Posts Tagged ‘ravel’

Ravel Acquired by W2O Group

Friday, April 20th, 2012

ATI member company Ravel, founded in 2010, is an enterprise-grade solutions company that derives hidden insights from big data. Yesterday, Ravel announced that it has been acquired by W2O Group, an independent network of complementary marketing, communications, and research and development firms. The purchase price of the acquisition was not disclosed.

W2O Group is acquiring Ravel’s big data analytics technology and pending patents, as well its founding team. Steve Blackmon, Ravel co-founder and VP Engineering, will be appointed as the new Director of Data Sciences at W2O Group. Zach Richardson, Ravel co-founder and VP Product, joins The Daily Dot, the hometown newspaper of the World Wide Web, as its first CTO. The entire Ravel development team will join W2O Group as full-time employees.

Blackmon and Richardson, with support from W2O Group and The Daily Dot, will continue to develop Ravel’s GoldenOrb, as directors of a not-for-profit to which all GoldenOrb intellectual property will be donated. GoldenOrb is a cloud-based open source project for massive-scale graph analysis, built upon best-of-breed software from the Apache Hadoop project modeled after Google’s Pregel architecture.

Ravel co-founder Bart Bohn was ATI’s information technology and wireless director from 2007 to 2011. He was also a founding mentor and board member of 3 Day Startup, MobileMondayAustin and Semantic Web Austin.

Ravel is the latest ATI software company to be acquired by a large competitor, joining other successful ATI alumni exits, such as IBM’s acquisition of Lombardi Software and BMC’s acquisition of Phurnace.

Read the full release at http://www.prweb.com/releases/2012/4/prweb9419258.htm.

 

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The Austin Technology Incubator’s Influence Continues to Permeate the Austin Startup Scene

Tuesday, March 6th, 2012

For the last 3 years, Stacey Higginbotham, GigaOm, has wrote about the up and coming Austin startups to watch for during SXSW and the Austin Startup Crawl. Of the list of 30 companies compiled in 2010, 2011 and 2012, 8 companies, notably more than 25 percent, are currently or have been connected in some way to the Austin Technology Incubator, a not-for-profit unit of the IC2 Institute of The University of Texas at Austin that harnesses business, government and academic resources to provide strategic counsel, operational guidance and infrastructure support to its member companies to help them transition from early stage ventures to successful technology businesses. Since its founding in 1989, ATI has worked with hundreds of companies, helping raise close to $1 Billion in investor capital.    

Here is the list of the ones to watch, a little background information and their connections to ATI:

Calxeda, a.k.a. Smooth-Stone, a successful ATI alumni company, offers a processor platform for hyperscale servers that will allow data centers to slash IT costs and energy consumption by as much as a factor of 10.  Calxeda, with its industry-disrupting ultra-low power processors powering servers and data centers, closed an impressive $48 million funding August 2010, and launch its first product with global impact via a partnership with Hewlett Packard November 2011.

GameSalad, a.k.a. Gendai Games, and successful alum of ATI, is an online community that empowers everyone to express and share their ideas through games. GameSalad provides a platform used by creators to rapidly design, publish and distribute original games that have been played by millions of people worldwide. It is currently the number one platform for iOS development and boasts 300,000 developers. 30,000 games have been built with the GameSalad Creator since its 2007 founding. Now at 60 employees and growing, all this was accomplished with just a little over $7 million funding since inception.

Ordoro participated in the SEAL program as UT Austin business students before joining ATI in 2010. Ordoro is a Web-based order and inventory manager. With just a login and a password, online retailers can use Ordoro to process orders, print shipping labels, drop-ship orders and track their real-time inventory at all times. Ordoro helps small and medium online retailers grow their business by spending less time processing orders, tracking inventory and dealing with confusing IT systems.

Ravel, an ATI member company, provides the tools to rapidly discover and integrate knowledge from disconnected data. Ravel’s KnowledgeStream and GoldenOrb products are used by company consultants and clients to acquire, transform, integrate, and utilize large data sets from enterprise databases and web sources.

Wheel InnovationZ, founded by serial entrepreneur Srini Gurrapu, CEO, and a new member of the Austin Technology Incubator, Wheel InnovationZ is privately funded, and still in stealth mode, with its 1.0 product in the hands of early adopter customers by summer 2012.  Wheel is building a Unified Application Store that helps enterprise manage the demands – and needs – of users accessing a variety of applications on a variety of devices.  Wheel will truly enable the ‘any app on any device’ vision with both local and cloud based access with a Unified Application Store enterprise management platform that reduces TCO, and improves security and productivity.

Hurricane Party, free mobile app that helps friends find, share, and create spontaneous parties; moving online experiences offline to make social networking more social, participated in ATI’s 3 Day Startup in 2010.

Macheen is a leading enabler of “Internet Included,” connected devices. Its multi-tenant cloud-based platform makes it easy to sell and market pre-connected devices that sustain profitable relationships with the consumers who buy them. Macheen enables new business models for device makers, retailers and network operators alike. Macheen CEO, Richard Schwartz, is on the Wireless Advisory Board formed in 2011, and was a featured speaker at ATI’s 2011 Texas Wireless Summit (TWS).

ATX Innovation, the company behind the TabbedOut app, participated in the ATI’s 2009 Wireless Seed Stage Forum (WSSF). The TabbedOut app is a secure and easy-to-use mobile payment solution that allows patrons to open, view and pay their tab with a smart phone, eliminating time waiting in line to close your tab and the need to even take your credit card out of your wallet, let alone give it to a stranger. TabbedOut is securely integrated directly into the merchant’s point of sale (POS) system.

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Austin Technology Incubator Names Robert Reeves Director of IT Portfolio

Tuesday, September 20th, 2011

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.”

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Austin Technology Council Hosts Top Talent Roadshow in San Francisco and Sunnyvale, Over 30 Austin CEOs Representing Live on September 13 and 14

Tuesday, September 6th, 2011

Austin Technology Council, along with Austin’s technology leaders, made a commitment at a May 2011 CEO summit, to take the best of our city live to the San Francisco and Silicon Valley areas to recruit top technology talent. Today, the Austin Technology Council proudly announces two Top Talent events in San Francisco and Sunnyvale, the evenings of September 13 and 14. Over 30 Austin area technology CEOs will represent their companies live, talk with candidates, and ideally fill some of the many technology jobs currently open.

Event details and registration links for candidate attendees:
·Tuesday, September 13, 6:00 – 8:30 p.m., The Mighty, San Francisco: http://www.eventbrite.com/event/1908395061

·Wednesday, September 14, 6:00 – 8:30 p.m., Plug & Play, Sunnyvale: http://www.eventbrite.com/event/2025094111

Texas overall, and Austin specifically, are among few geographies currently adding jobs, and Austin’s technology industry particularly has many job opportunities for programmers, developers, coders and engineers. The Austin technology community continues to thrive with new startups and fast growing mid-stage companies. The city attracts entrepreneurs and business leaders who want to start and grow their businesses in Austin. But there are not enough technical resources to build out the solutions these companies envision and commercialize products.

Austin currently has several dozen technology companies hiring 40 or more new programmers each. Of over 30 CEOs representing their companies at the Top Talent Roadshow, current job openings include roles like: Data Engineer, Front End Software Engineer, Information Architect, UX Designer.

At present, companies confirmed for the events include: Affinegy, Bancvue, Bazaarvoice, CacheIQ, Catapult, Calxeda, Collider Media, Creditcards.com, Gazzang, Gowalla, Homeaway, Ihiji, Less Networks, Mutual Mobile, Phunware, Ravel, SailPoint, Spredfast, Vast and Whaleshark.

Note: Affinegy, Calxeda and Spredfast are ATI alumni companies and Ravel and ihiji are current ATI member companies. The presence of these companies at the conference is one of many examples of ATI companies creating demand for jobs in Austin. “The conference complements other great work that the local startup community is doing, such as Startup Austin Live, the increased visibility of Austin tech via SXSWi, and the renewed focus on commercialization and entrepreneurship support at UT Austin,” said ATI Director Isaac Barchas, who is on the board and executive committee of Austin Technology Council.

“In Austin, we’ve fallen into a trap of fighting over existing talent, especially in engineering, programming and software development roles,” said Rod Favaron, serial Austin entrepreneur, and presently CEO of Spredfast, a white-hot social CRM company. This leadership role follows Favaron taking his previous company, Lombardi, through successful acquisition by IBM. “We will not realize Austin’s fullest technology innovation potential until we infuse new talent into this city,” added Favaron.  

“The zero-sum-game hurts the overall tech community. So we’ve decided to come together to seek out new additions to Austin to help us all grow. Fortunately, it doesn’t require a lot of convincing. But we do think it requires the technology leaders of Austin representing the city, its value, and our businesses directly to draw in the next generation.”

Austin Technology Council welcomes press to attend either or both events, and is happy to speak further or set up conversations with participating Austin CEOs, before or during the events. Advance registration is required for attendees who are encouraged to sign up at the Eventbrite links above.  For Twitter engagement before and during, please use #ATXgrow.

About the Austin Technology Council:

With more than 5,000 members and friends, serving more than 850 C-level executive members, and supporting 200-plus member companies, the Austin Technology Council (ATC) has been focused on the growth and success of the Austin tech community since 1994.  Members reap the benefits of premier professional development, insight and feedback from peers, the best in industry data to help grow businesses, and opportunities to give back to the Austin community through charitable initiatives.  Current ATC board members are leaders at companies or organizations like Austin Technology Incubator, CacheIQ, Gazzang, IBM, PeopleAdmin, Samsung, Silicon Labs, Spinal Restoration, Tokyo Electron America and Vinson & Elkins.  More on ATC can be found at: www.austintechnologycouncil.org or @ATCouncil on Twitter.

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Austin’s Emerging Big Data Cluster

Sunday, April 3rd, 2011

The following is a post by Bart Bohn, Director of ATI’s IT & Wireless Incubators.

GigaOm hosted their Structure Big Data Conference in New York City on March 23rd and it was a great event.  They put on some of the best focused, content rich conferences I attend.  What surprised many folks at the conference was the large Austin contingent.  Big Data has long been thought of a a Wall Street issue (hedge funds tracking in real time every tick of every stock for as far back as possible) and more recently the consumer web giants – Google, Facebook, Yahoo!, etc. (think of a database the scale of FB or an entry for every server log entry associated with FB, that is internet big data).  None of those are associated with Austin, yet we have a rapidly growing leadership position in the space.

At the conference were:

  • Pervasive - a global data innovation leader delivering software to manage, integrate, and analyze data in the cloud or on-premises throughout the entire data life cycle.
  • MomentumSI - provides application development and systems implementations that incorporate disruptive technologies. We are at the forefront of Cloud Computing, DevOps, BPM and SOA.
  • DataStax (formerly Riptano) - commercial leader in Apache Cassandra™ that is leveraging this next-generation data platform that evolved from work at Google, Amazon and Facebook to make it easy for customers to build, deploy and operate elastically scalable and cloud-optimized applications and data services.
  • Calxeda – a processor platform for hyperscale servers that will allow data centers to slash IT costs and energy consumption by as much as a factor of 10.  Calxeda is a very successful ATI alumni company.
  • InfoChimps – a place to find, sell and share data with others through data sets or data APIs.
  • Ravel – provides the tools to rapidly discover and integrate knowledge from disconnected data. Their KnowledgeStream and GoldenOrb products are used by company consultants and clients to acquire, transform, integrate, and utilize large data sets from enterprise databases and web sources.  Ravel recently became a member of ATI’s Wireless & IT incubator.
  • Spiceworks - IT pros use Spiceworks to do their jobs and learn about the products and services they need to make IT happen

The Austin community has developed in this area based on the work done by several folks, with a few notables: Lynn Bender (Geek Austin), Steve Watt (Hadoop Austin who is now with HP after leading IBM Big Sheets), and Juan Sequeda (Semantic Web Austin).  If you want to learn more about big data, check out and engage with these organizations.  Austin’s contingent was core to the current conversation of Hadoop, but was also leading the conversation on the emerging technologies of Cassandra, which emerged from Facebook (DataStax), and Pregal, which emerged from Google (Ravel).  InfoChimps had stage time to talk about the commercial value of data via its marketplace and Calxeda got a reference from none other than Andy Bechtolsheim, co-founder of Sun Microsystems.  Andy also drove home the need for new data storage solutions and basically described Eonsil, a current ATI member company.

Look for more national leadership in this space from Austin and thank you to all of those who have worked so hard to push our community to this point.

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SXSW Days 2 & 3 – What is SXSW?

Monday, March 14th, 2011

The following is a post by Bart Bohn, Director of ATI’s IT & Wireless Incubators.

Most reactions to this year’s SXSW Interactive Conference is “wow, this is huge”, but in comparison to Mobile World Congress, CES, CeBiT and other global conferences, it is still moderate in size. I want to share an insight that I got from talking with Chris Valentine, who has done a fantastic job launching and growing the SXSW Accelerator program. He described SXSW more as an intentional eclectic mix of topics such that a person can go deep on a particular topic or, more importantly, sample topics from across the spectrum and create their own “conference mash up.” SXSW Interactive is not a single monolithic conference of 16,000 people.

My spin on his comments is that there are really 10 – 12 mini-conferences that happen to be co-located and share a common brand. For example, there is essentially a “Big Data Conference” complete with a full day’s worth of panels and speakers, informal meet – ups (Hadoop Meetup, Semantic Web Meet up, etc.), and several evening networking and happy hour events (Data Cluster Parties). There are probably around 250 people at “this conference” with another 250 interlopers. There even appears to have emerged a “conference leadership band” that is collectively driving the conversation, organizing the conference’s own social dynamic, and connecting disparate factions. The good news is that the leadership group is heavily influenced by Austin’s own DataStax, Ravel, InfoChimps, HP (really, just Steve Watt) and Lynn Bender.

Another type of mini-conference is a horizontal one on start ups and entrepreneurship. SXSW Interactive is of course known as THE place to launch web, social and mobile start ups since twitter and Foursquare exploded here in past years. There is probably enough panels and speakers to make up a 2 day, multiple tracked conference with more meet–ups and networking events that you can fathom. The main program for start ups is the Accelerator and the number of related events includes the Entrepreneur Lounge (co-hosted by ATI), Austin Ventures’ party, SVB/NEA’s party, Canaan Ventures pitch contest, and the always great TECH Cocktail event.

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