Mythic, an Austin-based microchip maker, announced Tuesday that it has received $40 million in venture funding.
The company, which also has an office in Redwood City, Calif., closed on its Series B funding led by SoftBank Ventures.
Mythic, which was once known as Isocline, has raised $55.2 million to date, according to its Crunchbase profile.
Mythic is making an artificial intelligence chip that will serve as the brain of a everything from smartwatches to smart vehicles. The company’s unique chip design “performs computation inside memory cells – using analog currents and flash memory to perform the arithmetic of AI inference on a massive scale” which leads to faster and better computer performance. Its chips will bring the “computer power of a datacenter” to robots, cars, phones, droves and more without going to the cloud, according to the company. Mythic claims its chips will be 100 times faster and require 100 times less power than existing chips. It expects to manufacture the chips later this year and to begin shipping its chips next year.
Mythic’s latest financing includes a strategic investment from Lockheed Martin Ventures, the venture capital arm of Lockheed Martin.
“We have entered an era in which data is a strategic asset,” Chris Moran, vice president and general manager of Lockheed Martin Ventures, said in a statement. “Mythic’s game-changing technology will allow us to provide our customers with the unmatched ability to obtain timely, actionable information from distributed, power constrained systems.”
Mythic traces its roots to 2012 and the Michigan Integrated Circuits Lab at the University of Michigan. Its cofounders are Mike Henry and Dave Rick, who specialize in AI computational science.
“The world will be very different 10 years from now,” Henry, co-founder and CEO of Mythic said in a statement. “And Mythic will play a major role in the machines, devices, and electronics that make that difference. We are excited to have SoftBank join as an investor. They are committed to building the future vision of AI, robotics, autonomous, and machines that can see and interact with the world. We fill a missing piece in their vision: incredibly powerful compute at the edge that is cost-efficient and low power enough to run on batteries.”
Geekdom, the tech co-working space at the heart of San Antonio’s technology district, announced recently that it has teamed up with Alamo Angels to launch a pre-accelerator program designed to nurture new startups.
The program is focused on early-stage startups and includes mentorship from entrepreneurs, tech leaders and investors. The applications for the program opened last week with a deadline to apply on April 3rd. The program is free and no equity is taken. It culminates with a Demo Day pitch event on May 24th.
“During this program, early-stage startups will receive mentoring to prepare them for investment opportunities or applications into top-tier accelerator programs. Startups will also gain exposure in the tech community at the conclusion of the program on Demo Day,” Luke Owen, Geekdom Pre-Accelerator Co-Director, said in a news release.
Alamo Angels is providing at least $25,000 of equity investment to a selected team at the end of the program, according to Chris Burney, Geekdom Pre-Accelerator Co-Director and Executive Director of Alamo Angels.
“San Antonio’s startup community is thriving, and we need more resources to prepare high-potential companies for funding. This program will help local startups gain initial traction and become investor-ready,” Burney said in a statement.
Outdoor Voices, a high-tech fashionable line of athletic apparel, has raised $34 million in additional financing, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
To date, the company has raised $57 million and plans to use the latest funding to open additional retail stores nationwide, according to CNBC.
Fast Company named Outdoor Voices, one of the most innovative companies of 2016. Tyler Haney, the CEO and founder, plans to open five new retail locations by the end of the year, according to CNBC. Outdoor Voices currently has seven shops including one in Austin and Dallas. It has two New York stores, others in Aspen, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.
Outdoor Voices sells two-tone warmup leggings in colors like dandelion, wisteria, blue quartz and hickory ranging in price from $75 to $95. It also has basic black and grey. Its lineup also includes tees, tanks, shorts, pants, sweatshirts, jackets, accessories and shoes for both men and women.
TurnKey Vacation Rentals, one of the nation’s largest vacation rental management companies, recently announced it has received $31 million in funding.
The Austin-based startup received the funding from Adam Street Partners which led the Series D round along with participation from existing investors including Altos Ventures and two new institutional investors.
To date, the company has raised $72 million in funding since its founding. It reports it now provides full-service property management to more than 3,500 premier vacation rental homes in the top U.S. travel markets. At the end of 2017, Turnkey had 350 employees, including 160 Austin-based employees, up from 221 and 80 in 2016, respectively. The company also appointed Jen Ford, former HomeAway finance executive, as the chief financial officer.
“TurnKey is exceptional in that their rapid growth has been organic, as opposed to growing through acquisitions,” Jeff Diehl, managing partner and head of investments at Adams Street Partners, said in a news release. “This is a seasoned online travel management team that knows how to scale and execute with precision in the $100 billion vacation rental industry. Our additional investment demonstrates our belief in the promise of the TurnKey brand, its leadership and its model.”
TurnKey handles all of the nitty-gritty details of renting out a home to visitors using smart home technology and local employees. It has a proprietary technology management platform that uses smart locks, decibel monitors and more to automate tasks related to renting a property.
“At TurnKey, we’ve doubled our growth each year since 2013, while expanding into 55 top markets across the U.S.,” T.J. Clark, TurnKey co-founder and CEO, said in a news release.
The MasSpec Pen is a handheld probe that can non-destructively analyze human tissue samples to identify cancer. Vivian Abagiu / Univ. Of Texas At Austin
The only Austin-based startup to win an award in the 2018 SXSW Interactive Innovation Awards was MasSpec Pen by the Eberlin Lab at the University of Texas at Austin.
The MasSpec Pen provides a better way for surgeons to rapidly perform and diagnose cancer biopsies. It allows surgeons to extract molecules from tissue and test samples in real time. The sample is then analyzed through a database to see if it matches a cancer type such as thyroid, lung or ovarian cancer.
Silicon Hills News first wrote about the invention in 2016 after UT Austin Chemistry Professor Livia Eberlin presented the invention at the Innovation Center’s Startup Studio.
The MasSpec Pen won under the “Health, Med & BioTech” category.
The other award winners included:
AI & Machine Learning
Honoring digital systems which have the ability to adapt to changing data, stimuli, and circumstances; replicating learning, problem solving, and cognition: Swarm AI by Unanimous AI, San Francisco, CA
Innovation in Connecting People
Honoring the best new way to connect and communicate with others: Read To Me by The Electric Factory, Montevideo, Uruguay
Music & Audio Innovation
Honoring 2017’s best device or service that changes and improves the way we listen to and enjoy music.Hands-Free Music Project by Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, WA
New Economy
Honoring those redefining the exchange of goods and services, from the sharing economy, to virtual currency, to micro-finance, to mobile-device-payment systems, and beyond: Autonomous Operations Platform for Selfdriving Fleets by Ridecell, San Francisco, CA
Privacy & Security
Honoring 2017’s most progressive accomplishment in the way we go about securing our data and ensuring our privacy: Ghostery Privacy Ad Blocker by Ghostery, New York, NY
Responsive Design
Honoring excellent digital design, creating the best-integrated interaction in terms of content, aesthetics, and functionality: The Coca-Cola Times Square Billboard by space150, Atlanta, GA
Scifi No Longer
Honoring the coolest scientific achievement or discovery that before 2017 was only possible in science fiction: The Dermal Abyss: When Tattoos meet Biotechnology by MIT Media Lab, Harvard Medical School and UC Davis, Davis, CA
Smart Cities
Honoring innovations in eco-friendly or sustainable energy, transportation, and IoT technology, making life in the connected world a smarter, cleaner, greener, and more efficient Internet of Everything: Jacques-Cartier Bridge Interactive Illumination Concept by Moment Factory, with: Réalisations Montréal Inc., Ambiances Design Productions, ATOMIC3, Éclairage Public / Ombrages, Lucion Média and UDO Design.Project directed by Jacques Cartier and Champlain Bridges Inc., Montreal, QC
Student Innovation
Honoring the student with an exceptional interactive technology project or startup; both of which are the future: Facebook Messenger Blood Type Bots by Ryan Leckie and Jakub Straka, Miami Ad School Europe, Hamburg, Germany
Visual Media Experience
Honoring content creation and delivery that moves beyond passive viewership by providing a more immersive and engaging entertainment experience: LEGO House Fish Designer by LEGO House/Trigger Global, Los Angeles, CA
VR & AR
Honoring breakthroughs in augmented and virtual reality technology including the application of new hardware or software which truly make the virtual a reality: Maestro: Empowering VR Storytelling Through Social Collaboration by Penrose Studios, San Francisco, CA
Wearable Tech
Honoring the new hardware that revolutionizes the convenience, comfort, functionality, efficiency, and fashion of having a device literally “on you.” Jacquard™ by Google, Mountain View, CA
Special Honors
David Carr Prize: Amanda Gail
Meme of the Year: Savage Prince George
Breakout Trend of the Event: Globally Connected: we’re in this together
Speaker of the Event: Esther Perel
People’s Choice Award: The World’s First AI Financial Advisor by Pefin, New York, NY
Best of Show: Swarm AI by Unanimous AI, San Francisco, CA
In 2010, Kirsten Green founded Forerunner Ventures, an early stage venture capital firm, based in San Francisco.
She had spent her early career as a retail analyst with Banc of America Securities and others and she spent a lot of time studying retailers. She even went to the mall and counted the cars in the parking lot and visited stores to see what merchandise was popular. She also noticed the world was changing with the rise of e-commerce companies like Amazon and the Millennial generation entering the workforce. And she felt there was a lot of opportunities for startups to create innovative retail products and experiences. Her vision was to invest in the next-generation of consumer e-commerce companies focused on delivering a great experience.
“I wanted to invest in companies that were addressing this new consumer, were thinking uniquely about the model for the moment of time we were at and were leveraging technology to do that,” Green said.
Emily Chang, journalist and host of Bloomberg Technology, a daily show, interviewed Green at South by Southwest for a talk titled “Against the Odds: Charting Your Path as a Woman.” Green is one of a handful of female VCs with female leaders making up about 7 percent of the VC industry.
To date, Forerunner Ventures has raised three funds, the last one, in 2016 was for $122 million. The firm has made 104 investments and had 11 exits, according to CrunchBase. Forerunner was an early investor in Warby Parker, Jet.com, Dollar Shave Club, and Bonobos. It recently invested in Austin-based Outdoor Voices, which is an active lifestyle brand that makes technical apparel for recreation. The startup announced on Wednesday that it had raised $34 million in additional venture capital funding.
Chang asked Green if she felt like the VC industry in Silicon Valley might suffer from a backlash stemming from the #metoo movement and fight against sexual harassment.
“Change doesn’t happen overnight,” Green said.
But she is hopeful that people are having discussions around the topic. A need exists for more education especially around things known as “micro-aggressions” that are harder to recognize, Green said. Diversity will rule out in the end because it leads to greater returns for investors, she said.
“More diverse teams, more diverse groups make better decisions,” she said.
Societal norms also must change so that men and women split their work at home and that leads to greater equality in the workplace, Green said. Her husband does 50 percent plus of the housework which makes it easier for her to do her job, she said.
Green fought back on the label of Forerunner Ventures as an all-female venture capital firm. She said she didn’t hire women or men on purpose. She just hired the best person for the job. But Forerunner did eventually hire two men. The diverse staff provides balance in the conversation at the firm, she said.
“It certainly improved the conversation,” she said.
There is a coalition of women in VC working together to provide a support system for other women coming into the industry now, Green said. Austin-based True Wealth Ventures recently closed on its $19 million Venture Capital fund, led by two female entrepreneurs, founding partners Sara Brand and Kerry Rupp.
Norway’s Crown Prince Haakon, photo by Susan Lahey
By Susan Lahey
Reporter with Silicon Hills News
It is always ironic when the tech doesn’t work at SXSW, which happened to Norwegian Crown Prince Haakon, speaking at SXSW on Tuesday about creating innovation that solves problems. Starting his presentation with a video about the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals he ran into technical troubles when the sound didn’t work.
“These people are saying something intelligent…” he quipped to the audience. “I could just dub it….”
When a few minutes later the audio kicked in and the video went out he waved his hands and said, “Or mime it….”
Finally, the video did work and he followed up by discussing the role of tech and innovation in solving the world’s problems and Norway’s role in that pursuit. Like other Norwegians, some of whom presented at SXSW including Kjetil Lund, Vice Mayor for Business Development and Public Ownership, Crown Prince Haakon communicates humility about his country’s reputation as a model country. They recognize that many of the notable attributes of Norwegian society—gender parity, universal healthcare, free education, strong environmental programs—are easier to implement in a country with only five million residents. Partly because of those advantages, leaders have a sense of global responsibility and encourage startup founders to focus on building companies that will address the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. These goals include ending global hunger and poverty, creating government transparency, providing gender equality and access to things like clean water and education. The UN aims to have these goals met by 2030.
“If you want to start a company, these 17 goals are a great place to start,” Crown Prince Haakon said.
Norway’s Growing Tech Sector
He introduced the audience to three such Norwegian companies:
Blueye, a company that makes underwater drones, could be sold as a toy, he noted. Instead, the company was focused on using the technology for rescue and exploration to help identify and mitigate solid waste in ocean.
No Isolation created a small, portable robot that lets children with chronic illnesses attend school and hang out with peers virtually. If the robot is accidentally damaged because a child’s friends are bringing it along on adventures, the company will provide the child with another one.
Diwala verifies the skills of refugees—some of whom are displaced for decades—to empower them to build work and economies, even receive micro loans while they are displaced.
In 2017, he said, 60,000 new Norwegian companies were founded. The city of Oslo reported a year-on-year investment growth of 160 percent. The country is working to pivot from oil—which has provided Norway with its $1 trillion Sovereign Wealth Fund—toward industries of the future powered by technology. In Norway, the government often provides seed funding for new startups and the country’s social safety net ensures that even if startup founders fail, they will be provided for. This provides incentive for Norwegian founders to focus less on making money than on solving “real problems”. It also gives them courage to try.
“It’s about daring to fail. Daring to feel uncomfortable, uncertain. Daring to try again.”
The country is seeking tech talent and investment in its startups which range from education technology to health and energy tech. In his presentation, the Crown Prince pointed out not only the quality of life issues many people are aware of in Norway, but also that Norwegians tend to be early adopters and have a high level of trust. When asked whether they felt they could trust other people, he said, 70 percent of Norwegians said they could, compared to 40 percent in the U.S.
“When you’re trying to sell a product or idea to an investor or a customer, being able to overcome a trust barrier becomes very important,” he said.
SDGs Front and Center
The 44-year-old Crown Prince, a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley, is Norway’s most prominent advocate for tech and innovation. He makes regular appearances at tech events such as Oslo Innovation Week and Finland’s Slush and in 2018 at SXSW.
He was the Nordics’ senior representative in a large coalition from Scandinavia who not only appeared on multiple panels but hosted Scandinavia House at Cafe Blue with SAS Airlines.
He made several appearances at Scandinavia House, at Capital Factory and elsewhere, focusing on the importance of applying technology to creating social and environmental change.
Crown Prince Haakon pointed out in his presentation that many people believe Norway began its work toward social and environmental progress only after oil was discovered. But, he said, it began long before that.
When his mother was born, in 1937, he said, their society in terms of infant mortality and income was where India is today. In 1973, when he was born, he said, they were approximately on par with today’s Uruguay.
“When you think about the world,” he said, “you sometimes see other countries and people as distant. You think about developing nations. But when you think about them as your country you don’t think about them that way. I don’t think about my ‘developing grandmother.’ I think about my grandmother.”
Oslo Vice Mayor Kjetil Lund also spoke on a Norway led panel about the UN’s Sustainable Development goals, pointing out that the city has a “carbon budget” with specific climate targets that is a core of its policies. Among them, to reduce emissions of CO2 in the city by 95 percent by 2030. The city also has carbon capture programs, aggressive recycling of everything from food to bio-gas, and converting most of the city’s transportation to electric vehicles. Norway gets most of its electricity from hydropower.
“Norway has always believed in our responsibility to help solve international problems, at the same time hesitant to say to other countries ‘This is what you should do,’” Lund said. “We are a small country, a very wealthy country and homogenous. We have some challenges but arguably many of the challenges are not as big in Norway.”
Judges selected two other runners-up: Topl, which is building a platform for international investment on blockchain technology and Vertalo, a blockchain-backed platform to secure professional credentials and verify who a person is.
Blockchain is a way to structure data on a digital ledger which is distributed on multiple computers and no one person has control of that data to manipulate it. It is the foundation for cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum, but it has many other applications to verify information in a global marketplace. Blockchain is one of the hottest technologies at SXSW this year.
The other finalists for the competition included Verimos, a health data startup using blockchain technology to create a marketplace for patient data and ERC dEX, a hybrid-decentralized cryptocurrency trading platform.
The judges for the competition included Stephen Wolfram, founder and CEO of Wolfram Research, Richard Garriott, entrepreneur, game developer and astronaut, Manoj Saxena, first general manager of IBM Watson and founding general partner of the Entrepreneurs Fund and Laurence Tiana, co-founder of Factom, an Austin-based blockchain company.
Capital Factory reviewed hundreds of applications for this 100K Challenge to select the finalists, said Gordon Daugherty, managing director at Capital Factory. Capital Factory ran a 100K Challenge last year at SXSW focused on Artificial Intelligence, which Austin-based New Knowledge won, and they are doing extremely well, he said.
“We are trying to shine a light on a technology and a startup that we believe is going to make a huge difference in the market and the world,” Daugherty said.
And Capital Factory has awarded other startups $100,000 in geographical and thematic focused challenges, he said. The next Challenges are in April for San Antonio startups and July it is partnering with Austin Technology Alliance for a Smart Cities 100K Challenge. Startups can apply on AngelList.
Samsa, an Austin-based startup, created an online platform that lets users create custom portfolios from a basket of indexes, said Chris Slaughter, its CEO. The indexes offered on Samsa vary in volatility and exposure, Slaughter said. The idea behind the platform is it lets investors hold multiple different types of cryptocurrency in their portfolio and offers less volatility than single coins, he said.
“Once you own Bitcoin or Ethereum, we help you trade it,” Slaughter said.
Slaughter was working on a hedge fund startup, Paladar Capital when he pivoted his company to focus on Samsa. He thinks investors in cryptocurrencies should have the same advanced strategies hedge funds use.
So far, Samsa has more than 1,000 customers using its platform. The bootstrapped startup plans to use the $100,000 to further develop an educational portal, Slaughter said.
William Baxter and Dave Hendricks, co-founders of Vertalo
Vertalo, founded in February of 2017, is in Capital Factory’s accelerator program. The startup is liked a next-generation LinkedIn platform to verify identities, including employment and educational history and achievements, using the blockchain. It has raised about $2 million from friends and family and has seven employees, said Dave Hendricks, its CEO, who moved from London to Austin last year.
Vertalo Co-founder William Baxter, who serves as the Chief Technology Officer, lived in Austin. Later this year, Vertalo plans to make its platform live. It’s been getting a tremendous amount of attention at SXSW, Hendricks said.
“We’re a blockchain for normals company,” Hendricks said. “We’re the kind of blockchain company that you can actually use as a normal human. Most people are not traders and so if you are not a trader and you are not into crypto, but you want to understand the blockchain then getting your profile certified using a platform like Vertalo is your way to get introduced into the blockchain, a crypto-wallet and to the certifications functions of the blockchain.”
Kim Raath and Chris Georgen, founders of Topl
Another runner-up Topl is building a blockchain financial platform that allows low-cost capital to reach small and medium-sized businesses and projects in developing countries, said Chris Georgen, founder, and chief architect. The startup, based in Houston, plans to sell its dual use utility and platform token with Iconiq Lab in May.
Georgen met Kim Raath, the company’s head of financial engineering, at Rice University in Houston and founded the company about a year ago. Right now, the company, with 12 employees, is based in Houston with a Dutch office in Holland, but Georgen is thinking about moving it to Austin, he said.
“Investors want access to developing markets. Developing markets want access to investors’ money. The question is how we facilitate these investments,” said Raath, who is from South Africa, and earned a dual degree with a Ph.D. in statistics and master’s in economics at Rice. “So yes, Topl has a social and economic impact…We do need to give access to capital into the developing world and there is a lot of money that wants to move into the developing world and we just give them a way to do that.”
Daniel Senyard pitching Steve Hufmann at Capital Factory during SXSW, courtesy photo.
By Laura Lorek
Publisher of Silicon Hills News
Sometimes being in the right place at the right time during South by Southwest can create opportunity.
Daniel Senyard, founder of Austin-based Shep, got a text from Henry Yoshida, one of the company’s advisors, to get to Capital Factory’s first-floor auditorium because Joshua Baer, founder of Capital Factory, had just mentioned Shep on stage.
It so happened, Bear was interviewing Steve Huffman, CEO and co-founder of Reddit, who also started an airfare search engine site, Hipmunk, and Bear mentioned that Shep was based at Capital Factory.
Senyard had been squeezing in some work at his desk on the fifth floor in between attending panels, parties and other SXSW events. So when he got the text, he went to the first floor immediately to hear the talk.
Baer noticed him in the back of the room during the Q&A session and called Senyard on stage. He got to pitch Shep, his startup, to Huffman for a couple of minutes. Shep, formerly known as Compli.ai, is an online platform that provides policy guidance and reporting for business travel.
“It was a completely spontaneous opportunity,” Senyard said.
It’s those kinds of unexpected moments that can make SXSW a fruitful experience for startups looking to break through the noise and make connections, Senyard said. He’s been in Austin for 11 years and has worked at a few startups and served as Entrepreneur in Residence at Capital Factory.
“Now we have to take that opportunity and move it forward,” he said.
Here’s a Q&A Silicon Hills News did via email with Senyard recently for more information on Shep.
Q. How did you come up with the idea for Shep?
A. After three years of working for a travel tech startup targeting large corporate travel agencies in the US and India, I realized that while small to medium-sized enterprises (SME) don’t have a good way to manage their travel policy and expenses, they are hesitant to pay and feel that most travel management tools are excessive for small teams. To match millennial and SME behavior, we created Shep to focus on light-touch platform freedom (allowing you to book on your favorite sites) vs. a heavy-handed, better mousetrap.
Q. Who are your customers?
A. Our customers are “Unmanaged Companies.” This means any company that travels but doesn’t utilize the services of a corporate travel agency (like American Express Travel or Carlson Wagonlit) nor travel booking tool (like Concur). These companies typically spend less than $1 million a year on travel, so they’re usually under 200 employees. That said, we’ve come across teams of up to 3,000 who are unmanaged.
Q. Who is on your team?
A. CEO Daniel Senyard, CTO and CIO Rey Garcia are co-founders. Other roles include Product Manager, Customer Success, Software Development and Part-Time Marketing Coordinator and UX designer.
Q. Why are you the ones to do this startup?
A. Our team has worked together in various combinations and in travel tech for more than a decade. We’ve also lived the problem, both as a solution builder as well as a traveler. I recruited Rey to work for me in my last company, and after a year, we went our separate ways and then reunited, knowing that there was a better way to approach the corporate travel management problem.
Q. What challenges do you face bringing your startup into the marketplace?
A. Smaller companies often don’t realize the benefits of managing their travel spend before it becomes a problem — It just takes one person to book a business class flight because “no-one ever told me I couldn’t.”
Q. How do you acquire customers?
A. As we’re just launching our closed Beta, it’s currently through our network and word of mouth, but we’ll follow a pretty standard freemium SaaS model where we use content marketing, SEM and conferences to find customers who want to control their travel spend without forcing massive changes in employees behavior.
Q. What is the business model?
A. We currently offer a freemium model and will add a pro SaaS tier as we add advanced features and integrations that fit within existing workflows (Slack etc.) Q. How are the biggest challenges you’ve faced so far? A. Because we allow travelers to book on their favorite sites, we are beholden to websites we can’t control. For our extension to accurately guide and capture bookings on sites like Expedia, Hotels.com, Orbitz, Southwest, etc., we have to do a lot of testing. It’s a challenging but necessary evil to deal with “bugs” that we haven’t introduced – a site changes the position of a button, and we have to update our mapping of that site. But as we’re progressing, more and more of these sites like what we’re doing and are working with us as partners, so we aren’t caught off-guard.
Q. Are you bootstrapped or do you have angel or VC financing?
Q. What Austin resources have you found most helpful?
A. Capital Factory, various meetups (we run a travel tech one, called the ATX Travel Tech Meetup ourselves) and other local founders and mentors. Austin has been great as I feel the startup ecosystem has a real, “all boat rise,” mentality. When I started my first company, vivogig, another startup founder, Matt Curtin (with SocialSmack at the time), told me which books and blogs to read, which meetups to attend and he bought me coffee while doing it!
Q. What has been your biggest win so far?
A. We’re working on a pilot partnership with a huge travel company that wants to offer our solution to customers that are too small to be serviced by them. Also, we’ve been able to pull together an amazing group of connected and strategic investors who can get us in front of almost anyone in the travel industry.
Q. What is your long-term vision?
A. Our long-term vision is to get to a ‘policy of one,’ where your policy is not just a static set of rules that says that you can only spend $300 on a domestic flight. Instead, it’s taking into account the route you’re taking, who you are, who you’re visiting, the potential ROI of your trip, your past behavior, the market availability, whether prices will go up or drop. Essentially, we want to use data to create processes that increase trust and employee freedom.
Correction: An earlier version of this story referred to the company as Shep Travel, it goes by the name Shep.
And judges awarded three $10,000 cash prizes to the winner of each of three sessions on Tuesday. Altogether 14 startups competed as finalists from the U.S., China, Kenya and the United Kingdom.
Taimba, based in Kenya, founded by Dom Kavuisya won the first Challenge Prize Session at the Hilton Downtown. The other finalists in that session included AgroRacks, Elevated Honey Co. Transera, and Vinder. Taimba is a mobile-based cashless platform that connects farmers to retailers.
Aggressively Organic Systems of Fishers, Indiana, founded by Jonathan Partlow, won the second Challenge Prize session. Partlow said the company will be in Austin for MassChallenge Texas from April to August. The other finalists included Afresh Technologies, Big Wheelbarrow, and Grit Grocery.
Aggressively Organic wants to establish a fresh farm in Austin, Partlow said. The company has patents on a hydroponic system, which looks like a cardboard flower pot, to grow lettuce, tomatoes, and other vegetables. It takes about 21 days to grow a plant, Partlow said. The idea is to eat off the plant or harvest it and share it with neighbors, he said.
“In a world of abundance, nobody’s hungry,” Partlow said.
And UAV.IQ won the third Challenge Prize Session. The other finalists included Corvus Robotics, GrubTubs, Seal the Season and Stowga. UAV.IO uses drones and sensors in agricultural fields globally to help farmers produce more. It has offices in Los Angeles and Puerto Rico and it has participated in three accelerator programs including Startup Chile, Parallel 18 in Puerto Rico and Thrive in Salinas, Calif.
“We’ve had our software used by drone operators on five continents,” said Andreas Neuman, the CEO, and Co-founder.
This is the fourth time Food+City has held the Challenge Prize. Robyn Metcalfe is the founder and created Food+City as a platform and catalyst for supply chain innovation. The nonprofit organization started out as the Food Lab at the University of Texas at Austin.
Mythic, an Austin-based microchip maker, announced Tuesday that it has received $40 million in venture funding.
Fast Company named Outdoor Voices, one of the most innovative companies of 2016. Tyler Haney, the CEO and founder, plans to open five new retail locations by the end of the year, according to CNBC. Outdoor Voices currently has seven shops including one in Austin and Dallas. It has two New York stores, others in Aspen, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. 
By Laura Lorek
