According to PE Hub, PTV Sciences, one of the areas leading biotech venture capital firms, gained some star power today when it announced that Rick Anderson, the former chairman for Johnson & Johnson and worldwide franchise chairman for Cordis Corp., has joined the firm as managing director.
PTV has been in the news recently for its funding activities, including Apollo Endosurgery and Asuragen. Between PTV and Sante, expect great things from the up and coming Austin biotech and pharma scene.
NextIO, Inc., the leader in I/O virtualization solutions, today announced it closed an $18.8 million Series C funding round. Adams Capital Management and Crescendo Ventures led the round with participation from other inside investors as well as two new strategic investors. The funding will be used by NextIO to further expand its development team and sales channels in preparation for the upcoming release of several virtualization system products in 2008. To date, NextIO has raised nearly $40 million in funding.“The demand for technologies that drive server virtualization will continue to grow in the coming years,” said Wayne Cantwell of Crescendo Ventures. “NextIO is a pioneer in developing new, more powerful virtualized I/O solutions designed to support all I/O technologies and greatly simplify server management.”
Founded in January 2003, NextIO is the recognized leader in virtualized I/O system solutions for OEMs and was the first private company invited to participate in the PCI-SIG’s I/O Virtualization Working Group. NextIO has developed a number of system-level solutions for enterprise-class servers. They include PCI Express Virtualization systems for blade and rack mount servers. These system solutions speed development and deployment of shared I/O in enterprise servers.
Austin-based provider of ad supported IT management software Spiceworks, has been named by the editors of Webware, a CNET site, as a finalist in this year’s “Webware 100” Awards for Utility and Security category. Voting is open to the public beginning Monday, February 25, 2008 at noon PACIFIC and closes on Monday, March 31, 2008 and can be accessed at http://www.webware.com/100
“The Webware 100 recognizes the best Web 2.0 applications of the year and we’re honored to be selected as a finalist,” said Scott Abel, co-founder and CEO of Spiceworks. “Our 250,000 SMB users worldwide have shown the market that free software is ready for business. We owe our success to them and to our sponsors who continue to experience the benefits the Spiceworks IT Desktop and user community provide.”
Spiceworks has been on a tear lately, having been featured on bMighty.com and having raised $8m in the last bit of 2007. Since the winners will be invited to celebrate at Web 2.0 Expo San Francisco (http://www.web2expo.com/) held April 22-25 at the Moscone Center West in San Francisco, maybe they will take you with them! So, go out and vote for an Austin company.
For those of you exploring the clean energy space, here’s a venture capital firm that you should be talking with. Good Energies is a global investor in renewable energy and energy efficiency. Let me share with you a quote from the CEO Richard Kauffman that should grab your attention.
“We want to invest half a billion US-dollars per year into companies and technologies that can speed up energy transition.”
They are a global company, with US offices in New York and Washington DC. The company invested in G3 Energy, a wind energy company with offices in Austin and Dallas. Another interesting startup they invested in during 2007 is Ice Energy which uses electricity at off-peak times to create ice, which then is used for cooling during the heat of the day.
TechTurn, an Austin-based technology recovery, refurbishing and resale company, today announced that Vito Fabiano has joined the executive team as Chief Operating Officer. Fabiano brings to TechTurn global leadership experience from key executive rolls at Dell and Pitney Bowes. Fabiano will be responsible for helping TechTurn fully realize its unprecedented potential within the exploding corporate green movement.
Fabiano comes to TechTurn after nine years at Dell, where he was the founder of Dell Managed Services, VP/GM of Dell Americas Services Delivery and VP of Finance for Dell’s Worldwide Service Business. At Dell Managed Services, Fabiano established significant organizational capabilities which built the foundation for market credibility, profitability and accelerated growth. “With our rapidly growing business and the continued increase in corporate awareness for green practices, we understood the need for a seasoned COO to take advantage of this huge market opportunity,” said TechTurn CEO Jeff Zeigler. “Vito’s experience in key executive roles at multinational corporations will provide the strategic direction and the global business connections necessary to take our company to the next level.”
Jeff Zeigler was the recipient of a 2007 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year award.
Caringo Inc., wich recently received an undisclosed amount of financing, unveiled the CaringoConnect Developer Program for software developers in the ISV, academic, systems integrator and Web 2.0 sectors. The company provides content storage software that enables clustered storage for active and archive content. CaringoConnect is a dedicated web portal that streamlines the integration and validation process with Caringo CAStor for any organization delivering solutions that manage, store and archive digital content. It’s as simple as writing to an Apache server and this program provides all the information and tools necessary to integrate and test with CAStor.
The new web-based program allows developers to register, obtain documentation, sample code and access an online CAStor cluster to test and validate the integration and interoperability of their solution from any remote location. No complex hardware to bring in-house and configure, and no cumbersome API, just implement five simple methods of an open standard, test and you’re ready to roll. Interested software developers can learn more about Caringo’s new web based program and register at www.caringo.com/partners.html.
Here is the job page for Google positions in Austin: http://www.google.com/support/jobs/bin/topic.py?loc_id=11713&dep_id=1173
Looks like they are hiring for advertising sales (imagine that!). There are inside sales, but also technical engineering positions. There are also openings for enterprise sales and tech support. Plus you get to work in that cool downtown office building!
Give us some comment love if you’re working at Google in Austin, or intereviewing for a position.
Tim Westergren, founder of the personalized online radio service Pandora, posted an announcement on his blog that he will be having a Pandora meet-up at the Alamo tonight. From the blog:
We are having a Pandora meet-up at the Alamo Drafthouse in Austin. Hope to see you there–excited to meet our Austin listeners!
If you would like to attend, please RSVP by sending an email to Angie at tour@pandora.com with AUSTIN in the subject line.
When: Monday, February 25th, 2008 @ 7 PM
Where: The Alamo Drafthouse, 1120 South Lamar Street, Austin (map)Cheers,
Tim
If you attend, please post a comment!
Americans fed up with terrible neighbors have been actively contributing data —including the street, city and a description of the bad behavior— to a new real estate search tool that focuses exclusively on the “neighbor-space.” Posts on awful —and the occasional great— neighbors already number in the hundreds of thousands, making a search of the site in virtually any city turn up productive information for the potential renter or homebuyer. The site, RottenNeighbor.com, features user-contributed post titles as diverse as “Nosey Neighbors, Pine Hills, FL” and “The most unfriendly town EVER, Little Falls, NY.”
The site has taken on a life of its own, with multiple mentions on The Today Show, Good Morning America, The Early Show, CNN.com, The New York Post and as one of Google Trends’ hottest searches. What started with a few local news briefs quickly became a phenomenon that captured the attention of the national press, and has continued to grow virally through word-of-mouth and blog coverage. The site is owned by Austin-based investment firm @ttenunit.
Austin-based Pluck announced that it has signed a deal with Hearst digital. The Pluck social media technology will power the audience participation and community features of the websites of some pretty major Hearst brands including Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping, and Harper’s Bazaar. Alex Ballantyne, Hearst digital’s Managing Director, says: “Based on our review, no other social media platform can scale to support traffic volumes in the millions like Pluck SiteLife. In addition, the integration of the platform across the many facets of social media, such as blogs, ratings, photos and comments, can help us ensure the experience for our visitors can be one of the best available on the web.”
Dave Panos, CEO of Pluck, noted: “Powering some of the most popular sites in Europe, Hearst digital is a leader in attracting readers from across the web. Working together, we can help Hearst digital empower its readers with a fully-interactive and social experience designed to let readers contribute to site content and participate with editorial staff, as well as other readers.”
With approximately $10M in 2007 revenues, Pluck was reported to be for sale for $75M. This deal follows another significant new relationship with The Guardian announced last month.