Daily Archives: January 31, 2008

Hoovers Acquires Visible Path; Launches Social Networking Features

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Austin-based Hoovers, acquired by Dunn & Bradstreet in 2002, announced it’s acquisition of Visible Path for an undisclosed sum. Visible Path had raised over $20M from high profile VCs Kleiner Perkins, Menlo Ventures, Silicon Valley Bank, and Integral Capital Partners. Hoovers had been using Visible Path’s technology for the past year to power the beta test of their Hoovers Connect functionality. Hoovers Connect (demo here) works by scanning your Outlook contacts, email, and calendar, then evaluating the strength of the various paths of connections going to the person that you’re seeking to meet or network with. This is a slightly different approach from LinkedIn, which also plots a path to the target of your networking interests. It’s going to take a lot of trust for people to allow an evil mega information aggregator (D&B) scan all your personal emails and contacts in Outlook and not “Beacon” it.

vAuto Adding High Tech Jobs in Austin

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vAuto LogoChicago-based vAuto, a company that creates technology for live used-auto data, announced that it’s adding more high tech jobs to its Austin research and development facility on Great Hills Trail. vAuto technology gives car dealers, including 5 of the nation’s 6 largest franchise dealerships, an up-to-the-minute dashboard on used car pricing, appraisals, and stock. The company will showcase its technology at the National Automobile Dealers Association convention next month.

Cisco Cutting Former NetSolvers

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We’re hearing reports today that Cisco has cut 50 employees in their Austin Remote Operations Services (ROS) group up on Research Blvd. That is the former NetSolve that Cisco acquired back in 2004. NetSolve was founded back in 1987, and went public in 1999 at $13/share with almost 300 employees at the time. The rough economy and more competition caused some choppy waters for the company, and Cisco acquired them for just $11/share. Headcount today is reported to be at 250 employees.

Rough waters for Starbucks, and now Cisco? Maybe the economy really is slowing down?