Texas is the only state to have two cities as finalists for Amazon’s second headquarters in North America.

Austin and Dallas made the list of the top 20 cities in North America under consideration for the $5 billion project, which is expected to create as many as 50,000 jobs.

Amazon reported it reviewed 238 proposals from across the U.S., Canada and Mexico to host HQ2, its second headquarters.

The other cities being considered for the project include: Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Columbus, Ohio, Denver, Indianapolis, Indiana, Los Angeles, Miami, Montgomery County, MD, Nashville, Newark, New Jersey, Northern Virginia, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Raleigh, North Carolina, Toronto, and Washington, D.C.

“Thank you to all 238 communities that submitted proposals. Getting from 238 to 20 was very tough – all the proposals showed tremendous enthusiasm and creativity,” Holly Sullivan, Amazon Public Policy, said in a news release. “Through this process we learned about many new communities across North America that we will consider as locations for future infrastructure investment and job creation.”

The next phase involves Amazon working with each of the locations to get more information and to “evaluate the feasibility of a future partnership that can accommodate the company’s hiring plans as well as benefit its employees and the local community. Amazon expects to make a decision in 2018.”

Reacting to the news, Justin Bayne, founder of Austin’s SkylesBayne, commercial real estate company and Chief Development Officer of Firmspace, said in a news statement: “Austin is poised to be the home for Amazon’s HQ2.”

“The city’s population has surpassed 2 million, which is the magic market number in terms of attracting next level national retailers, pro sports teams and sprawling corporate campuses like Amazon and Apple. Austin’s vibrant downtown scene and secondary business district at The Domain are intelligently built to disperse the city’s population density and accommodate the influx of growth that Amazon or Apple would bring,” Bayne said.

The Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce, through its Opportunity Austin economic development program, submitted a bid on behalf of the Austin Texas region for the proposed Amazon HQ2.

“We are pleased that the Austin region has advanced to the second round,” Mike Berman, senior vice president of communications for the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce, said in a news release. “We look forward to presenting the best of what our region has to offer and how we can partner with Amazon. At this point we have no further information.”

In the first WeWork Creator Awards Finals, Samantha Snabes, founder of re:3D, took home the top prize of $1 million in the for-profit company category.

The Austin-based company makes Gigabot, a large 3D printer. It is also developing a new 3D printer that uses recycled materials.

In addition, WeWork announced a $1 million prize to J. Kevin White of Global Vision 20/20, a nonprofit organization that provides prescription eyewear to people in underdeveloped countries.

Adam Neumann, co-founder, and CEO of WeWork announced the WeWork Creator Award winners with Tim Ferriss, author of The 4-Hour Work Week and Tribe of Mentors.

“We’re just trying to take it all in, and really appreciate what this opportunity is going to mean for us,” Snabes, founder of re:3D, said in a news statement. “We couldn’t be more honored to have WeWork as a partner. There have been very few people since the beginning that have really bet on this concept we had in 2012: to make a toilet-sized 3D printer powered by trash. To know now that this is going to become a commercial reality in 12 to 18 months, it’s just mind-blowing.”

Last June, Snabes won $180,000 at the South Regional Final competition at Austin’s ACL Live at Moody Theater. The WeWork Creator Awards, launched in the Spring of 2017, gave funding to more than 150 companies and nonprofit organizations at regional events held in seven cities worldwide. Snabes was one of eight regional winners selected to compete in the final event in New York City. All finalists took home a total of $4.2 million in funding.

“These organizations were selected for their impact on communities, how they plan to scale their business and their sustainability in-market, according to WeWork.

$500,000 Winners

Sebastian Jünemann of CADUS, based in Berlin, which develops and runs mobile hospitals.

Naveed R. Parvez of Andiamo, based in London, that uses 3D scanning and printing to create medical braces for patients.

Or Retzkin of EyeControl, based in Tel Aviv, creator of a wearable, screen-free and easy to use communication device for individuals with full cognitive function who are unable to speak or move their limbs.

$360,000 Winners

Elizabeth Lindsey of Byte Back, based in Washington, D.C., which provides free training for unemployed adults to enter the growing tech industry; most students are people of color, women, and unemployed/underemployed.

$180,000 Winners

Manal Kahi of Eat Offbeat, based in New York, which is a fresh take on catering, employing only refugees for their talented staff of chefs who specialize in the cuisine of their respective countries.

Becca Keaty of Bunker Labs, based in Chicago, which is a national nonprofit that provides educational programming, mentors, events, and thriving local networks to help veterans start and grow businesses.

Silicon Hills News has closely followed re:3D since its launch. Reporter Susan Lahey did this profile of Snabes and the company in 2015. Last March, at SXSW, Reporter Hojun Choi wrote this story on Snabes’ panel discussion. And Snabes was featured in Silicon Hills News’ 2017 Austin Tech Calendar.

To date, re:3D has raised very little money. It raised seed-stage funding from Start-up Chile in 2013 and most of its other funding has come from two successful Kickstarter campaigns, raising another $300,000. It has also won other prizes in pitch competitions.

One of the most successful startups to spin out of Capital Factory, WP Engine announced Thursday that it has received $250 million in funding from Silver Lake, a venture capital firm.

WP Engine, founded by Jason Cohen in 2010, now has more than $100 million in annual recurring revenue and more than 75,000 customers worldwide, according to a news release.

The company plans to use the funding for development of its technology and to expand internationally. As part of the deal, Greg Mondre, managing partner of Silver Lake, and Lee Wittlinger and Mark Gillett, managing directors of Silver Lake, will join WP Engine’s board.

Previously, WP Engine raised $40.72 million with investors Northbridge Venture Partners & Equity Growth and Silverton Partners.

“We are partnering with Silver Lake because of their incredible track record as technology investors, their understanding of digital platform businesses like ours and because of the alignment in core values we share,” Heather J. Brunner, Chairwoman, and CEO of WP Engine said in a statement. “This partnership will help us further invest in our Digital Experience Platform and bring the power of our platform to WordPress users all around the globe.”

WP Engine provides website hosting for WordPress customers. WordPress websites make up about 29 percent of all websites online, up from 13 percent in 2010.

“We believe WP Engine is poised to take a leading global position in the fast-growing WordPress ecosystem and we look forward to working alongside the company’s talented management team as it executes on its next phase of development,” Wittlinger of Silver Lake, said in a news release.

WP Engine opened an office in Brisbane last October. The company also has offices in London and Limerick, Ireland. In the U.S., WP Engine has offices in San Antonio and San Francisco.

“Clearly 2017 was an outstanding year for WP Engine, our customers and our employees,” Brunner said. “Our mission is to help our customers win online. We wouldn’t have this phenomenal success without our incredible employees delivering outstanding technology and service to our customers every day. We are looking forward to more customer success led growth around the world in 2018.”

Silver Lake, a global investment firm with about $39 billion in combined assets under management and committed capital, also has investments in Dell Technologies and SolarWinds in Austin.

Silicon Hills News’ 2018 Austin Tech Calendar Party took place last Thursday at The Zebra, an insurance comparison marketplace startup, in downtown Austin.

It was a wonderful evening and the event was a smashing success. This is the fourth time Silicon Hills News’ has created a tech calendar shining a spotlight on Austin’s most innovative startups and technology advocates. The event honored the 2018 calendar subjects:

Jag Bath, CEO of Favor

Insitome Cofounders Neeraj Rao and Spencer Wells

Localeur Founder Joah Spearman

Jan Ryan, UT Austin College of Fine Arts’ director of creative entrepreneurship and innovation

OJO Labs Cofounders John Berkowitz and David Rubin

Main Street Hub Cofounders Andrew Allison and Matt Stuart

Zoe Schlag, managing director of the Techstars Impact Accelerator

Dr. Luz Cristal Glangchai, director of the Blackstone Launchpad at UT Austin

Alex Schwartz, founder of Owlchemy Labs

OpCity Cofounders Michael Lam and Ben Rubenstein

Claire England, executive director of the Central Texas Angel Network

Andrea and Walter Kalmans, principals of Lontra Ventures.

John Davidson took all the photos for the 2018 Austin Tech Calendar.

Calendar sponsors include InnoTech Austin, Austin Chamber of Commerce, TARC Technology Solutions, The Zebra, and Procore Technologies.

TriNet sponsored the food: appetizers from Mama Fu’s Asian House.

Entertainment sponsors included PythonTek, Sputnik ATX, and Lontra Ventures.

Drink Sponsors included ServiceDirect, Underminer Studios, and Manzer Communications.

And a big thank you to our host and venue sponsor: The Zebra.

Other sponsors included Drink Slingers, Tito’s Handmade Vodka, Twisted X Brewery, Rhythm Superfoods, Lantana Hummus, Shade Tree Lemonade, Hey Day Coffee, and Tiff’s Treats.

Everyone in attendance received a desktop or wall calendar. To order additional calendars please visit our Eventbrite form for our lunch and learn event on January 24th. You don’t have to attend the event to buy a calendar. Silicon Hills News will deliver it to you. But if you can attend the event, it will be great to see you and everyone attending gets a desktop calendar.

Also, Silicon Hills News will be making a donation to Austin Pets Alive for more than $200, representing 20 percent of ticket sales of the calendar.

By LAURA LOREK
Publisher of Silicon Hills News

At Sputnik ATX’s downtown office, a group of entrepreneurs gathered to talk about e-commerce startups and eat barbeque Monday afternoon.

“We’ve learned a lot about the startup scene in Austin hosting these events,” said Oksana Malysheva, President, and CEO of Linden Education Partners and CEO of Sputnik ATX.

So far, Sputnik ATX has received more than 100 applications for its first accelerator class which will begin on Jan. 15th and runs until April 20th, Malysheva said. They are coming from all over Texas and about ten international applicants from three continents, she said.

“For an applicant, the most important thing you need to have is a viable product and one paying customer,” Malysheva said. “That really distinguishes us from the other startup accelerators.”

There is very good logic for that, Malysheva said.

“We are going to be investing in the entrepreneur,” she said. “And if you don’t have one paying customer, we cannot accelerate you enough during that time.”

The Sputnik ATX accelerator is accepting five to ten startups in its first class. The incubator will provide office space, mentorship, coaching, training, and funding. The companies can apply from anywhere, but they must be based in Austin for the duration of the accelerator class.

The deadline to apply to the accelerator is Dec. 25th. The startups chosen for the program will receive a $100,000 investment in the form of a SAFE note, which stands for Simple Agreement for Future Equity.

Josef Merrill, partner and Chief Financial Officer for the Sputnik ATX program wrote a blog post on Austin Startups explaining the SAFE note and how it is used.

Entrepreneurs also must commit to spend time at Sputnik ATX’s Austin offices located on the 22nd floor of the high rise building at 301 Congress. Sputnik ATX is industry agnostic, Malysheva said.

“We are excited for this class and we really encourage the startups to apply,” Malysheva said. “There is still enough time to apply. If you have a viable product and a paying customer give it a shot. You can never win something if you don’t apply.”

Sputnik ATX can add the most value to startups in product development, marketing and sales, Merrill said.

“We want to really help people nail it and then scale it,” he said.

There are a lot of incubators and accelerators that do proto-companies with early-stage entrepreneurs working with an idea, Merrill said. The Sputnik ATX accelerator works with companies that are further along, he said.

In meeting with entrepreneurs around the state, Merrill said he’s seen a lot of startups that have great ideas, products, and customers, but they lack funding.

“We’re really excited to service this spot because it’s a sorely neglected space in the funding cycle,” Merrill said.

That’s why Sputnik ATX provides startups with $100,000 because they can really plow that money into product development, marketing, and sales and they can begin to see a lot of traction that will help them secure that Series A round of funding, Merrill said.

“We’re giving the startups the high octane boosts to get them into their A round,” Merrill said.

The biggest mistake Sputnik ATX sees is startup founders raising money from friends and family and overvaluing their company, Merrill said. And no one signs non-disclosure agreements, he said.

“Everything that is to be known about you is known,” Merrill said. “If you’re a startup, you’re not trying to keep the world from knowing what you are doing, but you want to get the world to know what you are doing.”

Jeddy Yuan, founder and CEO of Incommon, an app to help people overcome addiction, has applied to the Sputnik ATX accelerator. The app is a peer to peer central hub that makes it easy for people to find help when it matters most, he said. He attended the luncheon to learn more about the program.

The app hit the Google Play Store and Apple App Store about three months ago and its users have been growing 9 percent week over week, Yuan said.

FourScore, a match.com for voters and candidates, has also applied for the Sputnik ATX accelerator, said Matthew Brashear, its co-founder and CEO. The company, founded in 2016, has raised a small seed stage round and is currently in beta testing in Salt Lake City, he said. Scott VanRavenswaay, co-founder and systems architect and Sheli Austin, lead business analyst, also attended the luncheon.

“Our mission is to empower local communities,” Brashear said.

For more on the Sputnik ATX accelerator, join them for free pizza at WeWork Congress on Wednesday. RSVP is required to attend.

Austin-based Slingshot Aerospace announced Tuesday that it has received $3.25 million in seed stage funding, led by ATX Seed Ventures.

Slingshot Aerospace is using artificial intelligence to provide detailed reports about the earth to industries such as Defense, insurance, and energy.

Other investors in the seed round included Okapi Venture Capital and Sway Ventures along with Stage and NoName Ventures. The company plans to use the money to “build upon its early success by unlocking insights gained from satellite images, drones, and aircraft,” according to a news release.

Slingshot Aerospace is doing deep data analysis from a variety of sources to provide a clear picture of different parts of the country and world.

“The amount of data gathered by satellites, aircraft, and drones is accelerating exponentially. Turning that into profound, useful insights via Artificial Intelligence is one of the largest market opportunities of the decade” Christopher Shonk, founder of ATX Seed Ventures, said in a news release. “We are thrilled to work with this experienced management team and, having spoken to current and potential customers, we maintain a strong outlook for Slingshot Aerospace to lead the market.”

Slingshot Aerospace worked with BAE Systems and Team Rubicon during hurricanes Harvey and Irma, to analyze flooding severity and provide up to date information on the best evacuation routes in the affected areas. That insight allowed rescuers to get help to people in need faster.

“Slingshot’s capabilities are not limited to specific industries but are built to enable our team to innovate, build and deploy ready-to-use solutions rapidly. This gives Slingshot an unfair advantage in solving high-value problems for our customers in a more timely and accurate way than our competition,” David Godwin, CEO of Slingshot, said in a news release. “This round will enable Slingshot to press our advantage to be the first place Defense and commercial senior decision makers look for assessing risk, monitoring change or evaluating opportunity around assets worldwide.”
Slingshot Aerospace has headquarters in Austin, Texas and also has a significant presence in its El Segundo offices in Los Angeles, California.

U.S. Air Force veterans Melanie Stricklan and Thomas Ashman and Serial Entrepreneur David Godwin founded Slingshot Aerospace in June of 2017. The company was part of the Techstars LA inaugural class.

By LAURA LOREK
Publisher of Silicon Hills News

GenXComm, a telecommunications startup spun out of the University of Texas at Austin, announced Tuesday it has raised $7 million in funding, led by Intel Capital.

Other investors included Azure Capital Partners, Bandgap Ventures, Capital Factory, FAM Capital Partners, Lip-Bu Tan, UT Horizon Fund and WS Investment Co. The company plans to use the Series A funding for research and development and to hire key staff, said Sriram Vishwanath, GenXComm’s co-founder, and president. He is also a professor of electrical and computer engineering at UT Austin.

In June, GenXComm announced it had received a seed round of investment of $1.5 million. To date, the company, founded in 2016, has raised $8.5 million. The company is solving the problem of wireless networks that can’t handle a lot of traffic. GenXComm has developed a patent-pending technology called S-SIX that can double the amount of traffic a wireless network can handle.

GenXComm’s technology will improve communications greatly, Vishwanath said. It will increase network performance by up to 30 times in dense environments, he said.

GenXComm, which spun out of a four-year-long research project at UT, has demonstrated its technology works in both cable and wireless applications.

“The explosion of smartphone usage and internet bandwidth is pushing the limits on today’s network architecture and available spectrum,” Vishwanath said in a news release. “GenXComm is unleashing the full potential of the spectrum used for today’s 5G mobile, Wi-Fi and cable networks – by allowing channels to be stacked with no empty spectrum between them, thereby generating new applications, revenue streams, and business models for telecom operators and the Industry 4.0.”

In a telephone interview, Vishwanath said the company now has 20 employees and it expects to add up to 15 more by next year, primarily engineers. Its headquarters are in an old house at 1604 San Antonio, a few blocks south of the UT campus. It also plans to open an office in California.

GenXComm is working with the largest telecom players in the world to test its technology, Vishwanath said. At this time, he cannot name the companies, he said. The company will be doing private demos of its technology at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas next month, Vishwanath said.

“Full duplex technology has the potential to have a tremendous impact in a number of areas that are important to Intel, including Wi-Fi, Broadband Access, and 5G,” Dan Artusi, vice president, and general manager, Connected Home Division, Intel, said in a news release. “GenXComm’s unique approach to solving the full duplex problem has the potential to significantly increase the speed and capacity of these networks. Given the large increases in the amount of data moving across different networks, technologies such as those pioneered by GenXComm will become increasingly important in the future.”

By LAURA LOREK
Publisher of Silicon Hills News

Austin’s rare snow and ice storm didn’t stop the tech community from turning out at DivInc’s Demo Day at Google’s Austin downtown office Friday night.

The night shined a spotlight on women and minority tech founders who are launching startups in Austin.

“It’s about startups. It is about diversity and inclusion but it’s also about this expanding startup ecosystem and making it more inclusive to give opportunities for this hidden talent that’s across Austin, said Preston James, co-founder of DivInc, an Austin-based accelerator that helps women and minorities launch tech startups.

“I hope tonight that we will be opening up the gates for some new talent to come in and make their contributions into Austin and make Austin the number one city for tech diversity in the United States,” James said.

It’s no secret that the tech industry lacks diversity. Women and people of color make up a small fraction of the startup founders that receive funding every year from the venture capital firms and angel investors. And Austin, which has a huge and growing tech industry, is struggling with this problem also. That’s why James, Dana Callender and Ashley Jennings founded DivInc.

The 13-week long accelerator, based at Capital Factory, provides mentorship and coaching to tech startup founders. Its third class of startups just finished the program which culminated with the Demo Day pitch event.

At the event, guest speaker Latraviette Smith, senior vice president of communications of Sundial Brands, based in New York, announced a $100 million New Voices Venture Capital Fund aimed at investing in women of color entrepreneurs.

“Together we will change the face of entrepreneurship,” Smith said.

The latest DivInc cohort consisted of eight tech startups ranging from mobile apps and online marketplaces to e-commerce sites focused on travel, wellness retreats, advertising agencies, restaurants, retail, consumer electronics, gardening, and education.

First up, Sara Brinton, founder, and CEO of Penguino Travel pitched her travel site for families with young children. It helps match travelers with families in the countries they are visiting to learn about kid-friendly spots. It also provides travel kits and other information to families traveling with children.

By 2020, Brinton forecasts Penguino will have 28,000 customers that will plan trips on its site and $10 million in revenue, with revenue coming through product sales and commissions on booking with airlines, hotels, and attractions.

Penguino Travel launched a year ago as an online store and since then the company has generated $20,000 in revenue, Brinton said. The company is about to launch its travel planning platform for families, she said. It is also going to create a mobile app, she said.

The goal is to empower one million families over the next ten years to travel different, Brinton said.

Next, Ashley Behnke, founder of Spot Loc8r, pitched her mobile app that lists picture-perfect locations in each city. The app is aimed at brands, ad agencies and social media influencers looking for the perfect place to stage a photo or make a film.

“Brands are scrambling,” Behnke said. “They are continually trying to find the most authentic and most organic ways to connect with their audiences.”

Spot Loc8r provides a visual content platform that saves time, increases efficiency and ultimately generates more revenue for brands, ad agencies and social media influencers, Behnke said. It is also creating a mobile app.

Spot Loc8r plans to generate revenue from in-app purchases, subscriptions from businesses and the sales of campaign lists to ad agencies. Currently, ad agencies send people out to scout for locations and no automated system exists yet to do this task, Behnke said.

“We will be crowdsourcing the work for our clients and leveraging machine learning to make their jobs easier,” Behnke said. “There’s no way one person knows where all the beautiful places are but together with Spot Loc8r we will.”

In 2018, the pilot program will begin in Austin, Behnke said. She’s currently looking for investors and introductions to Austin ad agencies as customers.

“We are Spot Loc8r and we help content creators produce compelling content more quickly and easily,” Behnke said.

The third presenter, Roman Gonzalez, founded Gardenio, an online marketplace for gardeners aimed at Millennials. Its products include an urban garden in a box starter kit with other follow-on products and information.

“With Gardenio, we are the path for the next generation of lifelong gardeners,” Gonzalez said.

Gardenio provides products and technology to make it easy to start and maintain and continue with a garden, he said.

They send customers everything they need to start a garden in a box including plants, soil, and care guides. The boxes cost between $50 to $100. Gardenio plans to develop a mobile app with detailed digital care guides and other gardening information, Gonzalez said. A portion of the proceeds from all sales are donated to nonprofit organizations focused on food justice, he said.

“If we succeed so do the communities that we operate in,” Gonzalez said.

“This is a market ripe for disruption,” he said.

Every year, consumers spend $36.1 billion on lawn and garden supplies, Gonzalez said.

Gardenio is now accepting pre-orders and plans to send out its first boxes in February of 2018, Gonzalez said. The company is currently fundraising and is looking for key employees in supply chain management and technology.

“This is the right time for a company like this,” Gonzalez said. “We have an opportunity in business to do something that is very rare: to do well and to do good at the same time. To build profit and lead a movement at the same time. We are the path for the next generation of life-long gardeners because at Gardenio, you don’t have to grow it alone.”

Wes Reddick, founder of Maximus Box, pitched his online retail shop for plus-sized men.

“I’m a former football player, current fashion guru for fat guys,” Reddick said.

Maximus Box sprung out Reddick’s frustration from trying to find clothes that fit his large frame. In the U.S., there are 67 million men with a size 40 waist or larger, Reddick said. They don’t have a dedicated place online to go shopping, he said.

The Maximus Box is a subscription fashion service that sends clothing items directly to the consumer, Reddick said.

So far, Maximus Box has done $160,000 in revenues in 2017, Reddick said. He expects to do at least $175,000 by the end of 2017, he said.

“The more big guys out there hear about us the more we continue to grow,” Reddick said.

Stephanie Labay, the founder of Retreat Place, created a travel and wellness marketplace. It aggregates the wellness retreats worldwide.

Fitness instructors, yoga teachers, and retreat owners can list a place on the marketplace and consumers can book experiences with them online, Labay said. The retreat trips vary between $500 to $5000 with an average price tag of $1,500, she said.

Retreat Place has generated $70,000 in advertising revenue to date, Labay said. It plans to increase its inventory of active retreats from 200 to 1,000 by early next year, she said.

Yogi Patel pitched the startup he founded: iuzeit, a mobile app, and website that serves as a recommendation platform for consumer electronics.

Shambrekia Wise, the founder of FuzeU, created an online education marketplace to connect college students studying Science, Technology, Engineering and Math majors, with mentors in their chosen field in the business world. Next year, Wise plans to launch the platform.

Airion Watkins-Clark, founded WutzGood, a mobile app that provides visual restaurant reviews with video and photos.

“We drive traffic and increase revenue for restaurants through real-time visual content,” Watkins-Clark said. “We enable the restaurateur to regain control of their brand image by publishing Chef’s Table quality moments that truly showcase the experience they have to offer.”

WutzGood has raised a seed round of $80,000 in financing. It is finishing up its minimal viable product and it has 20 restaurants signed up. It is also creating a mobile app. The company is currently fundraising.

Austin-based Dosh, a cash-back app, just raised $4.9 million in venture funding, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The company has raised $18.4 million to date in seed-stage funding and is preparing to raise more money early next year for a Series A round, according to a spokeswoman.

Goodwater Capital led the most recent funding round with participation from Extol Capital and Austin-based Next Coast Ventures.

Dosh, which is slang for cash, is a smartphone mobile app that lets consumers receive cash back on purchases. The company has partnered with more than 100,000 businesses and brands including Sam’s Club, Forever 21, Denny’s and Cost Plus World Market.

“Dosh continues to show record growth month over month in installs, card link users, and cash back transactions,” according to a spokeswoman. The company analyzes data and provides information to merchants to track consumer acquisition, loyalty, and social sharing.

The participation from Next Coast Ventures might have something to do with its news Entrepreneur in Residence at the firm: Adam Salamon, who previously served as co-founder and chief operating officer of Perk Inc., a rewards and engagement platform that went public on the Toronto Stock Exchange and then RhythmOne acquired it earlier this year.

Ryan Wuerch founded Dosh in 2016 and serves as the company’s president and CEO. He previously founded Solavei, a social commerce platform that was acquired in 2015, according to his online profile in Crunchbase. Before that, he founded Motricity, a mobile data service provider.

Transportation logistics in this country is still problematic despite all the new technology on the market.

That’s a market Austin-based Overhaul is tackling. The commercial trucking industry is a $115 billion per year industry and Overhaul aims to overhaul it. The transportation security technology startup creates software for shippers of premium cargo to track their goods.

The company just landed $4.5 million in seed financing from lead investor Abbey International Finance Group, based in Dublin, Ireland. The company plans to use the money for research and development of its software, Sentinel.

Gone are the days of the lone CB radio to track a trucker in route to deliver goods. Today, trucks have smartphones, laptops, tablet computers, wireless Internet connections and goods often have tracking devices or cargo sensors to keep track of them from shipper to customers. But despite all the fleet tracking technology available today such as cargo sensors and telematics, problems occur when that technology can get disconnected. That lack of visibility can cost shippers a lot of money and it can be risky for the drivers. So Overhaul’s software harnesses existing technology, coupled with data analysis and proprietary technology to create a better cargo tracking system, according to a news release.

“Overhaul is committed to bringing an intelligent software system that automatically integrates disparate data streams into a single unified view allowing shippers the ability to analyze and respond appropriately to prevent or address risky situations as they occur,” Barry Conlon, CEO and co-founder of Overhaul, said in a news release. “We are extremely grateful to have the support of an investor who shares in our vision to digitize the supply chain and will act as partners in the delivery of our robust product roadmap.”

“We are pleased to partner with the team at Overhaul,” John Prosser, Managing Director at Abbey International Finance, said in a news release. “We have a very strong relationship and proven track record in prior ventures with Overhaul’s founder, Barry Conlon, and are committed to supporting Mr. Conlon in realizing the vision for this latest endeavor to become an innovative leader in transportation.”

Overhaul, founded in 2016, has two patents pending on its technology in the U.S. The company began as an online marketplace for shippers to find and book truck drivers. But it has since evolved to provide tracking and security software.