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Tech Events to Attend in Austin This Week

February 26, 2018 / LauraLorek@gmail.com / 0 Comments

Social Media Week Austin kicks off today and runs through Wednesday at various locations throughout Austin.

The three-day-long conference, put on by Best Practice Media, covers a wide range of topics from content creation to public relations to digital marketing. Tickets costs $200 and are sold out.

Another big event kicking off this week is the University of Texas’ Entrepreneurship Week put on by the Longhorn Entrepreneurship Agency.

William Hurley, co-founder of Honest Dollar and Chaotic Moon, is the keynote speaker on Monday at 3 p.m. at the Union Eastwoods Room.

Other events in Austin worth attending this week include:

Tuesday: Workforce Development Reserve Pitch Competition at Impact Hub North – 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. An informal happy hour featuring leaders in healthcare, tech and manufacturing speaking about their biggest workforce challenges.

Wednesday – Austin Open Coffee Northside kicks off at 8:30 a.m. at Whole Foods Market at the Domain.

Wednesday: How to Get Featured in the Media, put on by Silicon Hills News, this sold out event runs from noon to 1:30 p.m. at Galvanize. Didn’t get a ticket to this event? Join us in March or April for our next events. Early bird tickets are $5 and are available now.

Wednesday – Wine Not: How to Pitch a VC with Andrew Mitchell from Brand Foundry Ventures at Galvanize kicking off at 5:30 p.m. until 7:30 p.m. The event is free, but registration is required. Tickets here.

Upcoming Events:

SXSW – March 9 – 18 at the Austin Convention Center and locations all over Austin.

CXL Live 2018 event is in Austin March 28-30: CXL Live is a 3-day growth and conversion optimization event. Growth leaders from Shopify, Instagram, Airbnb, Google and other impressive companies share their strategies and tactics. See the full lineup here. Use this coupon code for $200 off: SHN

GroundBreak Construction Conference by Procore Technologies, Nov. 13-15 in Austin. Use the Code “LocalsOnly” to save $100 on registration costs through April 2018.

Ryan Wuerch Plans to Build Dosh into a Billion Dollar Company Disrupting the Ad-Tech Market

February 23, 2018 / LauraLorek@gmail.com / 0 Comments

By LAURA LOREK
Publisher of Silicon Hills News

Dosh, an app that gives consumers cash back for purchases, is disrupting the $200 billion advertising technology industry from Austin.

Ryan Wuerch, founder and CEO of Dosh, said Austin is one of the best places to create a big consumer tech company.

And Dosh is quickly growing from 10 people a year ago to more than 70 today and by the end of the year 200, Wuerch said. And already, millions of consumers have downloaded the app, which has given back more than $19 million in cash to consumers since launching last year.

Wuerch, a serial entrepreneur, has built a billion-dollar company before. Before Dosh, he launched Solavei, which was acquired in late 2015. He also founded Motricity which went public in 2010, obtaining a market value that exceeded $1 billion.

In this episode of Ideas to Invoices, Wuerch discusses how he is going to give back more than $1 billion to consumers using the Dosh app.

In 2011, after Wuerch retired to Texas and traded walking his dog for walking his Longhorn on his ranch, he came up with the idea for Dosh. He saw three things converging on a global basis, the average household income was $48,000, social media changed consumer behavior and he saw an opportunity to create a compelling consumer product to disrupt the $200 billion advertising industry.

He joined forces with Ed Mock, who is Dosh’s co-founder and executive vice president of product and innovation, to create the cash back app.

Ryan Wuerch, founder and CEO of Dosh

The app launched into beta May 1, 2017 and in less than a year it has become the largest subscriber base of people with card links to a cash back app, Wuerch said. It also has more than 100,000 brands, restaurants and stores including Sam’s Club, Forever 21, Denny’s and Cost Plus World Market as partners with Dosh, he said.

“We want this to be the one app that everybody wants,” Wuerch said.

Dosh, which is slang for cash, is available via the Apple App Store or Google Play Store. To activate the app, a consumer inputs credit cards into the Dosh app and then they receive cash back for purchases made using those cards. The Dosh technology finds coupons and deals from the brand or merchant and automatically applies them to the consumer’s purchase. The app also has a feature called discovery that has special offers.

One of the most attractive parts of the Dosh app is the travel purchases. Instead of booking through online sites, Dosh lets consumers book hotels directly. They give 85 percent of the difference between the retail price and the wholesale price available to travel sites to the consumer.

For example, Wuerch spent a night at Le Meridien in San Francisco. The best price on online sites was $199 for the night. In the Dosh app, it was $199, but when he checked out the app put $67.03 in cash back into his Dosh wallet in his app where he could immediately move it to his bank account or transfer it to a charity.

Dosh is tied to the same credit card that a consumer already uses so they still get their loyalty rewards from the credit card issuer. What Dosh is giving back is from the brand or merchant.

By October, Dosh had 20,000 people card linked into the app. It took until Dec. 1st to give the first $1 million back to customers. But in December, the app hit a viral momentum and the app became the number one shopping app in Apple and number four in Google.

“We now have approximately six million people downloading it,” he said.

And 1.1 million have linked their cards and it is growing significantly every single day, he said. To date, Dosh has given more than $19 million in cash back to consumers, Wuerch said.

“This is what we all live for internally,” he said.

“We do not sleep in this company until we move the first billion dollars to millions of people,” he said. And he thinks the opportunity to do that is in the next two years.

Dosh has raised $27 million to date and soon expects to announce a new round of funding, Wuerch said.

That investment in technology has set the company apart from its competitors, Wuerch said. There are lots of free cash back apps and websites but many often require consumers to mail in receipts or take additional steps. Dosh works seamlessly behind the scenes, Wuerch said.

Dosh has no paid acquisition for consumers, Wuerch said. It doesn’t spend money on ads, he said.

“It’s all happened through word of mouth,” he said.

Originally, Dosh thought the target market for the app would be people 28 to 48, but they got it wrong. No matter how young or old and how much money they have, everyone wants to keep more money in their pocket, Wuerch said.

“We had it totally wrong. It’s everyone that we’re seeing,” Wuerch said.

For more discussion about Dosh and Wuerch, please listen to the entire podcast. And please rate and review Ideas to Invoices on iTunes.

Imagine Virtua and Alamo Reality Bring the Alamo Back to Life Through Technology and Storytelling

February 22, 2018 / LauraLorek@gmail.com / 0 Comments

Alamo Reality board

By LAURA LOREK
Publisher of Silicon Hills News

Known as the Shrine of Texas Liberty, the Alamo in San Antonio holds a special place in the hearts of many Texans.

Throughout the years, films, books, songs, games and more have told the story of the men who heroically died there defending the mission against the Mexican Army.

And on the 300th anniversary of the city of San Antonio this year, Michael McGar and Chipp Walters, the founders of Imagine Virtua and Alamo Reality, have found a new way to tell the story of the Battle of the Alamo. They created Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality applications called Experience Real History: Alamo Edition.

In this episode of the Ideas to Invoices podcast, McGar and Walters discuss Alamo Reality and the cutting edge work they are doing in the Augmented Reality and Virtual Realty fields, first for the Alamo project and then for a Gettysburg project.

Michael McGar, CEO of Alamo Reality

For the Alamo project, McGar and Walters have created an Augmented Reality app that works on the latest models of iPhone and Android smartphones. That app lets people enter “portals” to transport them back to a virtual world showcasing the grounds of the Alamo from 1836, the year of the famous battle. Through the portals, visitors can explore the room where Jim Bowie died, clutching his famous knife and pictures of his family as he lay critically ill in bed. The app also has a special feature where people can point the phone at a portal and be elevated up above the scene to survey the entire Alamo compound and see where Mexican troops under President General Antonio López de Santa Anna attacked the mission after a 13-day siege.

The project is an ambitious one, but it has a strong backbone in storytelling from previous Alamo projects. In 1995, McGar, whose great-great uncle died at the Alamo, created a two-disc the Alamo “Victory or Death” CD-ROM set “containing games, biographies and a bird’s eye view of this historical event.” It also featured stories told by native Texans like Sissy Spacek, Charlie Pride, and Dan Rather and at the time Texas Monthly called it the best history of the Alamo in any medium.

“It was a very complete history of Texas up through the revolution,” McGar said.

It depicted the first virtual Alamo that people could fly around inside and do a scavenger hunt, he said.

“It was a very compelling experience at the time, but compared to what we can do today it was very primitive,” he said.

But now McGar, who has founded several multimedia companies in Austin, has teamed up with Walters, who has also founded Human Code, Design Edge, and other startups, to create 3D computer-generated models of the Alamo in 1836 for the Alamo Reality project.

Chipp Walters, CEO of Imagine Virtua

The Alamo Reality project really has three parts. They have created an Augmented Reality app available to anyone, anywhere with an iPad, tablet computer or smartphone. The viewer doesn’t need to be at the Alamo to see the content, but visitors to the Alamo will be able to see images at 14 locations throughout Alamo Plaza where events actually took place. Each location contains biographies and stories of various people who fought there.

In addition to the app, McGar and Walters created a Virtual Reality experience only available at the Alamo. And the third part is an Alamo Reality board and playing cards depicting the heroes of the Alamo.

The startup bucks the high-tech tale of twenty-something founders. In fact, McGar and Walters, who are both in their 60s, have tapped the expertise and talent of more than seven sexagenarians who all have extensive experience in the multimedia industry and Alamo history.

And it’s a project that draws on the strengths and cooperation of the tech community in both Austin and San Antonio. Alamo Reality got funding from a San Antonio investor. Leslie Komet, public relations executive in San Antonio, is also a partner in the project, McGar said. She’s the one who encouraged him to create the venture, he said.

At the time, Pokemon Go had just come out and McGar wanted to create an application that would let a person stand on the spot where Davy Crockett defended the Alamo and experience it firsthand.

In about seven months, a team of about 25 people including Stephen Hardin, an expert on the history of the Alamo and Texas, have created the app to be released March 1st, in advance of the anniversary of the battle of the Alamo on March 6th.

For three or four months, Walters and his team worked with Gary Zaboly, author and illustrator of many non-fiction accounts of the Alamo, to make sure the architecture of the Alamo is accurate from 1836 for the Augmented Reality app.

The app is free, but it also requires a $2.99 fee to unlock additional content. Imagine Virtua also plans to make money from the sale of realty boards and trading cards.

Walters background is in design. Early on in his career, he was employee number 48 at Compaq. After a year and a half, he then launched his own company Design Edge and he worked with a young entrepreneur named Michael Dell to design PCs.

Later, he created Human Code to work with Apple. He sold Human Code and retired to his ranch in Dripping Springs with his wife. But he never stopped working. He designed the Hyperloop Concept for Elon Musk a few years ago. He has also created moon bases. And he was working on virtual reality projects when McGar approached him about joining him for the Imagine Virtua Alamo Realty project.

Walters also teaches at the University of Texas at Austin.

Storytelling and content are a few of the key strengths of their project, Walters said. Floyd Wray is the head writer and he brings the characters to life in the virtual world, Walters said.

The Alamo app contains stories that haven’t been told before, he said. One of them is about a black woman named Sara who died manning a cannon defending the Alamo. She is one of the hidden figures of the Alamo. She died near a cannon in the Southwest corner of the Alamo. It was known that there was a black woman who died at the Alamo but no one knew who she was, McGar said. Historians recently found court papers in Louisiana detailing a lawsuit filed against Patrick Henry Herndon, an Alamo defender, who had absconded with a slave named Sara. It is thought that Sara died defending the Alamo alongside Herndon who had freed her from slavery.

“If there is any takeaway from this, is that we’re trying to use technology to communicate in a way that hasn’t happened before,” Walters said. “Especially, in a very embedded and interactive way at the Alamo and away from the Alamo. We think the key differentiator that is going to make this technology great is not the technology it’s the storytelling, it’s the design. Those are the key things. And the accuracy of the storytelling. That’s the takeaway. And it’s not a game.”

For more discussion about the Alamo and the AR/VR projects, listen to the entire podcast. And please rate and review Ideas to Invoices on iTunes.

AT&T Opens 5G Telecommunications Lab in Austin

February 22, 2018 / LauraLorek@gmail.com / 0 Comments

The next big thing in telecommunications is 5G.

And AT&T has been testing 5G transmission in Austin for a couple of years in specialized trials.

5G stands for the fifth-generation of wireless broadband technology. It provides faster speeds and better coverage than the current 4G standard. The service is expected to offer speeds up to 1 gigabit per second for multiple connections.

Austin is the hotbed for the development of this new telecommunications technology with the launch early this year of the 5G Alliance to serve as an advocacy organization.

This week, Dallas-based AT&T has announced plans to establish a 5G lab in Austin for engineers to build and test 5G solutions simulating real-world customer experiences. The lab is outfitted with 5G network equipment and devices.

AT&T is not the first company to put a 5G lab in Austin. Last October, Ericsson, which has its North American headquarters based in Plano, Texas, established a design center in Austin focused on microelectronics and creating products for the 5G telecommunications marketplace.

And by the end of this, AT&T plans to roll out 5G service to customers in a dozen cities this year including Dallas, Atlanta and Waco.

“After significantly contributing to the first phase of 5G standards, conducting multi-city trials, and literally transforming our network for the future, we’re planning to be the first carrier to deliver standards-based mobile 5G – and do it much sooner than most people thought possible,” Igal Elbaz, senior vice president, Wireless Network Architecture and Design, said in a news statement. “Our mobile 5G firsts will put our customers in the middle of it all.”

SparkCognition Announces it has Raised $56.5 Million in Funding

February 22, 2018 / LauraLorek@gmail.com / 0 Comments

Austin-based SparkCognition announced this week it has raised $56.5 million in funding.

The artificial intelligence company previously announced last June that it had closed on a Series B round of funding for $32.5 million. But since then, it landed additional investors that push the round of funding even higher to $56.5 million.

The investors included Verizon Ventures, The Boeing Company, through its Boeing HorizonX unit, CME Ventures, Brevan Howard Investment Holdings Limited, Invenergy Future Fund, and Cisco veterans, former CEO and Executive Chairman, John Chambers, and former EVP and Chief Development Officer, Pankaj Patel and an undisclosed additional investor.

“We are grateful for the many successes to date, but SparkCognition is still in the very early phases of realizing its potential as a transformative company,” Amir Husain, Founder and CEO of SparkCognition, said in a news release. “We are honored to gain numerous industry leading investors and receive support as we rapidly grow to take our place at the forefront of the ‘AI 3.0’ revolution.”

The four-year-old company has customers in the energy, oil and gas, manufacturing, finance, aerospace, defense, and security industries.

“SparkCognition is building leading technology that is relevant on a global scale,” John Chambers, CEO of purpose-driven VC firm JC2 Ventures and Chairman Emeritus of Cisco Systems, said in a news release. “I am impressed by the company’s vision to lead the ‘AI 3.0’ revolution and believe SparkCognition’s potential for future growth is astronomical. I am looking forward to working closely with them as a partner and mentor of digital innovation.”

Mass Challenge Texas Selects 84 Startups for its First Program

February 22, 2018 / LauraLorek@gmail.com / 0 Comments

Mass Challenge Texas’ Kick off event at the Bullock Texas State History Museum last October.

Mass Challenge Texas has selected 84 startups to join its first accelerator program.

The accelerator received 520 applications, with a little more than half of those going to the second round where 120 judges selected the winners, said Mike Millard, managing director of Mass Challenge Texas.

The finalists are the “highest impact and highest potential startups,” Millard said. They come from a wide range of industries and hail from 12 states, 11 countries and five of the major Texas cities including Austin, Houston, San Antonio, Dallas/Fort Worth and El Paso.

And 32 percent of the companies are led by women, that compares to 48 percent women-led startups participating in the Boston Mass Challenge cohort.

Most of the startups, 33 or nearly 40 percent, are classified as high tech. The second major category is healthcare and life sciences with 24 startups and nearly 29 percent, followed by general consumer at 12 startups and 14 percent and social impact with 9 startups and nearly 11 percent and clean teach with six startups and 7 percent.

“The startups can learn from one another even though they are different industries,” Millard said.

Mass Challenge officially announced the program in October of 2017 at a big event at the Bullock Texas State History Museum. Following that event, Millard and the Mass Challenge staff visited with startups at 37 events throughout Texas.

“It was just such a privilege to go around the state and listen to these people talk about how they are going to change the world,” Millard said. “I found great startups everywhere. It was sort of humbling. There are talented people all over this great state.”

The program kicks off in April at WeWork in Austin and runs for 16 weeks. The startups are provided with mentoring, specialized programming, coworking space at WeWork locations in Austin, WeWork memberships, and other services. In August, they will compete in a pitch day competition for $500,000 cash prizes. Mass Challenge is a nonprofit organization and doesn’t take an equity stake in the companies.

Some of the startups on the Mass Challenge list are familiar names in the Austin startup community. Re:3D just won $1 million in the WeWork Creator Awards in New York last year and GrubTubs won $360,000 in a regional WeWork Creator Awards competition.

The startups had to have raised less than $500,000 at the time of application, Millard said. It’s not uncommon for the startups in the Mass Challenge cohorts to have participated in other programs, he said.

Mass Challenge Finalists GrubTubs, AquaSprouts and Shower Stream also just completed the Tarmac TX accelerator held at Galvanize.

The following is a complete list of the chosen companies with descriptions supplied by Mass Challenge:

4.0 GPA LLC (Texas, USA): Our app and program help students/schools/parents better understand the advantages of furthering their education and win scholarships.

Abraxas Technology (Texas): Abraxas Technology is bringing out-of-home advertisement into the digital age by allowing advertisers to calculate their ROI in real-time.

Advanced Scanners, Inc. (Texas): A 3D Optical Vision System for Brain Surgeons to track and correct brain shift.

Aggressively Organic (Indiana): We offer a simple hydroponic system for plant-to-plate food production that anyone can afford and use regardless of experience and space.

Agile Agriculture Technologies (Greece): We are taking the guesswork out of fertilization and pesticide spraying in real time, with a machine vision/learning plug and play device.

AquaSprouts (Texas): AquaSprouts allows anyone to easily bring an aquaponic or hydroponic garden into their home, office or classroom, right out of the box.

Atlas Regeneration Technologies (Texas): Atlas was formed in El Paso, Texas, and is developing a hardness sensor that can improve the efficiency and performance of water softeners.

BabyNoggin (California): BabyNoggin identifies the 1/4 of American kids who are at risk of developmental delays to their doctors and local resources.

Backspace

Bezoar Laboratories

Big Wheelbarrow (Texas, USA): Big Wheelbarrow helps food wholesalers easily find & purchase from small local farms by using AI to aggregate, automate, and manage orders.

Black Business University (Texas): Black Business University is an online course marketplace that provides affordable biz education, mentoring, and support to black entrepreneurs.

Black Fret (Texas): Black Fret is an innovative evolution of the symphony patronage model that supports local music via a national network of local incubators.

BlockMedx (Kentucky): Blockchain e-prescribing to combat the opioid crisis, improve health outcomes, and save lives.

Blue Zero Homes

Brain Stem AI

Brands Of (Puerto Rico): Help local brands and businesses better understand the market of their diaspora and export their products worldwide.

Carrot Pants Studios (Texas): We tell stories that bring the world of electronics to life for kids and families.

Cloud 9

Cloud Dentistry (Texas, USA): Uber meets LinkedIn for dental professionals. We provide on-demand medical personnel through an interactive online platform.

Complai DBA Shep (Texas, USA): Shep is a plug-n-play Chrome extension that shows employees what to book on most travel sites, tracks expenses & rewards savings.

DermaDiagnostics

Diffregen, Inc (Texas, USA): Diffregen is attacking Leukemia at its core with new therapeutics that stop progression and activate the healthy immune system.

Dynofit, Inc. (Texas, USA): Flexdot is a cell phone based wearable sensor for physical rehab that reads the muscle action of any muscle and pairs with apps and games.

Educational Documentary Services Trust (Zimbabwe): EduDoc produces and distributes curriculum-based multimedia educational resources, serving students in off-grid, offline communities.

EllieGrid (Texas, USA): The smart pill box with brains and beauty.

EQO (Texas, USA): EQO brings uses molecular solutions for environmental problems. We treat aquatic invasive species like cancer.

FADE (Texas, USA): FADE is the world’s first men’s lifestyle app.

FastVisa (Texas, USA): FastVisa is a process automation company for immigration workflow. We’re reinventing the current immigration process as an automated process.

FunnelAI (Texas, USA): Connecting businesses with their prospective customers in real-time by leveraging AI.

Future Sight AR (Texas, USA): The future doesn’t arrive – it’s built. We provide augmented reality work instructions to field engineers & construction workers in OG&C.

GRASSLAND CAMEROON, LTD

GrubTubs (Texas, USA): GrubTubs collects leftover food from restaurants to create animal feed – saving local farmers thousands per month on feed costs.

GuestBox (Florida, USA): GuestBox is a subscription box service for Airbnb and vacation rental hosts to welcome and delight their guests.

Halo Life Science (Texas, USA): Halo’s functional nutrient Naturalin, added to foods makes them better for you, more nutritious, and will significantly impact world health.

Indulge.Yo.Self. (New Jersey, USA): We boost conversions and improve e-commerce engagement with virtual dressing room with seamless integration with Shopify, Magento etc.

Innovein (California, USA): Innovein is advancing vein care with a first-of-its-kind replacement valve for veins.

Instapath Inc. (Louisiana, USA): We developed a revolutionary microscopy system for real time pathology review, so patients can get an early and accurate diagnosis.

Justspot.me (Texas, USA): We connect people to their loved ones and their loved things with a simple and charge free smart location device.

Komeeda

Specifi-Kali, LLC., Laelaps (Texas, USA): Laelaps is a groundbreaking GPS-based system that brings reliability to tracking and asset monitoring devices in the outdoors.

Living a Book (Mexico): Living a Book gives you a unique and immersive reading experience, Books, audiobooks and VR-360 stories with multiple endings.

Loanables (Texas, USA): We are reducing over-consumption by making it as easy to rent and share as it is to buy.

Multisensor Diagnostics, LLC.

NEMOCARE WELLNESS PRIVATE LIMITED

Newormics, LLC. (Texas, USA): Newormics provides optical and micro-technologies to advance early stage drug discovery with cost effective solutions using humanized models.

Next Play, Inc. (California, USA): Enterprise AI software for inclusive mentoring.

NovoThelium (Texas, USA): We provide a tissue engineered matrix for nipple areolar regeneration after mastectomy.

Open.Media (Colorado, USA): We enhance democracy through live streaming and archiving legislative sessions, offering innovative search, share, and notification features.

Partboyz Auto Parts (Nigeria): Partboyz Auto Parts mission is to bring the car parts business in Africa into the 21st century.

Penguino Travel (Texas, USA): Penguino Travel is a peer-to-peer platform empowering families go on life-changing adventures.

Popspots (Texas, USA): We’re building AdMob for the physical world. Our initial network is in grocery, the highest traffic space in retail.

PrimeVOX Communications (Texas, USA): We are a modern telecommunications service provider revolutionizing telecom with game-changing infrastructure and software.

PYT Funds Inc, Pay Your Tuition (Washington, D.C., USA): PYT, Pay Your Tuition is changing the way families finance and pay for higher education using technology to create the best private loan.

re:3D, Inc (Texas, USA): At re:3D we’re working to modify Gigabot – the world’s largest, affordable, industrial 3D printer- to 3D print from reclaimed plastic trash.

ReillyWorks (California, USA): ReillyWorks “Phygital” Kit with unlimited Game Packs combine Augmented Reality + Smart Objects into immersive storytelling and family fun!

Resthetics (Texas, USA): Resthetics converts waste anesthesia into a safe, renewable resource.

Revolution Computing, Inc. (Texas, USA): Revolution Computing is developing a revolutionary new processor architecture to accelerate emerging graph and machine learning applications.

Savant (Illinois, USA): Savant is an “enterprise” solution for the sharing economy – we transform scrappy freelancers into sharing experts.

ScalaMed

Sempulse (Texas, USA): Applies in seconds to the ear & wirelessly monitors 100+ vitals non-invasively in non-sterile conditions supporting triage & telemedicine.

SenceTech (Texas, USA): Bridging the gap between consumers & healthcare providers by providing consumers insights with deeper medical analysis for Dr.s.

Shower Stream (Texas, USA): The problem of Shower Warm-up Waste, which costs $50B in water and energy in the U.S. annually, can be solved by installing Shower Stream.

SkillsEngine (Texas, USA): SkillsEngine connects educators and employers using artificial intelligence to validate skill requirements so students are more employable.

Smallhold

SMARTSHUNT TECHNOLOGIES, INC. (Texas, USA): SmartShunt cerebrospinal fluid flow detection is a compelling and disruptive solution to a common problem in the hydrocephalus patients.

Smokeless

Steadiwear Inc. (Canada): We developed the Steadiglove – a lightweight & battery-free glove that stabilizes the wrist in Essential Tremor & Parkinson’s disease.

SurgePower Materials (Texas, USA): A green company that produces high quality graphene, a key nanomaterial that improves performance of batteries, from a renewable resource.

TeacherTalent

The Mentor Method (Virginia, USA): The Mentor Method creates inclusive workplace cultures through mentoring diverse talent.

The Tiny Heights (Texas, USA): The Tiny Heights is a tiny house community development consisting of homes under 1,000 sqft. that can be paid off in 12 years or less.

Tiny House Coffee Roasters (Texas, USA): The tiny house movement taught us to dream big by thinking small. We collaborate with small-scale producers to bring the world great coffee.

Toggle Health (Kentucky, USA): Toggle Health connects surgeon to their digital case data in the sterile field of the operating room using a sterile wireless controller.

Ungrocery (Texas, USA): A food system built for people not shelves.

Vena Medical (Canada): Vena Medical makes a fiber optic imaging catheter that allows physicians to see inside arteries and veins during complex procedures.

Vigilant Waste Technologies, Inc. (Texas, USA): Prevent opioid diversion in the hospital and reduce the compliance burden by automating drug analysis and verification at the point of care.

Vinder, Inc. (Washington, USA): Vinder is a peer-to-peer marketplace for homegrown produce. Buy/sell/trade with your community. Localizing the global food system.

Volt480

Web2ship Services Sdn Bhd (Malaysia): Web2ship.com is an elogistics gateway that connects all the courier services and online merchant with single API and low shipping rate

Whimmly (California, USA): Whimmly delivers virtual personal shoppers for eCommerce stores, using deep learning and natural language generation.

Yotta Solar Inc. (Texas, USA):
Energy storage coupled with solar panel installations through patent-pending thermal regulated high life battery.

YOUR6, Inc. (Texas, USA): YOUR6’s goal is to revolutionize hiring by measuring performance and potential of job candidates, and providing business a verified ranking.

ZPEG (Texas, USA): What if you could reduce your video delivery costs without sacrificing quality or changing infrastructure? That’s the ZPEG advantage.

New Coworking Space: work well win to Open in East Austin

February 22, 2018 / LauraLorek@gmail.com / 0 Comments

CEO and Founder of work well win: Frank Bistrian, courtesy photo.

A new coworking space with a wellness approach: work well win plans to open a 100,000 square foot site in East Austin at a former Motorola campus.

The work well win site is set to open this summer.

It’s one of a handful of coworking sites work well win plans to open nationwide. The company, based in Greenwich, Connecticut, is also opening locations in Santa Monica, Greenwich, New York City, Washington, D.C., and Chicago this year.

Frank Bistrian, the former head of domestic development for WeWork, is the entrepreneur behind work well win. His company official emerged from stealth mode this week and he announced he has raised $22 million in seed stage funding.

What makes the company different is the design of its work space with a focus on wellness. Some of the amenities include air purification systems, soundproof private offices and phone booths, organic local food, advanced water filtration systems, lots of natural light, ergonomic desks and meditation spaces. The coworking company is also partnering with fitness companies to provide access to classes and workout facilities.

Austin is the largest of the coworking sites. The other sites average 25,000 square feet. Work well win plans to open 90 locations in the next five years.

work well win’s Austin location

Hypergiant Emerges from Stealth Mode to Create AI Products

February 20, 2018 / LauraLorek@gmail.com / 0 Comments

Ben Lamm, John Fremont and Will Womble, co-founders of Hypergiant, Photo by John Davidson for Hypergiant
.

Serial Entrepreneur Ben Lamm envisions a future in which artificial intelligence is ubiquitous.

Lamm co-founded Austin-based Hypergiant to fashion that future by working with Fortune 500 companies to create products for the artificial intelligence marketplace.

That might include an autonomous bartender that can craft cocktails on the fly tailored to customer’s tastes.

And it’s not pie in the sky stuff.

Hypergiant, which emerged from stealth mode on Tuesday, has created the robotic bartender, which is in a beta test right now, for TGI Friday’s.

“We want to deliver on the future we were all promised,” Lamm said.

Hypergiant, named after the largest stars in the universe, has grand goals to create products for a whole range of companies in varying industries. Lamm sees it as the leader in the fourth industrial revolution of machine intelligence technologies.

Already the four-month-old startup has 24 employees and a handful of massive clients and it has raised a large seed round of investment, which Lamm declined to provide specifics on. The company is backed by Mythic Ventures, Align Capital, and Beringer Capital.

“It’s the largest raise I’ve done right out of the gate,” he said.

Hypergiant, which has offices in Austin, Dallas and Houston, already has 10 Fortune 500 customers including TGI Friday’s, Bosch and Schlumberger, and six strategic partnerships including Adobe and General Electric. The company is split into three divisions: Hypergiant Space-Age Solutions, Hypergiant Applied Sciences and Hypergiant Ventures.

And Hypergiant has made three investments in Austin-based companies focused on AI including Cerebri AI, Clearblade and Pilosa.

“Hypergiant is a completely new model for a new industry. Under old consulting models, businesses were over-promised AI and all they got was more data wrangling projects and empty vendor commitments,” Lamm said.

Lamm founded Hypergiant with John Fremont, and Will Womble.

In addition to Hypergiant, Lamm is still running Conversable, the company he founded which is a leading conversational intelligence platform with operations in Austin and Dallas. Conversable has 39 employees in Austin and works with 50 of the Fortune 500 companies. Previously, Lamm founded and served as CEO of Chaotic Moon Studios, acquired by Accenture and Team Chaos, acquired by Zynga.

Fremont, chief strategy officer of Hypergiant, previously served as managing director and the artificial intelligence lead for Accenture. Womble is chief revenue officer of Hypergiant. Prior to Hypergiant, he was a managing director and the energy, oil, and gas lead for North America at Accenture.

By the end of the year, Lamm expects Hypergiant will have more than 100 employees. The company will be moving into 12,000 square feet on two floors in the Scarborough Building downtown, which has been completely renovated for the company.

H-E-B Buys Austin-based Favor

February 15, 2018 / LauraLorek@gmail.com / 0 Comments

Jag Bath, president and CEO of Favor, photo by John Davidson.

Favor, the startup delivery service based in Austin, just got bought by one of the largest retailers in Texas, San Antonio-based H-E-B.

Under the deal, Favor will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of H-E-B and it will continue to operate as a separate brand led by Chief Executive Officer and President Jag Bath and all of Favor’s employees and its 50,000 runners will remain. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

“I am thrilled to have H-E-B join forces with another well-respected and innovative Texas company,” Martin Otto, H-E-B’s Chief Operating Officer, said in a news release. “We share similar values, including a commitment to excellence in customer service and to our greatest resource – our people. Over the past two years, we have established a strong working relationship with Favor that has proven to be immensely successful for both companies. We see a unique opportunity with this partnership to support and accelerate each other’s growth through the sharing of experience, insight and resources.”

Last September, Favor announced the company had reached profitability and raised $22 million in venture funding. The startup, founded in 2013, operates in 50 cities in Texas. To date, Favor raised $37.9 million in venture capital, according to CrunchBase.

“We could not be more excited to be part of H-E-B,” Bath said in a news release. “I am incredibly proud of our team’s success and the business we have built at Favor. H-E-B’s extensive resources, capital and retail food industry experience will enable us to further build on our momentum and significantly accelerate our growth throughout Texas.”

H-E-B, with $25 billion in sales, has been making a big push into the grocery delivery business. The company already offers HEBtoYou, a home grocery delivery service. The company also offers “Curbside Pickup” at more than 100 of its stores. H-E-B operates 400 stores in Texas and Mexico.

Electric Hybrid Trucking Company Hyliion Moves Headquarters to Austin Area

February 14, 2018 / LauraLorek@gmail.com / 0 Comments

Hyliion 6X4HE Test Partners (PRNewsfoto/Hyliion)

Transportation is becoming a booming industry in Austin.

And now it’s gotten even bigger with Hyliion, a hybrid electric trucking company, moving its headquarters from Pittsburgh to the Austin area. The company announced this week plans to move into a new 80,000 square foot office space, which is under construction, in Cedar Park.

Hyliion, which raised $21 million in venture capital from Axioma Ventures, plans to house all of its operations there including research and development, sales, marketing, IT and administration. The company’s technology turns diesel trucks into hybrid vehicles.

The company expects to create 200 new jobs in coming years, according to a news release. It chose the Austin area for its new headquarters because the move helps with the development of its technology and allows the company to expand and build on its unique culture, according to a news release.

“Moving our corporate headquarters to Austin was an important strategic decision. It supports our growth plans in new technologies and products and we believe the greater Austin market has the talented workforce that will contribute to our company and culture. Our products significantly decrease the environmental impact of long haul, over-the-road trucks which match nicely with Austin’s environmental consciousness.” Thomas Healy, Hyliion Founder and CEO said in a news release. “Our new building is being built to handle the requirements of semi-tractor trailers and establish excellent workspaces for our diverse workforce. We have planned library space for quiet work, bright open spaces for group collaboration, and in line with our active employees we have bike storage space, showers and even an indoor/outdoor space for dogs.”

Hyliion creates the “Hyliion 6x4HE Truck Solution” which it estimates reduces fuel consumption and emissions by up to 30 percent and saves more than 6,000 gallons of diesel fuel annually.

The Cedar Park Economic Development Department, the Cedar Park Economic Development Corporation and the Cedar Park City Council put together an employment-based incentive program to recruit Hyliion to the area, according to the company.

SOURCE Hyliion