Archive for the ‘Company Profile’ Category
Tuesday, April 20th, 2010
 By Allan Maurer
RALEIGH, NC – Online advertising is moving into what AIMatch CEO and co-founder Jeff Wood calls “The second phase,” in which advertisers who normally use traditional media increasingly move online.
AIMach, Wood says, is ideally situated to take advantage of that with its new set of tools aimed at facilitating that move on the part of publishers, ad networks and agencies.
He and co-foudners Ryan Treichler, CVO, and Guy Taylor, CTO, are all veterans of Accipter, one of the Research Triangle’s biggest software company success stories. It too brought a pioneering online ad technology to market.
It then sold first to CMGI in a deal worth $500 million, again in 2006 to aQuantive, and finally became part of Microsoft Advertising when MS bought aQuantive in 2007.
For more details, see the first part of this story:
Hearing about the pain points
 Jeff Wood, CEO, AIMatch Wood, Treichler and Taylor say they gained insights into the inner workings of the online advertising world all along the way.
From aQuantive, they learned an approach to product development they found effective, paricularly, being pro-active, not re-active in terms of adding features.
At Microsoft, says Treichler, “We had the opportunity to go in and talk to the top publishers in the world. They would tell me all their problems. The problem with Microsoft was that they wouldn’t do anything about it.”
Nevertheless, he says, “I had the opportunity to sit in front of people who could tell me all their pain points from a very high level perspective. That helped give direction to what we did (with AIMatch).”
And, now, for something different
This was the first time the three had the opportunity to build a new technology from the ground up, something that would directly address those pain points.
“It might be easy for people to think we’re doing what we did before,” says Wood. “But we’ve actually taken the equivalent of what publishers would have to get from four different providers and put it into one solution.”
The AIMatch tools, they say, do several things differently. First, they are aimed at helping publishers sell their direct inventory, the ad inventory sold by their own sales people rather than the remenant space available.
The concept, Wood explains, “Is to let the publisher make full use of all the data they may collect and squeeze the most value out of their inventory.”
The publishers, he says, can use the AIMatch business intelligence tools to inspect how their business model is performing and its sales management tools to oversee their sales team.
It allows managers to run simulations to see how change would affect business.
“We built tools for them to take their informationa and their intuition and come up with conclusions,” says Wood.
Talking the right talk
 Ryan Treichler, CVO, AIMatch Another feature of the products, says Treicler, is intended to give online publishers the tools they need to bring advertisers online in ways they are familiar with.
“There’s no doubt that 75 percent of the advertising guys are still not online,” Treichler says. “They want to come online, but they want to come online in ways they’ are familiar with. They want to buy audiences and they want to buy products.
“We’re giving them the tools to talk the way the off-line world does in buying advertising and it’s going to make it easier to sell.”
Wood and Treicler both say that the proliferation of mobile devices, social networking and broadband Internet, all point to exponential growth in the digitial ad space, that “second phase,” Wood talks about.
He says they deliberately held off going to market so the product they developed would be “in front of the market, not behind it.”
“It’s a very exciting time to be here,” says Treicler.
www.aimatch.com
Tags: Accipiter, aiMatch, digital advertising, Intennet/new media, NC, Startups
Posted in Carolinas, Company Profile, Internet/New Media, Marketing, North Carolina | Comments Off
Friday, April 16th, 2010
 Karen LeVert, CEO & founder of Southeast TechInventures By Allan Maurer
TAMPA, FL & RESEARCH TRIANGLE, NC – In many ways the current venture model is broken. So it’s time to spur new ways of getting innovative ideas out of university labs and into the marketplace. So says John Micek, managing partner of Verdant Venture Advisors, the new fund established by Tampa-based Innovaro (NYSE:INV) (Utek Corp.).
Micek, who is also managing director of Silicon Prairie Partners and an Innovaro board member, hopes to put together a “State-of-the-art strategy in a way that doesn’t rely on the broken venture model.”
A three-point strategy
Micek says that strategy is essentially a three-legged stool.
The first leg is drawing upon Innovaro’s ability to assist in sourcing innovation globally. A venture capitalist in Silicon Valley likely walks the halls of Stanford University regularly, he notes, but “We hope to walk the halls of hundreds of universities. We’re looking at universities in Brazil, London and Istanbul.”
He points out that Innovaro has 30 scientific advisers who have never been convened. “I’m going to convene them,” says Micek.
Innovaro itself “Wants to be the central interface and connection between buyers, sellers, users and inventors of technology,” he explains.
Take out early-stage risk
The second leg of Verdant’s emerging plan involves a strategy pioneered by NC Research Triangle based Southeast TechInventures (STI) and its CEO and founder Karen LeVert.
LeVert tells us STI helps take early stage investment risk out of startups with strong university-based research behind them by leveraging federal Small Business Innovative Research grants to get them to the prototype stage.
STI has worked with about 20 companies so far, helping them obtain $15 million in SBIR grants and an additional $15 million in investor financing since launching six years ago.
She tells us STI looks primarily for tech such as medical devices, photonics, and other areas with deep university research behind them. They aren’t geared toward lighter IT and Internet types of startups.
LeVert says STI expected to see its first exit in 2010, but the recession may have slowed that event.
STI and Verdant are in the process of preparing to work ont their first deal together, LeVert says.
Then, venture backing
The third leg of Verdant’s stool, Micek says, would be to provide seed funding to move the company into position to seek a traditional A round of venture backing. Micek says he hopes to involve Silicon Valley venture capital in the deals.
So the model would take an innovation that Innovaro helps find, develop its technology through STI’s grant funding model and then provide key seed funding to get it ready for solid venture backing or “team it up with a major company with interest in that technology.”
Verdan’s first deal is expected soon.
Previously on TechJournal South:
Tags: Florida, Innovaro, John Micek, Karen LaVert, NC, Research Triangle, Southeast Techinventures, Utek, Verdant Venture Advisors
Posted in Carolinas, Company Profile, Florida, IT, Money, North Carolina | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, April 14th, 2010
By Allan Maurer
 RALEIGH, NC – The founders of AIMatch, a startup focused on helping publishers sell their ad inventory, have been on this ride before.
Jeff Wood, CEO, Guy Taylor, and Ryan Treichler are all veterans of one of the Research Triangle region’s major startup success stories, Accipiter. Here’s our original report on the launch of their new company: Online ad veterans launch new company in Raleigh.
Founded in 1996, Accipiter sold online publishers an ad serving solution with behaviorial targeting capabiliites and other tools. It operated independently until 2002 with venture-backing from Durham-based Intersouth Partners.
It eventually sold CMGI in a deal that ended up worth more than $500 million.
In 2006 it sold sold again, to Seattle-based Atlas, the technologies business unit of aQuantive for $30.3 million. Then, Microsoft bought aQuantive for $6 billion in 2007 and turned it into Microsoft Advertising.
Lessons learned along the way
In an interview with TechJournal South, we’ll be running in two parts, Wood, Taylor and Treichler tell us they acquired new perspectives about the online advertising space and running a business along the way. Those insights helped them shape their new venture, AIMatch. The “AI,” they say, means “Advertising Intelligence.”
“Being in those larger companies gave us a better view of the whole advertising ecosystem,” says Wood. “You got a more holistic view.”
 Ryan Treichler In the smaller world of Accipiter, Treichler adds, “We have a very myopic view of what our customers’
problems were. We were focused on a narrow set of problems.”
That meant, he explains, “We were leaving things on the table or we were not really talking to the people who controlled the purse strings in an organization.”
Talking to the right person makes it much easier to sell them something, he adds.
“As we became integrated with these larger organizations, we were talking to our customers in a much broader way,” Treichler says.
Product management a key
He says that being acquired by aQuantive was interesting because they had a very strong product management focus as an organization. That has impacted how they shaped their new firm, he says.
“As a startup the first time, we had a product manager but it wasn’t something that really drove the organization.”
A strong product management focus helped aQuantive avoid being “willy-nilly about the needs of their customers,” says Treichler. “It enabled them to prioritize things with strategic goals in mind, so that you wind up having a product grow in a more optimal way.”
That’s one of the things they have taken to heart at AIMatch, he says, “Ensuring that we have a very strong prodcut management culture.”
Keeping a strategic focus
That means that rather than trying to solve every problem a customer may present, they’re focused on building out strategically for long term success. “A customer may want a specific feature right now that might not be strategic to the business,” Treichler says.
That wasn’t always the case in the Accipiter startup culture. “Sometimes we spent months developing a particular feature and by the time we delivered it, the needs had changed.”
“Understanding what the customers’ goals are in the end and understanding the product in terms of the needs of multiple customers lets you develop something much better for the customer.
“You still want agile, quick development, but you want to make sure you’re being proactive, not reactive. That’s what we took away from strong product management focus.”
 Jeff Wood, CEO, AIMatch Wood concurred. “A year ago when we started (building AIMatch) we took that type of thinking and ran a lot of ideas. We saw a big need and honed in on that. Then, Wood says, they stepped back and focused on how to architect their product so that it would be able to scale up rapidly and handle the growth of digital advertising he sees ready to burst into exponential growth for the next five to ten years.
Next: The focus: selling the direct sales inventory. What the AIMatch Founders learned at Microsoft. What they’re bringing to market.
Tags: Accipiter, aiMatch, aQuantive, Guy Taylor, Internet/New Media, Jeff Wood, Marketing, Microsoft, NC, Raleigh, Ryan Treichler
Posted in Carolinas, Company Profile, Internet/New Media, IT, Marketing, North Carolina | 1 Comment »
Monday, April 5th, 2010
By Allan Maurer
ATLANTA – Social media and sports seem to go together like big flatscreen TVs and sports bars. So imagine, if you will, renting a touch screen console at a race event and seeing live, real time data streaming from your favorite team and the ability to interact with other fans.
Race fans may get a chance to interact with their favorite team’s data and other fans during racing events just like that if Atlanta’s Sportronix has its way.
The company, which has been issued a provisional patent on its Fan Associate Technology, says it “Will change how fans interact with teams, adding a new social aspect to live events.”
Data motorsports teams monitor has grown increasingly technical
And the industry is showing some interest in the Sportronix technology.
“We are invited to speak at the Professional Motorsports Circuit Owners, Investors, and Suppliers Forum www.professionalmotorsportcircuit-forum.com/na/ in New York during the Stadia Design and Technology Expo, April 27th,” says David Geddes, founder and CEO.
Personally, we’re all for anything that takes our mind off the noise at a live motorsports event.
Created in March 2007, Sportronix has taken artificial intelligence software developed largely through programs funded by DARPA and the Department of Defense and repurposed it for commercial use.
It initially developed software to help race teams evaluate the sophisticated streams of performance data feeding into their monitoring systems during an event.
Geddes says the company’s Racing Associate software would not only speed up decision making at the track, it would also lower team costs. “Teams will be able to use fewer senior level engineers to make these expert level decisions,” he says.
Stadiums or tracks would probably rent out equipment running Sportronix Fan Associate Software
However, “As we began selling to potential motorsports clients,” Geddes says, “we uncovered a need for spectators to interact with relevant team data.”
Lights went on
At the International Motor Sport Business Forum and Racing Industry trade show in Orlando someone said, “Don’t you think fans might want to interact with this data.”
Lights went on.
Sportronix is still building the concept, Geddes says, but the idea is for the technology to act as a “Personal sports analyst for a fan.” It may even be able to predict likely winners based on the data.
The idea opens a huge new market for the company’s underlying artificial intelligence engine, since there are only about 10,000 racing teams around the world, but there are millions of race fans.
So it developed its new “Fan Associate” technology. Geddes believes the new product will help the company attract angel funding. “We had to broaden our market to make us more appealing,” he says.
Fans want to know what’s going on behind the scenes
Mobile devices and touch screens possible
Geddes says the new product has the capability to open new ways for teams to interact with their fans and vice versa if they allow visibility into their data during an event. “Teams that don’t want to allow that won’t have a good fan base,” he predicts.
Right now, he says, “We’re marketing ourselves toward instrumentation-driven sports such as air and marine racing, where they’re already using sensors to collect data.”
The idea is that a fan would register with a team and the technology would work with a mobile device.
“There’s some neat things happening in the Southeast with mobile device makers,” says Geddes. “There are already apps for the iPhone to get your own car’s performance data, so we know mobile devices are probably the way to go.”
But, he adds, “We’re also in touch with people in the Atlanta area about making larger touch screen portable devices for a group of people who want to interact. We envision the stadium or teams facilitating the hardware. A group of buddies would rent one at the event.”
He says the company thinks that stadiums or sanctioning organizations or tracks will supply the hardware and Sportronix will supply the software.
www.sportronix.com
This article is reprinted from our sister publication, Techviw Atlanta.
Tags: IT, Sportronix, TechView Atlanta
Posted in Company Profile, Georgia, IT | Comments Off
Friday, March 19th, 2010
By Allan Maurer
 OAK RIDGE, TN – Meritus Ventures is the only venture capital firm between Cincinnati and Atlanta and between the NC Research Triangle and Nashville, says Grady Vanderhoofven, a partner and fund manager with Meritus. “It’s a big, wide open, tech rich area in a capital starved region,” he says.
Meritus is a Rural Business Investment Company established in 2006 in response to the creation of the Rural Business Investment Program by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Meritus is a $36.5 million fund that invests from $250,000 to $2.5 million in rural areas of central and Western Appalachia. “One million is the sweet spot for a first bite for us,” says Vanderhoofven, “and we might invest $2.5 million over time.”
The competitive advantage of tech
The fund’s roster of investors includes a number of banks and several private financial institutions, including member institutions of the Farm Credit System, several large foundations, a number of high net worth individuals, and regional stakeholders such as the University of Kentucky, the Appalachian Regional Commission, and the Tennessee Valley Authority. In addition, the fund is partially capitalized via the sale of debentures guaranteed by USDA.
“We’re generalists and we’ll look at most things except life sciences,” says Vanderhoofven. “We like technology and the competitive advantage technology can provide,” he adds. So the firm looks at firms in IT, software, medical devices, diagnostic tools, and semiconductors.
Working in a captial-starved region has its advantages. “We don’t have to fight over deals,” says Vanderhoofven. “We just look and sift.”
The fund’s portfolio companies include Greenville, SC-based Zipit Wirelss, which develops and makes wireless communication and entertainment devices that allow consumers to access the Internet; SinglePipe a facilities-based Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) provider that delivers residential and business services to the wholesale and channel markets; Kentucky-based Wazoo sports.com; and Oak Ridge-based Aldis, which focuses on the transportation logistics and advanced infrastructure management markets.
Oak Ridge Labs getting huge funding
 Grady Vanderhoofven Vanderhoofven tell us he previously worked at Oak Ridge National Labs, first as a materials engineer, then in its tech transfer office. “That’s what led me into this,” he says. “I became enamored of spinning out Oak Ridge Lab technology.”
But, he says, companies would spin out, then go where they found a source of capital, landing in Austin or San Diego or Long Island.
“So this is an effort to establish a local source of venture capital with the idea that we can capitalize on some of the technical resources in the region.”
He points out that there is a “huge amount of money flowing into Oak Ridge National Labs right now. They’re receiving something like a billion dollars from the stimulus package and building new one-of-a-kind facilities. You wouldn’t recognize it from five years ago.”
But Oak Ridge isn’t the region’s only source of technology expertise. There is also the University of Kentucky, the University of Tennessee, Virginia Tech, Vanderbilt, the Army Missile Command at Huntsville, Alabama, and more.
Fund shifted from early to expansion stage firms
Vanderhoofven says Meritus “plays will with others” and prefers to co-invest and isn’t opposed to deals that include angel investors.
“Historically we have been early stage investors, but in the last year or so we migrated toward more expansion stage investing.”
Early stage investing, he says, “Is a riskier proposition than it was five years ago, so we migrated to the expansion stage where some of the risk is taken out.”
That follows a trend we have seen from venture capitalists generally in the last several years.
Over time, however, Vanderhoofven says Meritus may “Swing back to earlier stage investments.”
For those entrepreneurs in Western North Carolina lo0king for funding, here’s a tip: “We’d like to do a deal in Western NC, but just haven’t found the right one yet,” says Vanderhoofven.
www.meritusventures.com
Tags: Kentucky, Meritus Ventures, NC, SC, Tennessee, venture firms
Posted in Carolinas, Company Profile, IT, Kentucky, North Carolina, Other SE, South Carolina, Tech Transfer, Tennessee, West Virginia | Comments Off
Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010
 Spotlight GPS animal locator CARY, NC -Have you ever had to chase a lost dog? It can be both frustrating and worrisome. Everyone involved with Cary-based Positioning Animals Worldwide (PAW) has had to hunt for a lost dog, CEO and Chairman Chris Newton tells us.
Newton says that a group of entrepreneurs noted that GPS was becoming part of everyone’s lives. “We all had dogs and started telling some lost dog stories,” he said. “Then we did research, looked at the numbers and saw a real need out there.”
The company developed and sells the Spotlight GPS tracking device, a $249.99 device that requires a monthly service charge, but will help you find lost pets more easily than ever before.
The locator includes a lifetime enrollment with the American Kennel Club’s recovery unit.
Its features include a bright LED spotlight that a user can activate by texting it. A GeoFence feature alerts the owner if the animal strays from a designated geographical area.
During a hunt for a lost animal, users get text messages giving them turn by turn directions to help find it.
“The device had already saved dogs lives,” says Newton.
The company recently released a free iPhone app that allows users to track an animal in real time. “Your phone has GPS and so does the dog, so you always know where you are in relative to the dog” using the app, Newton says.
Newton tells us the seven employee company is funded by private angel investors and is looking for additional funding from a mix of individual investors and angel funds.
We think the company has good reason to expect success. “One of three dogs go missing at one point or another and Americans spend more money on catfood than on baby food,” Newton says. –By Allan Maurer
www.spotlightgps.com
To reach TechJournal South Editor Allan Maure email: allan at TechJournalSouth dot com.
Tags: Cary, NC, PAW, pet locator, Spotlight GPS locator, Startups
Posted in Carolinas, Company Profile, Internet/New Media, IT, North Carolina, Telecommunications | Comments Off
Monday, February 22nd, 2010
By Allan Maurer
 CHARLOTTE, NC – In June 2002, AvidXchange founders Mike Praeger and David Miller made a sales call on Richard Ross of Branch Properties in Atlanta to discuss their real estate software product.
“Ross told us he had no interest in our purchasing product,” they say. But, he said he loved their invoice payment module and would buy that if they would sell it separtely.
“We studied that idea carefully during the long drive back to Charlotte, or at least as carefully as you can study any idea riding at 90 mph with take-out in one hand and a cell phone in the other,” they write in their brief company history.
That led to their AvidInvoice product for the real estate sector and the then rapid growth of Charlotte-based AvidXchange.
The company is one of 60 innovative Southeast firms presenting at the upcoming Southeast Venture Conference (SEVC) in Tysons Corner, VA, Wednesday and Thursday Feb. 24-25 (see:www.seventure.org for more information).
Expanded client base
The 80 employee company has since expanded its client base to include retail, residential real estate, banking, insurance, and education, says Amy Richardson, director of marketing.
The company’s product automates a client’s payroll process with goal of helping them move away from paper, Richardson tells us. She says about 50 percent of its customer base has managed that so far.
Invoices are put into the AvidInvoice system and according to the client’s business rules, go through an approval sequence. After final approval, the invoices go to accounting and are
2009 was best year ever
Last year the company rolled out its newest product, AvidBill, which lets a client’s vendors go to a Web portal and submit bills through pdf files.
Richardson tells us “Last year was our best ever.” One client saved $800,000 a month every month the first year using our streamlined process,” she says.
She says among other factors in the firm’s success, it’s implementation process has become faster-requiring as little as a wee-and often can now be done remotely.
www.Avidxchange.com
Tags: accounting, accounts payable, AvidXchange, Charlotte, invoices, NC, SaaS, SEVC, software
Posted in Carolinas, Company Profile, Events, IT, North Carolina | Comments Off
Friday, February 19th, 2010
By Allan Maurer
 FORT MYERS, FL – When you make a call to your cable company, bank or a retail service center these day, you’re likely to be advised the call may be recorded. But now, rather than having a customer service exec evaluate a statistically insignificant number of calls, software can analyze 100 percent, says Terry Leahy, CEO of CallMiner.
Often, he says, supervisors in a contact center listen to maybe 5 percent of the total calls coming in. “They derive hugely important assumptions from that limited sampling of calls and the statistical validity is almost guaranteed to be wrong,” he adds.
“Our Eureka technology offers and enterprise the ability to automate that process and analyze 100 percent of the calls.”
Searchable by key words
The calls are searchable by key words, can pinpoint angry speech and when competitors names are mentioned. It helps clients correct operational and customer service problems quickly.
CallMiner has as customers the largest contact center in the world, the largest contact center system in North America, four of the top seven largest cable television system operators and other Fortune 500 firms. Its clients include Continental Airline, Daimler Financial Services, and Comcast, among others.
One of the largest utilities in the United Kingdom uses CallMiner and has dramatically improved its customer satisfaction by listening more effectively to what their customers are telling them, says Leahy.
He says a large software service company did a major upgrade to its core product last year and used CallMiner’s technology to listen to their customers talk about the effectiveness of the product.
“They got early warning of product efficiencies and operational problems in control centers. They saved millions and had one of the best product launches in the history of the company because for the first time they were able to hear what customers did and didn’t like,” he says.
Negative trends can destroy a brand overnight
Leahy says that Enterprises are waking up to the reality that in an era of social networking, a negative customer service trend can destroy a brand over night. “The market is beginning to take this seriously and our revenue will double again this year,” he says.
CallMiner has raised $18 million in venture backing, including a $5 million C round last year. Investors include Intersouth Partners, Sigma Partners, and the intelligence community’s venture arm, InQtel.
Leahy says it looks as if the company will raise another round. CallMiner is one of 60 innovative companies presenting at the Southeast Venture Conference at the Ritz Carlton in Tysons Corner, Virginia, Feb. 24-25. (See: www.seventure.org for more information).
www.callminer.com
Tags: call analytics, CallMiner, Florida, SEVC presenting companies, Virginia
Posted in Company Profile, Events, Internet/New Media, Potomac, Telecommunications, Virginia | Comments Off
Thursday, February 18th, 2010
By Paul Merrill, founder, How to Geek On
 CHARLOTTE, NC – TweetMyJobs is a Twitter-based service that helps job seekers find positions by posting job openings. The company launched in March 2009. I recently had the opportunity to chat with TweetMyJobs founder Gary Zukowski. TechJournal South last spoke with Zukowski in April of last year regarding his then newly formed company. In the Fall, TweetMyJobs participated in TechMedia’s Internet Summit.
We asked Zukowski to tell how the company’s service is faring with social media use soaring.
What can you tell us about revenue growth, your customer base and users?
It’s been great. We didn’t really start making money until July or August of last year (2009). As with most startups, we gave a lot away for free in the beginning to generate interest and traffic.
We’ve signed a number of Fortune 100 companies that are looking for a social media solution. The latest ones are Sears, Kmart, UAV (makers of the Predator drone), and McDonald’s. Revenue is growing. Like most startups we’re spending it as fast as it comes in on Marketing, Advertising, and PR. But it’s definitely growing.
How many employers are using TweetMyJOBS?
About 1200 companies have job postings open with us, which account for about 300,000 jobs.
A lot of people want to know how you can base your business on another that does not itself have a clear business model (Twitter).
Twitter knows the value of their service is in the data it handles. The fact that Twitter is the only platform in the world that has real-time accessibility to live data that can be trended and analyzed on a global scale is valuable.
News stories come out on Twitter first. You hear it on Twitter 1-2 hours before networks pick it up and twitter can sell that data because it’s fresher. Twitter actually turned a slight profit because of the Microsoft and Google deals they made last year.In regard to their business model, I think Twitter is just biding their time.
Investors were willing to invest $100M for 10% of the company. They are betting that Twitter will either turn a profit or that it will sell for billions of dollars.
Where do you see TweetMyJOBS going?
Acquisitions are a logical step for us. The platform is there, the customers are there, and the tool is probably the most effective on twitter right now.
TweetMyJobs would probably be a nice extra bullet on a larger corporation’s product line. So that’s definitely an option. We’ve spoken to several companies about that. The other option is to go get some investors and really blow this thing wide open. So that’s an option as well.
We haven’t committed to either option. We’re in a good place right now. We’re the market leader on Twitter for recruiting solutions. We tweet more jobs than anyone else, we’re global, and we have more channels than anyone.
Do you see this including other social media: FacebookMyJOBS? BuzzMyJOBS?
We keep track of all the new things that are coming out. We’ve looked into Buzz. It has a way to go. Google makes cool products, but Buzz is still in Gmail. So it’s not like we’re going to be able to tweet jobs to Buzz – it’s a Gmail-based platform.
To me, Twitter is the best platform for tweeting jobs. I don’t see Facebook taking the place of that as far as tweeting jobs effectively.
We are looking into other platforms. Mobile is a big one. There will be a lot more business applications being done in the mobile space.
Paul Merrill is a Career Coach for Technology Professionals and the Founder of How to Geek On. The full interview can be found at the How to Geek On Web site.
Tags: employment sites, Gary Zukowski, How to Geek On, mobile, social networking, TweetMYJOBS, twitter
Posted in Carolinas, Company Profile, Internet/New Media, IT, North Carolina, TechJobs, Telecommunications | Comments Off
Thursday, February 18th, 2010
 DNA By Allan Maurer
RESTON, VA – Parabon NanoLabs has successfully targeted deadly brain cancer tumor cells in mice using its designer molecules, which it can build atom by atom. Eventually, the technology could lead to more effective treatments that may do away with side effects for the type of brain cancer that killed Sen. Edward Kennedy, as well as other types of tumors.
“The trouble with most anti-cancer chemo-therapies is that they target any rapidly dividing cell line,” says Steve Armentrout, CEO and founder of Parabon Computation, the Reston-based firm that spun-out Parabon NanoLabs in 2008. Cells lining the stomach and hair cells are also rapidly dividing types. That’s why chemotherapy causes nausea and you lose your hair,” he explains.
Parabon NanoLabs is one of 60 highly innovative companies presenting at the upcoming Southeast Venture Conference in Tysons Corner, VA, Feb. 24-25 (See: www.seventure.org for more information). The company received grants under $500,000 and seeks to raise $1 million.
Wins NSF Grant
Parabon NanoLabs won a National Science Foundation Grant to demonstrate the viability of a new class of anticancer molecules that are engineered to automatically self-assemble from interlocking strands of synthetic DNA.
Parabon’s compounds are deliberately engineered to solve specific therapeutic goals using an approach that effectively replaces the current paradigm of “drug discovery” with that of “drug design.”
By affixing molecular subcomponents (e.g., antibodies, pharmaceuticals and enzymes) to strands of DNA that are pre-sequenced to attach to one another to form composite constructs, Parabon NanoLabs researchers produce therapeutics that are able to precisely target and destroy individual cancer cells, without damaging surrounding healthy tissue.
Parabon NanoLabs has advanced both the fabrication technology required to produce such therapeutics and the computational tools to design them.
Armentrout tells us the next step in the company’s brain cancer compound is to test payloads and determine their effectiveness. It is seeking a Phase II NSF grant to pursue that research.
Since it is a platform technology the company can branch out into other indications downstream.
Uses grid computing
Parabon Computation, NanoLabs’ parent company, uses its Frontier Grid platform to harness the idle cycles of thousands of computers to tackle difficult computation problems—nanotech among them, says Armentrout.
Grid systems use otherwise idle computer processing cycles to crunch small parts of big problems on many machines.
Parabon NanoLabs has developed a CAD (computer-aided design) application, called inSēquio, which facilitates the design and sequencing of therapeutic nanostructures by harnessing the computational power of the grid.
The company has also won a Department of Homeland Security (DNS) Small Business Innovation Research Grant to demonstrate the effectiveness of its SNP chip (snip chip), a briefcase-size biometrics device that will process a DNA sample and determine identity or kinship with an accuracy of 99.99 percent, in under 45 minutes, at a cost of less than $50.
Many applications possbile
The company says the device could have enormous commercial value across the homeland security, law enforcement, and defense industries.
The DNS says rapid DNA-based screening will reduce the fraud in asylum, refugee and overseas adoptions cases allowing DHS to focus on processing legitimate applications.
“Beyond DHS’ needs for kinship analysis, a rapid, low-cost DNA-based biometric will have broad applications in mass-casualty situations, reunification of family members following mass evacuations, identification of missing persons, rapid processing of crime-scene and suspect DNA and various scientific and educational uses.” Christopher A. Miles, DNS biometrics program manager, says.
Parabon NanoLabs says the technology and resultant nanostructures it can make have potentially limitless applications, ranging from detergent additives to next-generation electronics.
The ability to precisely manipulate matter at the nanoscale (it takes 24.5 million nanometers to make an inch) is expected to usher in the Nanotechnology Revolution, which the National Science Foundation estimates as having a market potential of $1 trillion by 2015.
Parabon NanoLabs is one of two companies with innovative nanotechnology products presenting at this years Southeast Venture Conference. BlueNano, which makes nanotech materials with a wide range of applications, is also presenting.
For TechJournal South’s previous story on Parabon Computation, see: Parabon Computation puts idle processing power to work
Online:
www.parabon.com
www.parabon-nanolabs.com
Tags: cancer therapy, grid computing, nanotechnology, Parabon Coomputation, Parabon NanoLabs, Reston, Southeast Venture Conference, VA
Posted in Company Profile, Events, Government/Defense, IT, Nanotech, Potomac, Virginia, Washington, DC | Comments Off
Monday, February 15th, 2010
By Allan Maurer
 ASHEVILLE, NC – One of the most important things to a graphic artist is getting work seen. Creative Allies, a startup founded by the folks who created Asheville-based Music Allies, connects artists with jobs from famous musicians, organizations, and others via its online showcase, helping them make money and gain exposure through high profile projects.
Sean O’Connell, CEO of CreativeAllies and president of Music Allies, tells us the company still has funds left from its seed round but will attend the upcoming Southeast Venture Conference in Tysons Corner, VA, Feb. 24-25 (see: www.seventure.org for more information) to set the stage for raising an A round, probably in 2011.
The CreativeAllies Web site allows artists who sign up to create and upload content for bands, rock stars, organizations, and brands. “They can upload designs for posters, packaging, tee-shirts, and logos,” says O’Connell.
The company just launched its beta application a few weeks ago, but is already signing up designers from all over the world.
“We’re getting some brilliant designs,” O’Connell says, “and musicians are using it. They’re happy because they’re getting incredible quality work.”
A quick scan of art uploaded—on spec—for musicians bears that out. The designs for posters, tees, CD covers and other art is striking and professional. Musicians looking for art include Ani DiFranco, who is seeking poster/flyers for each city of her upcoming tour.
It has a deal with PASTE magazine, the music journal with the third highest circulation behind only Rolling Stone and Spin, to have CreativeAllies design its covers.
“We’re creating the opportunity of a lifetime to do these high profile things through these relationships,” O’Connell says. He notes that the relationships he has built through his other firm, Music Allies, with top recording and touring musicians and major music events such as the Boonaroo festival, have provided Creative Allies with high end connections early on.
Music Allies has worked with Waxploitation, Joan Osborne, Patty Loveless, the Crash Test Dummies, Jack Johnson, the Black Seeds, Mason Jennings, Tennman Records, Martin Sexton, Sia, and Aimee Mann, in addition to DiFranco and Bonnaroo.
If musicians or organizations—which include the Bob Moog Foundation, which is seeking a poster design, and even local PTAs—want to use a given graphic work, they license it from the artist for $80. Creative Allies takes a commission from the money, which the buyer pays for on the site with a credit card.
But once up on the Web, the art works for the designer and the potential buyer, providing considerable promotional value, O’Connell notes.
Widespread access to PCs and graphic design software means that many talented artists are looking for an outlet, O’Connell says. “If they’re uploading art for a PTA in North Carolina, that means that if we provide the opportunity, it won’t be just the sexy jobs people design for.”
O’Connell says the company sees the education market as a strong future focus and CreativeAllies is already forging relationships with a number of institutions, integrating it with curriculums. Some design schools, he says, even want to use it as a recruiting tool.
The company expects to have its first deals with schools inked by the time it comes to the Southeast Venture Conference, even though the company has not yet done any marketing, O’Connell says.
The reason they’ll be talking with venture capitalists at the SEVC and otherwise, O’Connell says, is that eventually CreativeAllies wants to open its doors to every industry and from corporations to the lawyer who needs business cards.
Beyond that, it might expand into 3D prototyping of products for businesses, he adds.
Online: www.creativeallies.com ; www.musicallies.com; www.seventure.org
Tags: Creative Allies, SEVC presenting companies, showcase for graphic artists
Posted in Carolinas, Company Profile, Events, Internet/New Media, North Carolina | Comments Off
Friday, February 12th, 2010
By Allan Maurer
 BETHESDA, MD – There is a lot of Enterprise Resource Management software in the market, admits Doug Johnson, Acumatica’s vice president of marketing and business development. But Acumatica is distinct in two ways, he says. It was built from the ground up to operate in the cloud, and it suits moderate-sized businesses that have grown beyond Quickbooks but don’t need expensive solutions such those from SAS or Oracle.
The 30-employee company was founded in 2006 and raised “several million dollars” from Cisco-backed Almaz Capital Russia Fund I, according to reports, in addition to private funding. The company has software development operations in Russia.
Acumatica delivers a complete set of business applications with dashboards, reporting tools, integrated document management, centralized security, and powerful customization tools.
All applications are web-based, which means that users with appropriate privileges can access the system from any computer or device using all common web browsers. The server software can be installed on client premises or hosted in a datacenter.
Johnson that offering the technology on a Software as a Service basis in the cloud allows company’s to deploy it from anywhere.
And he says, it means, “You can grow as fast as you need or shrink it in bad times if you need to.”
It also offers the software suite via a traditional license.
It’s financial features are good for mid-sized businesses that have outgrown Quickbooks type solutions, but are not ready for the expensive an SAS or Oracle product.
Acumatica sells through value-added resellers and Johnson says the company’s placement with VARS “Has been phenomenal.” It has from 10 to 15 deployments now and expects more as trains new VARS.
Johnson says development of the product is ongoing as the company adds new features. “We’ll do more modules such as a fixed assets module and a payroll module.”
Acumatica is one of 60 innovative companies selected to present at the upcoming Southeast Venture Conference in Tysons Corner, VA. (See: www.seventure.org) for more information.
Online: www.acumatica.com
Tags: Acumatica, cloud computing, ERP software, SEVC
Posted in Company Profile, Events, IT, Maryland, Potomac | Comments Off
Thursday, February 11th, 2010
 MEMPHIS, TN – Several years ago, Ramin Homayouni, a molecular biologist at the University of Memphis found that when he ran experiments he had a problem that many others working with genetics share. He generated huge amounts of genetic data, but understanding how the genes worked together required poring over tons of scientific papers. That led to the creation of Computable Genomixs, which has developed what it calls “Google for scientists.”
Homayouni founded the company in 2007 with Michael Berry, a professor and information retrieval expert at The University of Tennessee-Knoxville. Computable Genomix created the GeneIndexer, a Web-based tool that helps uncover the biological significance of associated or co-regulated genes.
A search engine for scientists
“It’s a search engine for scientists,” explains CEO Brad Silver. “We can compress what would normally be months of reading into minutes. It reads the literature and allows the researcher to drill through hundreds of genes to find the handful for further study.”
The tool finds relationships between genes that are explicit in the scientific literature, but also uncovers novel and implicit information.
The tool is based on artificial intelligence research that developed the backbone for it in the 1980s. It’s the same process that SAT planned to use for computer grading of SAT essays, Silver says.
The need for the product is clear, Silver notes. Scientists are faced with “an embarrassment of riches. They have so much data now they have a tough time doing anything with it.”
Scientists face information overload
An industry working group did a survey of its members and when asked what their biggest problem was, 60 percent said bioinformatics—the ability to analyze all their data. Only 40 percent said funding—which is a telling statistic, considering the difficult of raising life sciences funding.
We used to cover biotech for several online and print tech publications, and we constantly heard the same thing. There is a wealth of genetic and biological research information, but digging meaning out of it is daunting because of the very enormity of the databases.
Computable Genomix already has a handful of paying customers who include the National Institutes of Health Library and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
Used to hunt cancer causing genes
Researchers are already using GeneIndexer to find both genes that cause cancer and those that inhibit tumor growth.
The three-employee company is currently self-funded and is looking for about $1 million in backing. It is one of 60 innovative companies selected to present at the upcoming Southeast Venture Conference in Tysons Corner, VA, Feb. 24-25 (see: www.seventure.org for more information).
Silver says that while it’s good for a company to have a tight focus area, “We’re only limited by creativity as to where we can take this next.”
www.computablegenomix.com
Tags: Computable Genomix, genetic search engine, google for scientists, SEVC
Posted in Company Profile, Tennessee, University Tech | Comments Off
Wednesday, February 10th, 2010
By Allan Maurer
 HUNTSVILLE, AL – The world’s machines are starting to talk to each other—and their human overseers. Wireless networks are being used to monitor and control everything from building automation (heating, AC, lighting) to factory equipment to medical devices and security systems.
Synapse Wireless says it wants its SNAP software to “become to machines what MS DOS was to PCs—the de facto standard for networking machine to machine communications,” says Paul Brasher, CFO of Synapse.
What do these networks do? They tell a manager if a piece of equipment on the factory floor is running too hot or vibrating too much. They’ll alert a building manager to a problem with the air conditioning.
Their current and potential uses are so varied across so many consumer and industrial sectors that the business of wireless networks for machine to machine communication has been estimated to reach $30 billion this year.
Looking for another round
Founded in 2007, Synapse Wireless raised $8.5 million from local investors and the Hickory Venture Group. Later this year it plans to raise another round of from $5 million to $10 million.
Synapse is one of 60 highly innovative companies selected to present at the upcoming Southeast Venture Conference at Tysons Corner, VA, Feb. 24-25. (See: www.seventure.org for more information. The events generally sell-out, so it’s a good idea to register now if you plan on attending).
Brasher tells us that the secret sauce that makes the Synapse product different is “Our software.”
He says it can also run on any radio frequency layer, “Which is unique.”
Programmable over the air
Most currently available products for wireless M to M communication require extensive embedded programming skills (typically involving C/C++ and assembly language) to develop and deploy applications that run on the nodes forming the network.
By comparison, a wireless network based on the SNAP software stack is instant-on, self-forming, and self-healing (SNAP is the abbreviation for Synapse Network Application Protocol).
Creating apps is efficient
The process of creating applications to run on the nodes forming a SNAP based network is fast, efficient, and does not require embedded programming skills.
Users can administer and manage a SNAP based network without actually having to know anything about wireless networks
This approach makes wireless technology accessible to a much broader range of users.
“It lets people monitor and control machines, sensors, and appliances locally and over the Internet. It’s peer to peer so it doesn’t require routers and it can be reprogrammed over the air,” explains Brasher.
The company has 26 patents pending on the technology.
Its partners include Panasonic and California Eastern Labs and the company expects to make announcements about deals with several silicon vendors in the spring.
The overall market for machine to machine communications is projected to grow to $13 billion by 2013.
Online: www.synapse-wireless.com
Tags: machine to machine communications, SEVC, Synapse Wireless, wirelss M to M networks
Posted in Alabama, Company Profile, Events, Internet/New Media, IT | Comments Off
Tuesday, February 9th, 2010
By Allan Maurer
 Solar cells are only one product Blue Nano materials improve CHARLOTTE, NC –Blue Nano does not tell anyone how it makes its high nanotechnology materials that help manufacture durable fuel cells, longer lasting batteries and better solar panels. “No one can match our quality and volume,” explains David Himebaugh, company president. “We can make more material in a month than anyone else can in a year.”
Although it is focused on the energy sector, its nanotech materials have a wide variety of other uses and potential uses in automotive, adhesives, photonics, electronics, health care, and other sectors. Blue Nano’s unique manufacturing process makes its products more cost effective for many uses, Himebaugh says.
Working in the world of the very small—there are 25.4 million nanometers in one inch—requires quite specialized knowledge. Even the physical properties of materials change at that ultra tiny scale. “Inert things become combustible, transparent ones become opaque. The rules are different,” explains Himebaugh.
The company’s Chief Technology Officer, Chang Chen developed the original process while in school at North Carolina State University, but Blue Nano has added many additional scientists and advanced the process considerably since the company was founded in 2007.
“The process is key,” he says. “We’re able to customize lengths and diameters and do it all in very high quality and high volume, so it’s cost effective.”
The company can take any of the natural elements it works with, copper, gold, silver, and so forth and cost-effectively create more surface area on them at the nanoscale. “That’s what we found the key to doing,” Himebaugh says.
A manufacturer using a gram of nanotech silver powder in a product could gain 3,000 times more surface area with a gram of Blue Nano’s silver wires, he says. That allows more efficient chemical reactions and lets the manufacturer use less material.
Blue Nano’s CAT-110 fuel cell catalyst begins with a thin, sponge-like membrane made out of gold. Platinum is then evenly coated across the top of the sponge at a thickness of only one nanometer. “Below that, you’re at the atomic level,” Himebaugh notes.
“Our stuff is good, durable, and less expensive,” he adds. Among other things, it increases fuel cell power density and far exceeds the Department of Energy’s performance standards for 2015. “Fuel cells are going to be powering quite a few things, from laptops to vehicles,” says Himebaugh, “and we can bring that much closer to happening, much quicker than people thought.”
The 15-employee company is self-funded. It sells its materials to original equipment manufacturers. It is one of 60 innovative companies presenting at the upcoming Southeast Venture Conference in Tysons Corner, VA, Feb. 24-25 (see: www.seventure.org).
Online: www.bluenanoinc.com
Tags: batteries, Blue Nano, fuel cells, nanotechnology, SEVC, solar cells
Posted in Carolinas, Company Profile, Energy, Events, Nanotech, North Carolina | Comments Off
Monday, February 8th, 2010
By Allan Maurer
 BETHESDA, MD – Although there are plenty of enterprise resource planning software companies, what sets Acumatica apart, says Doug Johnson, it’s vice president of business development, is that it was specifically designed to run in the cloud.
Founded in 2006, the 30-employee company sells an integrated set of web-based accounting, ERP, and CRM software that can be deployed on premise, hosted at a datacenter, or run on a cloud computing platform.
The software streamlines business tasks such as accounting, financial reporting, customer management, customer invoicing, vendor payments, expense reporting, inventory management and more.
But the advantage of operating the software in the cloud, notes Johnson, “Is that you can grow it as fast as you need to or shrink it if times are bad. It’s like Salesforce—no client software is required. Everything can be done using browsers.”
Offering it through value-added resellers, the company sells both a Software as a Service model that costs $980 a month, and a licensed version for an unlimited number of users for $15,000.
Johnson tells us its financial features are particularly good for a mid-sized business where using something like Quickbooks is too low end, but SAP or Oracle are too expensive. “We’re in the middle,” Johnson says.
The company raised money from private investors and also received an investment from Cisco Systems’ backed Almaz Capital Russia Fund I late in 2009.
Alexander (Sasha) Galitsky, co-founder and managing partner of Almaz Capital Partners said at the time, “The investment in Acumatica reflects our ongoing support and professional interest in cloud technologies and associated business opportunities. Acumatica has compelling and differentiated technologies, a strong and growing customer base, and opportunities to further expand its core offering and solve critical ERP and CRM needs for the middle market. We seek proven technologies that are uniquely applied to solve global market needs and believe Acumatica has the potential to be a game changer.”
Acumatica is one of 60 innovative companies selected to present at the upcoming Southeast Venture Conference in Tysons Corner, VA, Feb. 24-25. (See www.seventure.org).
Online: www.acumatica.com
Tags: Acumatica, cloud computing, ERP, SaaS, SEVC, software
Posted in Company Profile, Events, Internet/New Media, IT, Maryland, Potomac, Uncategorized | Comments Off
Thursday, February 4th, 2010
By Allan Maurer
 Kirk Cameron, CEO, founder of MiserWare BLACKSBURG, VA – By reducing the energy used by servers and computers without shutting them down, MiserWare software can save about $100 a year directly and another $100 on secondary cooling costs per server, says CEO and founder Kirk Cameron. For a data center with 10,000 servers, those savings add up fast, he notes.
Other software power management systems offer energy savings by shutting computers down when they’re not being used. But many data centers operate 24/7 at nearly 100 percent utilitzation.
MiserWare’s patent-pending ISPM technology manages the power consumed by the components (e.g. CPU) inside a server. MiserWare software can deliver 25 percent or more energy savings to your systems without the need to power servers off.
Even fully utilized systems can realize these breakthrough cost savings without compromise to service-levels, throughput, or performance, Cameron tells us.
MiserWare offers two software products, MicroMiser for single systems and ServerMiser ES for enterprise-class network deployments in a data center.
Data centers consume a massive amount of power, from 10 Megawatts to 30 Megawatts. A small to medium-sized conventional power plant generates about 300 MegaWatts, so a single data center can pull 10 percent of its output.
Cameron, a professor at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg where the technology was developed, says financial services providers encouraged commercialization of the technology and he founded the company in 2007.
The company received more than $600,000 in backing from Valhalla Partners, Virginia’s Center for Innovative Technology, and D’archAngels, an angel investment group formed by former government security people that gets our vote for the most creatively named such organization.
It is one of 60 innovative firms chosen to present at the upcoming Southeast Venture Conference in Tysons Corner, VA, Feb. 24-25. (See: www.seventure.org for more information).
MiserWare wants to raise about $4 million and may have actually closed the current round by the time it presents at the conference. “But you never know when you’ll need more and the name of the game is connections,” says Cameron.
We’ve been using the free beta version available for download on the Miserware Web site. According to the data box that pops up once it’s installed, I’ll save 157.9 Kilowatt hours yearly, enough to power 21 electric furnices, a refrigerator, and an incandescent bulb for an hour. It will save me about $18.94 on this PC alone. It reduces my carbon footprint by 214.7 pounds, as much as four trees.
According to the company, it will increase battery life on a laptop in addition to its other effects.
We’re going to install it on all our Windows PCs.
You can download the free version here: www.miserware.com
Tags: clean energy, data centers, MiserWare, PCs, SEVC, Southeast Venture Conference
Posted in Company Profile, Energy, IT, Virginia | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010
 Michael Poulton, CEO, co-founder of Twiigg By Allan Maurer
RESTON, VA – So how many places did you put content online today? Facebook? Twitter? Flickr? And where else did that content go? Reston-based Twiigg has developed a software platform to help you manage all of your distributed content and maintain its privacy, whether you are an Enterprise or a consumer.
Michael Poulton, CEO and co-founder tells us the company, founded in May 2009, plans to provide a platform that will help users search, manage and share their digital content across sites and create a trail of digital breadcrumbs showing exactly where it is all shared.
Poulton says the company raised money from friends and family, which Internet reports says was about $25,000. It wants to raise a $500,000 round and is one of 60 innovative Southeastern companies presenting at the upcoming Southeast Venture Conference in Tysons Corner, VA, Feb. 24-25 (see: www.seventure.org for more information).
Stay secure
Poulton explains that the company plans to make it easy to securely share data with other people, websites and companies,sync them across multiple computers, access them from anywhere, and ultimately keep them safe.
The platform combines search visualization, digital content management and data security.
It will sell the app on a cloud-based subscription model.
The idea, Poulton tells us, is that “People are open about sharing pieces of personal information on Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks, but they don’t have the ability to see what’s happening to it. So how do you track and control all of this shared information?”
The team that started the company wrote a business plan for the Mid Atlantic Business Plan Competition and was a semi-finalist in April. “We didn’t win,” says Poulton, “but we were a strong contender and the judges said we had a compelling story and should really do this. So we formalized the plan and started developing the product.”
Beta planned for September
The application is currently undergoing a small alpha test and expects to launch in beta by September this year.
Poulton says the company has created what it considers “A good revenue ecosystem” based on premium features and partner relationships. It has applied for a patent on the platform.
Ability to delete items key
He describes the platform as “A unique visualization engine, an orbital sphere with different end points, people, Web sites, file types. You can use it to quickly search and see all the word files you are sharing and where they’re located.
“If you take a photo with your iPhone, you’ll be able to drag and drop the photo into your Twiigg Web browser and get suggestions of people you may want to share it with based on your previous sharing. It can automatically populate it on Flickr or Facebook, etc.”
But a key advantage of the product, he says, “Is you can also remove that item from those sites.”
That “bi-directional” function is a reason the company thinks enterprise customers will be interested. “It’s something they’re very concerned about,” says Poulton.
Online: www.twiigg.com
TechJournal South Editor Allan Maurer can be reached at: allan at TechJournalSouth dot com.
Posted in Company Profile, Events, Internet/New Media, Potomac, Virginia | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010
By Allan Maurer
WASHINGTON, DC – Maurice McKenzie, founder and president of Yadahome, realized after eight years as an equity stock analyst following media and Internet stocks, that it was time to pursue his ambition to start a business of his own. “I looked at what I was passionate about and at what I understood and knew that starting a company in the Internet space was something I would be good at,” he says.
Looking for an unmet need, he found that while digital business productivity tools abound, the same was not true for families. The result? In May 2008 he launched Yadahome, a set of productivity apps for families. Those include online and mobile apps for shared to do lists, grocery lists, calendars, a journal, recipes, photos, contacts, a household budgeting feature, and more.
Clever features
The apps include some clever features, we think.
The household budgeting tool, for instance, allows users to easily estimate their grocery bills before they reach the check-out aisle. This new site feature allows users to reconcile their grocery budget to their actual grocery bills and helps members keep track of their grocery expenditures throughout the year.
The grocery coupon feature alerts users when coupons matching items on their grocery shopping list become available.
Currently, McKenzie is self-funding the startup, but would like to raise about $1 million in capital. Yadahome is one of 60 innovative companies selected to present at the fourth annual Southeast Venture Conference at the Ritz Carlton in Tysons Corner, Virginia, Feb. 24-25 (see: www.seventure.org for more information).
All of Yadahome’s apps can be shared among family members. “If you download it to your device and your spouse does the same, you can create a network to share your to do list and other apps in real time,” says McKenzie.
Free and subscription versions available
The Yadahome Web site has about 18,000 members now, most using the free service. It also has several hundred customers paying for the subscription version with an additional set if “more robust” features for a $10 annual membership.
McKenzie says the company feels the iPhone version of the product is key. “Lots of people create lists on their computers, but no one takes their PC to the store with them,” he says.
The iPhone app is free to use for seven days, after which it will no longer synchronize with the Web site or share. It will retain any information the user put in. That way, if a user doesn’t see value right away, but decides to sign up months down the road, his information is still available.
“We’ve begun to see more traction in paid subscriptions since the refined mobile app launched in August,” says McKenzie. He says a final version incorporating user feedback is near completion.
McKenzie notes that if you look through the iTunes store for mobile apps, “You’ll see dozens of calendars, to do lists, grocery lists. But not one lets you build a network and share across it in the consumer market.”
Online: www.yadahome.com
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TechJournal South editor Allan Maurer can be reached at: allan@techjournalsouth.com
Tags: Blackberry apps, coupon finder, family calendar, grocery list, Internet, iPhone apps, SEVC, Yadahome
Posted in Company Profile, Events, Internet/New Media, IT, Potomac, Washington, DC | Comments Off
Monday, February 1st, 2010
By Allan Maurer
 FALLS CHURCH, VA – Many companies spend a significant amount of cash to woo customers, partners, and excutives with tickets to the big game. Spotlight Ticket Management Solutions helps firms determine if all that money spent on hospitality suites, baseball, football, hockey and basketball tickets is delivering any return on investment.
Founded in 2007 as the Corporate Events Group, Spotlight is an Internet portal designed ot track, report and justify–or not–corporate sports marketing expenses.
Company Vice President Joe Greiner tells us the company’s software helps centralize and automate everything to do with corporate event tickets and events.
Automates previously manual process
“It helps companies move from a manual process to a much more efficient automatic process,” he says.
“We determine some sort of ROI a company can look at,” he explains. “We can tell them, you used 85 percent of your Yankee tickets, 65 percent for your top clients. They helped influence or drive X amount of revenue. Or, you spent $100,000 on Yankee’s tickets and they influenced revenue of $10 million.”
Conversely, we might say you spent 85 percent on internal use for negligible benefit.”
One thing Spotlight finds, he says, is that many companies are at risk of leaving as much as $100,000 of tax benefits on the table, or spending money on wasted tickets.
Partly that’s because many companies use a manual process–often no more than an excel document–to track what they’re doing with their sports marketing.
Some clients saved $1M
Grenier says Spotlight has helped some clients save $1 million in tax savings and employee time alone.
Spotlight is expanding its efforts to work with teams, leagues and venues as well as corporate clients. It currently has more than 200 corporate clients and is working with 25 teams and venues.
The subsection of the market Spotlight sells to is worth $5 billion a year.
Internally funded with no outside investors, the company, which ranges from 15 to 20 employees, is one of 60 innovative firms presenting at the fourth annual Southeast Venture Conference at the Ritz Carlton in Tysons Corner Virginia, Feb. 24-25 (see: www.seventure.org for more information).
Online: www.spotlighttms.com
Tags: corporate sports marketing, profile, SEVC, Spotlight Ticket Mangement, Virginia
Posted in Company Profile, Internet/New Media, IT, Potomac, Virginia | Comments Off
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