The Austin Technology Incubator (ATI), a part of the IC² Institute of The University of Texas at Austin is pleased to announce the addition of Robert Reeves to head up its IT and Wireless Portfolio as Director.  Reeves joins ATI after being part of the incubator as a portfolio company, working with ATI to take Phurnace, the company he co-founded with Daniel Nelson, from inception to acquisition by BMC, in less than five years.

Reeves will primarily focus on bringing his real world entrepreneurial expertise to ATI member companies in the IT space, as well as supporting ATI wireless companies.  He, along with the full ATI team, focuses on aiding in market validation, product development, talent acquisition and fundraising efforts.  Reeves joins a strong ATI team that has 22 years of proven experience working with over 200 start-up companies, helping them raise over $750 million in capital.  Over just the past three years, 50 ATI member companies have received over $75 million in funding, and ATI alumni companies have had over $300 million in positive exists through acquisitions by large technology players such as IBM and BMC, which acquired Reeves’ company Phurnace.

Reeves, along with co-founder Daniel Nelson, brought their start-up, based on a unique Java development tool, to ATI after winning UT-Austin’s business plan competition.  Along with ATI, they grew and developed the company, solidifying the solutions, securing growth capital and bringing in experienced industry talent to help manage the business.  Phurnace was sold to BMC Software in 2009 for an 8x return to investors.  Phurnace Deliver, invented by Reeves, is an active product of BMC, providing middleware infrastructure management to companies such as Aetna, Bank of America and Wal-Mart.  

“My ATI experience was fantastic, and such a great success story all around of how the process should work, and what the results can be,” said Robert Reeves, Director, IT and Wireless Portfolio at the Austin Technology Incubator.  “The support that surrounds you and the energy in the halls is just infectious and I’m thrilled to be going back to ATI, to help pass on all I learned and experienced to other technology companies.” Beyond being an ATI portfolio company with Phurnace, Reeves was also an intern at ATI way back in the early 1990’s, so his ATI roots run deep.

The ATI IT Portfolio supports companies in as broad of categories as silicon metrology, chip architecture, server architecture, chip design and build tools, enterprise software, robot control systems, social network platforms, “enterprise 2.0” tools, gaming environment platforms, and “big data”/semantic web tools and platforms. There is also significant collaborative work with the Clean Energy and Bioscience portfolios.  Reeves will also provide support to ATI’s Wireless Portfolio, in concert with another new ATI addition, Kyle Cox, who leads ATI’s on campus activities, such as 3 Day Startup and the ATI-SEAL program (Student Entrepreneur Acceleration & Launch).  Reeves and Cox jointly replaced Bart Bohn, who formerly led these areas, and recently departed ATI to be COO of another ATI portfolio company, Ravel, which is focused on Big Data.

“I’m so thrilled to have Robert back at ATI, now on the “other side,” in a leadership role for our IT companies,” said Isaac Barchas, ATI Director.  “As we dive into our third decade, things are extremely bright at ATI.  We are growing our areas of focus and the value we provide, to levels that require expansion of our team and the addition of talent like Robert and Kyle Cox.  And we are watching our former colleagues move on to wonderful opportunities ATI helped foster, such as Bart’s role at the fast growing Ravel.”