO, Infinitum Electric, said in a news release. “With this latest round of funding, we’re well-positioned to replace traditional HVAC motors with our breakthrough motor technology, resulting in a smaller, smarter and more efficient offering for thousands of HVAC end users.”

Infinitum’s electric motors are efficient, customizable, and cost 25 percent less and weigh 60 percent less than other motors. Infinitum’s motors also have Internet connectivity.  

Cerebri AI, which uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to improve customer relations for companies, announced Wednesday that it has raised $7 million in venture capital funding.

The Austin-based startup raised the funds from new investor Arcris Capital Partners and existing investors.

Cerebri AI has raised $16.4 million to date.

The company, founded in 2016, develops and sells CVX, a platform for customer service.

 “CVX is a break-through product for banking, insurance, telecom and other large-scale enterprises, and is especially suited for the Asian market,” Afzal M. Tarar, Chairman and Managing Partner of Arcis Capital Partners, said in a news release.

“We are encouraged by the support of our new and existing investors in bringing our revolutionary CVX platform to market,” Jean Belanger, Co-founder & CEO of Cerebri AI, said in a news release.

“We are incredibly pleased to welcome Arcis Capital Partners to the Cerebri AI team,” Arun Prakash, CFO of Cerebri AI, said in a news release. “Arcis has extensive experience in financing software companies like Cerebri AI, and in helping bring complex solutions such as CVX v2 to market.”

Silicon Hills News named Cerebri AI as one of its top 25 Startups to Watch in 2019.

Cerebri AI, an artificial intelligence solutions company, is first tackling the automotive and financial services industries with machine learning and artificial intelligence technology to mine customer data for actionable insights.

The Artificial Intelligence Market is expected to exceed more than $191 billion by 2024, growing at a rate of 37 percent annually, according to Market Research Engine.

Techstars Austin announced its 2020 class this week, including five Austin-based startups among the ten participating in the program.

Another startup comes from Dallas and the remaining ones from New York, Florida, Ohio, and India.

Also, this is the 10^th Techstars program in Austin since it kicked off in 2014 and the fifth being run by Amos Schwartzfarb, Techstars Austin managing director.

“We love experimenting in the Austin program and are constantly figuring out how to optimize and continually provide better and better experiences for our founders,” Schwartzfarb wrote in a Techstars blog post.

This year, Techstars Austin will use two new tools, Maslo, a smart companion for coaches, and Flexdocs, a collaboration tool for businesses created by WriterDuet. Both tools were created by Techstars Alumni companies.

Techstars Austin also changed the date of its program to start on Dec. 2^nd and end on March 11^th. That’s so its companies can be prepared to fully participate in South by Southwest, according to Schwartzfarb.

The following companies are participating in the Techstars Austin 2020 program: (descriptions provided by Techstars)

8base, Coral Gables, FL: a backend as a service that combines computing, application services and integrations for building SaaS and market-facing applications.

Aquifer Motion, Austin, TX: a SaaS platform that combines augmented reality and machine learning to make professional 3D animation accessible for all creators.

Binaize, Bangalore, India: a network intelligence software product for industrial IoT that helps minimize machine downtime and increase the operational efficiency of industrial control systems.

Boutiq, Austin, TX: Boutiq uses data science to buy and manage luxury vacation rentals.

Crave Retail, Austin, TX: Crave is a SaaS platform purpose-built to enhance the fitting rooms of premium enterprise retailers with modern digital experiences and analytics to optimize conversion opportunities.

EarBuds, Austin, TX: EarBuds allows people to listen along live with their favorite music curators in key moments.

Homebuyer, Cincinnati, OH: Homebuyer is a lead nurture system for mortgage lenders that reduces customer acquisition costs and increases per-loan profits.

Jolly, Austin, TX: Jolly is a professional social network for the gig economy, where freelancers and businesses connect to grow their networks, work together freely and build their reputations.

Propertymate, Brooklyn, NY: Propertymate is a SaaS platform that allows real estate agents to predict which property is most likely to be purchased by a client and helps to make deals within a brokerage or network.

SURVIVR, Dallas, TX: SURVIVR is a VR training platform to help first responders improve decision-making and response times.

The lights are twinkling bright in Austin and there’s still a lot to do in December as the technology community celebrates another stellar year.

Be sure to check out Mozart’s Christmas Light Show daily from 6 p.m. to 11 p.m. through Jan. 5th.

And Dec. 10th – Austin’s Trail of Lights kicks off at Zilker Park and runs through Dec. 23rd.

Silicon Hills News will be at the 2019 MassChallenge Texas in Austin Holiday Party Tuesday night. Hope to see you there.

Dec. 3rd

2019 MassChallenge Texas in Austin Holiday Party

When: 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.

Where: Green Light Social, 720 West Sixth St., Austin, TX 78701

Why: Join us at Green Light Social for an evening of mingling and networking with top influencers from the Texas innovation community. Enjoy the end of the year festivities with cocktails, light bites and hear from MassChallenge Texas on what to expect for 2020. For more info.

Dec. 3rd

Austin Forum: Technology for Social Good

When: 5:15 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.

Where: Austin Central Library; 701 W. Cesar Chavez

Why: How tech professionals and companies can support social impact with Chelsea Collier and Jessica Sager. For more info.

Dec. 4^th

A Transportation-Tech Talk with Randy Clarke by Austin Tech Alliance

When: :6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.

Where: Capital Factory, 701 Brazos Street, Austin, TX 78701

Why: Randy Clarke, CEO of CapMetro, on Project Connect, its vision for a fully connected, high-capacity public transportation system. For more info.

Dec. 4th

Innovate Austin Launch Party

When: 5:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.

Where: Native Hostels, 807 East 4^th Street, Austin, TX

Why: “Meet the people, businesses, and organizations that grace the pages of Innovate Austin and come pick up your own copy. The book wouldn’t be the same without all our fantastic participants—top innovators and enablers—and the launch won’t be the same without you celebrating with us. Join the Austin Tech Council and Global Village Publishing for a fun evening of delicious snacks, drinks, and networking.” For more info.

Dec. 5th

ATC Roundtable Breakfast: Women in Tech

When: 7:30 a.m. to 9:00 a.m.

Where: Galvanize, 119 Nueces Street, Austin, TX

Why: Monthly breakfasts targeted to specific groups within the Austin technology community to come together in a small group of 25-40. These events include a featured speaker who kicks off open discussion amongst attendees. Women-only event. For more info.

Dec. 5th

Galvanize Holiday Bazaar

When:  4:00 p.m.to 8:00 p.m.

Where: Galvanize, 119 Nueces, Austin, TX 78701

Why: “Join the Galvanize Community to celebrate the season with a bazaar market of unique consumer brands, live music, food and spirits, and of course, holiday cheer. 2019 has been a wild, fantastic adventure, and we want to celebrate all that this community has accomplished with you.” For more info.

Dec. 5th

Austin Tech Happy Hour, December

When: 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.

Where: The Dogwood, 715 W. 6^th, Austin, TX

Why: It’s hard to believe that the end of the year is already upon us, but it’s time for our annual holiday party! Does anybody remember this event from two years ago when it legitimately snowed for 2 solid hours during happy hour at The Dogwood downtown? You could see the big flakes slowly drifting down from the sky against the downtown streetlights. A very strange sight for Austin, Texas which is probably why it was so memorable. For more info.

Dec. 6th

TAG Visits Yotta Energy: Building Electric Utilities One Rooftop at a Time  

When:  7:00 a.m. to 8:30 a.m.

Where: Yotta Energy, 3512 Montopolis Drive, Austin, TX

Why: Yotta Energy has created solar panel systems for rooftops that are dramatically more energy-efficient, lower in cost, and longer-lasting by using their ingenuity as a team to innovate across multiple sciences and technologies. For more info.

Dec. 10^th

Campfire Entrepreneur Networking: Tech Ranch and Duo Works Austin

When: 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.

Where: Duo Works Austin, 8920 Business Park Dr. Suite #250, Austin, TX 78759

Why: “Want to connect and network with local tech entrepreneurs? Validate your business idea? Interested in getting more involved with Tech Ranch? Come out for a Campfire! Campfire is all about connecting you to the larger tech startup community. We gather interesting, accomplished people from across Austin’s vast entrepreneur ecosystem so you can get the introductions, insight, and help you need to move your business forward, while also helping others.” For more info.

Dec. 11^th

The Future of Health Summit

When: 7:45 a.m. to 11:45 a.m.

Where: Capital Factory, 701 Brazos Street, Austin, TX 78701

Why: In a TED-Talk setting, thought leaders will discuss trends and applications that will impact the future of health. For more info.

Dec. 11^h

Startup Grind Austin 2019 Holiday Happy

When:  5:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.

Where: CU-29, 720 Brazos Street, Austin, TX 78701

Why:  Party on, Wayne. Party on, Garth. Take a load off and join your fellow entrepreneurs for drinks and good conversation in downtown Austin. For more info.

Dec. 11th

Austin Technology Council: December Leadership Dinner  

When: 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.

Where: Z’Tejas, 110 W. 6^th St, Austin, TX

Why: Looking to expand your business and feel like you are ready to move forward in the international market? Business Finland/Invest in Finland’s expansion experts will help you understand what it takes to go international, best operational practices and lessons learned in moving into the international market. For more info.

Dec. 12th

Subscribed with Zuora

When: 12:00 p.m. to 1:30 p.m.

Where: Galvanize, 119 Nueces, Austin, TX 78701

Why: Welcome to this lunch and learn sponsored by Zuora, an enterprise software company that creates and provides software for businesses to launch and manage their subscription-based services. Zuora, based in San Mateo, Calif., has an Austin office and several local companies use its software. For more info.

Upcoming events:

Jan. 23rd – Silicon Hills News 2020 Calendar Party