Bazaarvoice announced last week that it has acquired Influenster, a product discovery and review platform with nearly six million community members.
Austin-based Bazaarvoice said the combined company will give it even wider reach with retailer websites. The financial details of the deal were not disclosed.
Bazaarvoice, founded in 2005 by Brett Hurt, works with more than 6,000 global brands and retailer websites, to foster word of mouth advertising through user-generated content.
Influenster’s community members
have “written more than 38 million product reviews, and continue to create more
than 50,000 pieces of content every day – including photos, videos, and
Q&A.,” according to a news release.
Influenster’s customers include
Coty, and Procter & Gamble Brands that run product sampling campaigns,
generate and license organic review and social content, and build brand
awareness.
“The
decision to join forces with Influenster underscores Bazaarvoice’s commitment
to connecting brands with consumers and consumers with one another through user-generated
content,” Joe Davis, CEO of Bazaarvoice said in a news release. “Influenster’s
product sampling and review generation offerings further strengthen our core
product ratings and reviews solutions, and their hyper-targeting and
gamification capabilities will allow us to better support our customers’
broader marketing initiatives. We’re excited to partner with a company that
shares our belief in the power of the everyday consumer.”
“Our
vision has always been to empower today’s consumers to be the trusted voice when
it comes to product experiences and recommendations. Bazaarvoice shares a
similar mission, making them an ideal partner,” Elizabeth Scherle, president
and co-founder of Influenster, said in a news release. “Since launching
Influenster nine years ago, we’ve innovated to meet the changing needs of
shoppers as the retail, e-commerce, and social media landscapes evolve. Through
this acquisition, we’re excited to continue our growth by developing new
capabilities and connecting our highly-motivated community with thousands of brands
and more than a billion shoppers in the Bazaarvoice Network.”
Headquartered in New York City, Influenster was founded by Scherle and Aydin Acar in 2010. Influenster’s 75 employees will join Bazaarvoice’s 750 employees, according to a MediaPost story.
Quansight Futures, based in Austin, announced the launch of a new $20 million early-stage investment fund focused on open-source technology.
The fund, which is expected to be raised
in the next nine months, is called Quansight Initiate and it’s focused on
investing in startups in education, Internet of Things, data-management,
data-science, machine learning and artificial intelligence.
Travis Oliphant, founder of Anaconda, is
the CEO of Quansight and founder of Quansight Futures. He has more than 20
years of experience in open-source communities.
Quansight named Bradden Blair, former Professor of Operations and Information Systems, and former Director of the MS in Information Systems and MS in Business Analytics programs at the University of Utah as the fund’s managing partner.
“In line with Quansight’s vision of strengthening the
open-source ecosystem, Quansight Initiate will invest in companies that use
open-source technologies as the core of their products or services,” Oliphant said in a news release. “We believe
entrepreneurs who make use of the immense value available in open-source
technologies will have an advantage over those who rely on proprietary
solutions.”
“It is no secret that Austin is one of the fastest-growing high-tech economies in the nation,” Blair said in a news release. “The rapid pace of expansion in Austin is fueling innovation and demand for early-stage investment capital and represents an excellent opportunity for our fund. Our team brings a unique perspective to the Austin market. Many years of prior experience helping companies leverage the power of enterprise-grade open-source technology and communities will help us to successfully tap into Austin’s booming entrepreneurial community.”
Quansight Futures launched the fund with investments in Tenavox,
Anaconda, AutoAuto, OpenTeams, SaveDay, FairOSS, and Vertalo.
Austin Texas Downtown Skyscrapers Skyline Panorama Cityscape at Sunset
Data analysis, machine learning and artificial
intelligence are driving big changes in the insurance industry,
And Austin is emerging as a hub of innovation with several
new InsureTech startups.
“First of all, the insurance industry has cash and it
is a humongous market,” said Miguel Fernandez, CEO and Founder of Claimbot.
Fernandez and David Perez, CEO and Founder of Lumen Insurance Technologies are co-organizers of the Austin InsureTech Meetup group, founded in 2016, which has more than 400 members.
They meet monthly at Galvanize, where Lumen Insurance Technologies is based. And at the last meetup on August 15th about 20 people turned out to hear Craig Delaney, director of commercial growth and sales at Chisel.Ai talk about sales strategies for InsureTech startups. Delaney lives in Austin even though his company is based in Toronto.
“InsureTech plays nicely to Austin’s strengths,” Fernandez
said. “Austin is more of a mature startup market.”
The city has a lot of business to business enterprise
software companies, Fernandez said. The talent here is strong in that area, he
said. He previously worked at Spredfast and Mass Relevance before launching
Claimbot in 2016.
Claimbot’s technology is disrupting the call center industry, Fernandez said. Claimbot lets insurance companies communicate with customers through a virtual chat engine powered by artificial intelligence. The chatbot allows them to handle filing claims, requesting roadside assistance, purchasing insurance coverage or paying a bill.
Earlier this year, Fernandez raised a $615,000
seed round from Google Assistant Investments program, Notley Ventures, Social
Starts and several angel investors.
In addition to the talent here, Insurance is an area
that is attracting a lot of investment right now, Fernandez said.
“I think there is a pretty big reckoning that is
happening soon,” said Perez with Lumen Insurance Technologies. About 25 percent of all insurance employees
are over the age of 55, the average age of an agent is 55, he said.
“And 25 percent of the insurance industry’s workforce
is set to retire by the end of this year,” Perez said.
Only four percent of millennials are interested in the
insurance industry, Perez said. That means the industry must turn to technology
to fill the worker shortage and the skills gap, he said.
“We are literally left with no choice but to create something,” Perez said.
InsureTech startups are filling those gaps in
knowledge and the workforce, Perez said.
“You’re seeing a lot of offshoring. You are seeing a
lot of automation,” he said.
Also, the InsureTech startups are focused on reducing friction in an industry that has been intent on asking as many questions as possible, Perez said. Instead, InsureTech startups are collecting a lot of data and analyzing it, he said.
“A lot of data can tell who you are as a person,”
Perez said.
And digital natives expect to get answers immediately. They don’t like to wait for an insurance agent to get back to them in a few days with a quote, Perez said. Automated tools online are making it easier to service the digital population, he said.
InsureTech
Austin Startups
AgencyKPI,
founded by Bobby Billman and Trent Richmond. It develops
a business intelligence platform that mines data for the insurance industry. It
has raised $3 million in seed-stage funding. www.agencyKPI.com
Claimbot, founded by Miguel Fernandez in 2016, has raised a seed-stage round of funding of $615.000. Claimbot is aimed at insurance and automotive companies. Its software allows those companies to communicate with their customers through a virtual chat engine powered by artificial intelligence. The chatbot allows them to handle filing claims, requesting roadside assistance, purchasing insurance coverage or paying a bill. https://www.claimbotcx.com/
CoverDesk, founded by Andy Priesman in 2018, provides virtual professionals
for insurance agencies across the U.S. www.coverdesk.com
Life by Spot, founded by Matt Randall and Maria
Miller in 2017, has raised $5.85
million. It offers on the spot coverage with instant approval for life
insurance through its online platform. www.lifebyspot.com/
Lumen Insurance Technologies, founded by David Perez in 2016, focuses on providing insurance
policies such as directors’ and officers’ liability, general liability and
commercial property insurance to Texas technology startups. www.lumeninsure.com
PerfectQuote, founded by Justin Sylvester, the Austin-based startup is changing how insurance brokers procure, analyze, and sell employee benefits insurance. Its software lets people compare hundreds of plans in seconds. perfectquote.io/
PLNAR – founded in 2012 by Andy Greff, the company provides virtual
claims solutions for interior property and casualty insurance claims. It has
raised $4.1 million. https://plnar.ai/
SANA Benefits, founded by Will Young and Nathan Hackley in 2017, the startup moved
last year from California to Austin. It has raised $2.4 million for its health
insurance platform that allows small to medium-sized business to access
benefits and save money. https://welcome.sanabenefits.com/
PRMM.io, founded by Tom Coffey, the startup helps insurance companies
manage the reinsurance process including submissions, actuarial, catastrophe
modeling, contracts, claims, accounting, reporting and more. https://prmm.io/
MoxUnion, founded in 2019 by Jennifer Carson, is a cybersecurity insurance platform.
“The Mox analytics platform helps customers and carriers model their risks and
understand their options,” according to the company. www.moxunion.com/
The Zebra, founded in 2012 by Adam Lyons and Joshua Dziabiak, has raised
$63 million. It is a price comparison search engine for automotive insurance. www.thezebra.com/
San Antonio InsureTech Startup
CyberFortress founded in 2018 by Huw Edwards and Michael DeFelice in San Antonio is “building a new kind of online business interruption policy designed for small business. Narrowly-focused and parametric in nature, this policy will begin paying out within 24 hours of a cyber incident – providing valuable cash-on-hand to help their customers weather the immediate storm,” according to the company. www.cyberfortress.com/
Other InsureTech Startups with Offices or Employees in Austin
Hippo, founded in 2015 by Assaf Wand and Eyal Navon, provides homeowners with insurance online. It has raised $209 million to date. It is based in Mountain View, California, but it has a large office in Austin. myhippo.com/
Bright Health, founded in 2015 by Kyle Rolfing, Robert John Sheehy, Tom
Valdivia, has raised $440 million. The Minneapolis, Minn.-based startup has a
large office in Austin. It offers individual and family health insurance and
Medicare Advantage plans with more coverage for less money. brighthealthplan.com/
Bestow, founded in 2016 by Jonathan Abelmann and Melbourne O’Banion. The
Dallas-based startup has raised $17.5 million. It provides term life insurance
online quickly and affordably. https://hellobestow.com/
Chisel.Ai, founded by Ron Glozman in 2015, the startup is based in Toronto, Canada. It has created artificial intelligence solutions for commercial insurance brokers and carriers to boost sales, reduce human error and increase customer satisfaction. www.chisel.ai/
Correction: an earlier version of this story misstated the amount of money raised by Hippo.
In a simple process, Troncoso
upload a picture ID and answered about a dozen questions and then a clinician
got back to her within an hour. The clinician told her because of her age and health
background, the birth control pill she requested was not the right one for her
and that it might cause blood clots. The clinician recommended another one that
would be better and Troncoso agreed. Then Planned Parenthood sent the prescription
to a 24-hour Walgreens pharmacy near Troncoso’s house.
The process was easy, convenient and saved her a time-intensive visit to her OB-GYN, which would require getting a babysitter, traveling downtown from her North Austin home and lots of waiting to see the doctor.
“Time is of the essence,” Troncoso
said. “Especially time for myself.”
Troncoso paid $15 for the prescription
and her insurance company covered the consultation costs.
Planned Parenthood is now offering prescriptions for birth control: pills, patch or ring through the mobile app, said Autumn Keiser, director of marketing for Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas, which operates 24 health centers. The app also lets users get diagnosed and receive treatment for urinary tract infections simply and quickly, she said. No appointments are required, and app users get the same care that is available at Planned Parenthood Health Centers, Keiser said.
Planned Parenthood first released
the app in Texas in 2018 by offering birth control pills and has since expanded
to offer additional healthcare services like the UTI diagnosis and treatment as
well as the ring and patch for birth control. Troncoso and Keiser spoke at a media
outreach event held at The Riveter in downtown Austin on Tuesday morning.
The process is very similar to
going into a health center, Keiser said. It takes about 10 minutes and it’s
essentially screening for anyone who might have a complication, she said. If a
person does have a complication that cannot be resolved, the app boots the
person out of the system and requests that they make an appointment at one of
the health centers, she said. But if everything is good to go, a clinician at
the other end of the app reviews all the information and approves the prescription,
she said.
“The idea is essentially that we
are putting the opportunity to receive trusted quality reproductive healthcare
into your hands directly without having to come into a health center,” Keiser
said.
The main benefit is convenience
whether a patient is in Austin or in a small town outside of Austin, she said.
“For Planned Parenthood, this is
not just about innovation, obviously it’s important for us to be innovative as
healthcare deliverers but especially in the state of Texas where we have seen
round after round of politically motivated defundings and legislative attacks
on reproductive healthcare access. There are whole huge swaths of the state of
Texas where a young person might not be able to walk into a healthcare center
and receive that care without driving for a long, long time.”
In Austin, college students are
used to getting things delivered through an app, Keiser said. And this provides
them that opportunity, she said.
“Across the entire healthcare
industry, the idea of telemedicine is blowing up,” Keiser said.
Planned Parenthood Direct is available
in 25 states across the country and it is popular with moms, young professionals,
college students and patients living in remote areas, Keiser said. The app can be downloaded for free in
the Android and iPhone app stores.
“This is not patients talking to a piece of technology,”
Keiser said. “It’s patients talking through a piece of technology to healthcare
providers.”
Clinicians and doctors on the other end of the app work out
of one of Planned Parenthood’s health centers and they are the ones responding
to the telemedicine app, Keiser said.
“We hope to continue growing the number of services we
provide,” she said. “We are continuously looking at innovative ways to put
healthcare into people’s hands whether it’s in a health center or through telemedicine,
that’s our goal.”
Arlan Hamilton with Backstage Capital being interviewed by Janice Omadeke, founder and CEO of The Mentor Method at the Austin Mosaic Awards
The Austin Mosaic Awards on Thursday night recognized
companies and individuals spearheading diversity and inclusion in Austin.
Naji Kelley, founder of Blnded Media and Janice Omadeke,
founder of The Mentor Method, came up with the awards ceremony a year ago to
shine a light on those in the Austin community helping to champion diversity.
This year’s awards, held at Google’s downtown Austin
headquarters, sold out before the event with more than 300 registered to
attend.
Harold Hughes, founder and CEO of Bandwagon, served as master
of ceremonies for the Austin Mosaic Awards.
The event also featured Arlan Hamilton, founder and managing partner of Backstage Capital, which has invested in more than 130 founders of color, women, and LBGT founders with its $5 million venture capital fund.
Austin companies receiving investment from Backstage include
The Mentor Method, Localeur, and Bandwagon
The biggest misconception about diverse founders is that
they are some kind of charity or asterisk or anomaly, Hamilton said during a talk
with Omadeke.
“Once underestimated people know the rules, or know what
rules to break, we don’t just survive we thrive,” Hamilton said.
“So what we are trying to do is say don’t be part of this
because it’s going to warm your heart,” Hamilton said “Be part of this because
we will lap you in a minute.”
Companies that do not embrace a diverse workforce will lose
talent which means you lose a competitive edge and they will be quickly
overtaken, Hamilton said.
“It’s really about money, it’s about your edge and your
place in the market,” she said.
It’s ignorant if people say they can’t find a person of
color to invest in or mentor, Hamilton said. They just need to open their eyes
and walk outside, and tap into tech hubs like Capital Factory, Google and tech
events, she said.
“It’s uncomfortable at first, but if it’s uncomfortable for
you as someone with privilege, imagine what it’s like for the person who had to
take five extra steps to get in front of you,” Hamilton said.
“Just be uncomfortable for the day,” she said.
Hamilton has a podcast, the Bootstrapped VC, and has a book
coming out in a few weeks so she can reach as many people as possible with her
message.
And the winners of the 2019 Austin Mosaic diversity awards:
Large business: Dell Technologies
Mid-size business: WP Engine
Small business: Impact Hub
Startups: The Riveter
Nonprofit organization: Latinitas
Accelerators: DivInc
On the Rise Award: Elisa Sepulveda, regional managing
director, The Riveter
Legacy Award: Colette Pierce Burnette, president and CEO of Huston-Tillotson
University.
This year, Underminer Studios, headed up by the husband and wife team of Tim and Alex Porter, received the HID Global Innovation Award. Other recipients included Reality Based Group and Texas Athletics. The award recognized them as “organization that employs new ideas or approaches to doing business.”
The company creates virtual reality, augmented reality
and mixed reality tools. Its technology, volumation, creates 3D animated images
of any object for entertainment with increased realism and immersion.
The startup is also in the Intel Innovators program.
The Greater
Austin Chamber of Commerce evaluated hundreds of companies before selecting the
winners for its 19th Annual Greater Austin Business Awards, which were
announced last week at a ceremony held at the JW Marriott Austin.
An independent
panel of judges selected the winners. And the public voted to select the Tru-Skin
Dermatology Uniquely Austin Award winner which went to Terra Toys.
Other award winners included: The Austin Regional Clinic Customer Experience Award: Five Stone Tax Advisers, G&A Partners, and Baylor Scott & White Health.
TheSt. David’s HealthCare Employee Health & Wellness Award: Restore Hyper Wellness and Cryotherapy, Builder Homesite, Inc., and RetailMeNot.
The Intel Corporation Community Relations Award: Swinerton, Google Fiber, and Silicon Labs.
The Austin Energy Environmental Champion Award: Austin Parks Foundation, Westin Austin at the Domain, and Samsung Austin Semiconductor.
The Delta Air Lines International Reach Award: HomePlate Peanut Butter, Noonday Collection, and Arm.
The Nasdaq Consumer Product Award: NadaMoo!, Tiff’s Treats, and YETI.
The Texas Capital Bank Company Culture Award: Austin Fraser, Abrigo, and Intel Corporation.
The PIMCO Executive Leader Award: Karen Box, Southwest Minority Supplier Development Council; Kim Hanks, Whim Hospitality; and Tamara Fields, Accenture.
The Dell EMC First-Time Entrepreneur Award: COCINA 54, Kalologie 360 Spa, and Omaiven Health.
The Samsung Austin Semiconductor Nonprofit Award: The Arc of the Capital Area.
Schwartzfarb has spent decades working with startups. In his
latest role, he took over the managing director job of Techstars Austin from
Jason Seats in 2015 and he has graduated three classes of startups under his
direction.
Before joining Techstars, Schwartzfarb served as head of
customer development at Joust. Previously, he was vice president of customer
development at BlackLocus, which was acquired by The Home Depot in 2012. And he
was co-founder and served as Chief Operating Officer of mySpoonful, which was
acquired in 2011. He also served as an executive with Business.com, which was acquired
by RH Donnelly in 2007. And he spent five years at HotJobs.com.
In this latest edition of the Ideas to Invoices podcast, Schwartzfarb talks about what he sees as the big mistakes entrepreneurs make when it comes to sales, sales strategy, what he looks for in choosing startups to participate in Techstars Austin, some of the breakout Techstar Austin companies and the phenomenal growth of Austin’s startup ecosystem.
One of the biggest sales mistakes entrepreneurs make is “thinking that they have a clear idea of who their customer is, what they are buying and why they are buying it before they really do and just going with gut rather than using data,” Schwartzfarb said.
The next mistake is starting with sales, before doing the
research.
“Starting with sales versus starting with customer
development and customer exploration and thinking that they need to get into
repeatable sales before they have any idea about what can be repeatable in what
they have done,” he said.
Traction is a big focal point when it comes to startups, but
traction can have a lot of different definitions, depending on who you talk to,
Schwartzfarb said.
“But it generally means that the entrepreneur has hit some
kind of repeatability with customers, or they show that they can do that,” he
said.
In his book, Schwartzfarb focuses on customer development
first.
“Up until Series A, startups are still figuring out who
their customer is and what they can learn from them,” he said.
The goal is to get to
that hockey stick effect where sales just take off, but that requires a lot of work
on the entrepreneur’s part in defining and catering to the ideal customer set,
Schwartzfarb said.
“It’s akin to doing consultative sales,” he said. “You go in
with a theory that you are filling a void that exists. You might have a strong
conviction about it. But you’ve got to get customer data to support it.”
Entrepreneur do that by listening to prospective customers
and validating that the problem they believe exists is in fact there and that they
can solve it with their product, he said.
“And that it can be repeatable for a specific customer set,”
he said.
Schwartzfarb is a very strong advocate for the entrepreneur
to be the one facing the customer in the early days and trying to figure out
whether their assumptions are right by validating the data.
He would also like to see founders working on their company without
other distractions, but he realizes that isn’t always possible when some
founders need a job to pay rent.
“A founder that can’t dedicate 100 percent of their time to
the thing they are trying to create is setting up additional roadblocks for
themselves,” he said.
Still, some entrepreneurs can be scrappy at making it all
work with a job and developing their startups. That can show the ability to
make things happen despite difficult circumstances, he said.
Schwartzfarb evaluates thousands of companies each time
Techstars Austin brings on a new class. He ultimately selects ten to
participate in the accelerator program.
To select those startups, Schwartzfarb has a checklist that entrepreneurs
must meet to become a finalist.
First, he needs to be convinced the CEO can build a
meaningful company and attract great talent, Schwartzfarb said.
“I’m not talking about the product or the market yet, it’s
all about the person,” he said.
Next, is the team cohesive and are they the ones that have
the skillset to accomplish what they want to do, he said.
“And lastly, do I believe that there is an interesting market
that has a big opportunity,” Schwartzfarb said. “The product is interesting to
me, but a lot less important. “
That can still leave Schwartzfarb with more startups than he
has space for and so then he focuses on “who are the people we think we are
going to have the most fun working with,” he said.
Techstars Austin has startups from varied industries in its
portfolio including consumer packaged goods.
A couple of years ago, the Techstars program expanded in
Austin with the addition of the Techstars Impact accelerator which Zoe Schlag
heads up. She previously founded and ran
the Unlimited impact accelerator in Austin before joining Techstars.
“What we saw in Techstars was a large percentage of our
companies were impact companies,” Schwartzfarb said. And Techstars data showed
impact companies outperform non-impact companies, he said.
About a third of the Techstars Austin companies are
impact-driven companies, Schwartzfarb said. In addition to Techstars Impact Austin,
Techstars has expanded its impact accelerators to Denver and Atlanta.
It’s not a hard sell to convince companies to locate to
Austin to participate in the Techstars Austin program, Schwartzfarb said.
Austin is increasingly becoming a hotbed of startup activity
and more and more companies are moving here because of the quality of life, lower
cost of doing business and abundance of talent, Schwartzfarb said.
Austin is looked at as one of the best places in the country
to build an early-stage company, Schwartzfarb said.
In the last Techstars class, six companies came from out of
state and three have moved to Austin permanently and two more are in the
process, Schwartzfarb said.
The venture capital availability has improved in Austin, but
it is still lacking in early-stage funding.
Austin has more capital than a few years back, but the city still needs more seed-stage capital, he said. Investors in Austin tend to invest with more of a Series A mindset, he said.
And the top companies to come out of Techstars Austin have
raised their later stage funding outside of Austin, Schwartzfarb said.
For example, ScaleFactor has raised more than $100 million
in the last 14 months. Its investors include Coatue Management, Bessemer
Venture Partners, Canaan, Broadhaven Ventures and Firebrand Ventures.
Other Techstars Austin startups that are expanding quickly include Chowbotics, which has created robots that make food and deliver it to people via vending machines, Storyfit in Austin, Skipper, and SkillPop out of Charlotte, North Carolina, Schwartzfarb said.
Applications close on August 25thfor the next Techstars Austin accelerator. The program kicks off this year on De5c. 2nd so the Techstars companies will be ready to go to South by Southwest and pitch their ventures.
For more about Techstars, the startup ecosystem in Austin and cycling around Austin, tune in to the entire podcast.
Claire
England announced Thursday that she is stepping down from her role as executive
director. She’s been with CTAN since December of 2014 and “is the
longest-serving executive director in organization history,” according to a
news release.
“Under Claire’s leadership, CTAN has grown to be universally regarded as a national model of best practices for angel groups,” John Paulos, CTAN’s chairman of the board, said in a news release.
Under England’s
leadership, CTAN has become one of the most active angel investing groups in
the U.S. The Angel Capital Association currently ranks it first among all the
groups in the country.
“Everything
we accomplished in my tenure was a team effort, from our current and former
members, board, and staff to our portfolio companies and community partners.
I’m extraordinarily fortunate and grateful to have represented Austin’s angel
investors and entrepreneurs in this capacity,” England said in a news release.
“The people and companies I’ve supported in my work are unparalleled in their
efforts to make our city a beacon for business success nationally. Their
continued success is my inspiration for the future.”
England played a key role in CTAN’s top-ranking nationwide, according to Rick Timmins, former Chairman of the CTAN board.
“For the last five years, we’ve
been ranked in the top two most active angel groups nationally, including a
number one ranking for three of those years,” Timmins said in a news release.
Importantly, with significant help from members and staff, CTAN restructured
its funding cycle twice, resulting in a shorter, more effective funding process.”
England did not disclose plans for her next venture but said she expects to remain engaged in the Austin ecosystem focused on entrepreneurship and startup investing.
Since
2006, CTAN’s members have invested more than $108 million in 174 companies.
Texas ranks number one of all the states in solar
energy potential and number seven in installed solar capacity, according to the
Texas Solar Energy Society.
That makes Austin a great place to launch Bodhi
Software, an app that helps homeowners install solar panels, track energy use
and develop a relationship with others in the solar energy community.
Scott Nguyen, co-founder, and CEO of 17TeraWatts, came up with the idea for Bodhi when he had solar panels installed in his house in Austin by Lighthouse Solar. He saw a need for a product that kept the homeowners informed about every step in the process of installing and activating solar panels. And then he wanted to continue cultivating the relationship with the homeowner and the solar energy community.
In March of 2018, Nguyen founded 17TeraWatts., which is a member of the MassChallenge Texas accelerator.
“Solar’s growth is currently bottlenecked by Chinese tariffs, expiring tax credits, and rising customer acquisition costs,” Nguyen said in a news statement. “In developing Bodhi, we found that homeowners that are happy and engaged provide more referrals which are 3 times more effective than traditional sales channels. Our goal for Bodhi is to make going solar contagious.”
Bodhi works by
integrating with the solar companies software tools to personalize the
installation and commissioning process for the homeowner. Once the system is
powered up, Bodhi keeps homeowners aware of its performance with meaningful
visualizations and alerts.
Texas is a big and
growing market for solar energy, Nguyen said.
Texas has more than 38,220
solar installations and solar investment has exceeded $3.2 billion, according
to a recent report from the Texas Solar
Energy Society. The report shows Texas has 105 solar manufacturers, 245
installers/developers, and 207 other companies.
17TeraWatts, clean energy software company, created
Bodhi as a platform and digital assistant for solar homeowners.
“To do customer
experience in a way that resonates with the homeowner, we created a persona for
the product itself,” Nguyen
said.
Bodhi, which means “the
knowledge or wisdom, or awakened intellect, of a Buddha,” is meant to engage
homeowners and get a conversation going about the importance of solar energy,
Nguyen said.
In the future, Bodhi
will be integrated with Alexa and Google to be voice interactive, he said.
A solar installation
costs around $20,000 and Bodhi lets homeowners measure the impact of that
investment over time, Nguyen said.
“It makes them feel
good about that relationship,” he said. “It starts building energy awareness.”
Just like Facebook
achieved 15 billion users in 15 years, 17TeraWatts hopes to build a strong
community of people committed to solar energy who want to change the world.
Bodhi by 17TeraWatts is a digital assistant for the modern solar company, keeping your customers informed and engaged from contract through the life of the system. Bodhi makes going solar contagious. Learn more at https://www.17terawatts.com Special thanks to tonlé media: https://www.tonle.media
Austin is becoming a
hotbed of innovation in the insurance technology space.
And the latest evidence of that is AgencyKPI, which develops a business intelligence platform that mines data for the insurance industry.
The Austin-based company launched out of stealth mode this week and announced it has received $3 million in seed and strategic funding rounds from insurance networks, carriers, independent agencies and C-level executives in the insurance industry.
AgencyKPI joins a cluster of new startups in the Austin area focused on the insurance industry including The Zebra, SANA Benefits, Claimbot, Lumen Insurance Technologies, PLNAR, Cover Desk, Life by Spot, PRMM.io, MoxUnion and CyberFortress in San Antonio. Other Insure Tech startups with offices or employees in Austin include Chisel.Ai, Hippo, Bright Health, and Bestow.
AgencyKPI, founded in 2017,
has been building its software and testing it with beta clients. AgencyKPI’s product
is called Harmony. Its customers include Combined Agents of America, Keystone
Insurers Group and Pacific Interstate Insurance Brokers, which represent more
than 600 independent insurance agencies, and more than $6 billion in insurance
premiums.
“We’re giving
insurance networks the ability to use real data to better understand and
synchronize their collective agencies and make better decisions.” Bobby
Billman, Co-Founder of AgencyKPI, said in a news statement.
Billman founded AgencyKPI with Trent Richmond, a veteran of the insurance industry and the former CEO of Combined Agents of America. Richmond also served as the former president and chairman of the board of Bridges Group Insurance. Billman is a former vice president at Motorola Mobility. He has also held executive positions at Samsung Mobile, Dell, Dish Network and Nokia Mobile.
