News Roundup for July 20, 2009

Posted on July 20, 2009 by Bryan Menell

Is it a sign of the improving economy? There’s some great tech tidbits today, plus news outlets are starting to report on increasing consumer confidence, better jobs numbers, and higher quarter-over-quarter venture capital investment. Sounds like a good reason to celebrate with a happy hour!

The American Statesman has a great piece on Mike Maples, Jr. who is probably the VC with the highest deal flow in the world today.
Austin continues to be do well despite the greater economy. This piece features Austin-based SuperPoints.
ReddWerks, who creates Warehouse Management Systems, announced the acquisition of SeayCo.
Bazaarvoice, who has served up over 50 billion pieces of customer-generated content, announced that advertising and branding guru Carole Irgang has joined the advisory board.
Univa UD, which does infrastructure enablement for cloud computing , announces new product UniPlan.
Austin Ventures Partner John Thornton is making waves with the upcoming Texas Tribune. He’s now hired former ATC head Alisha Ring, former Texas Monthly editor Evan Smith, and Emily Ramshaw who lives in Austin but wrote for the Dallas Morning News.

Invodo Raises $6M Series B

Posted on July 17, 2009 by Bryan Menell

Invodo, the de facto hub for product videos, recently closed $6 million in Series B funding from Sevin Rosen and S3 Ventures. The company raised a $1.5M Series A back in February of 2008.

With the largest product video library in the world, Invodo has established itself as a leader in the ecommerce video space. The company has expanded its video content library to over 20,000 product videos from more than 1,900 manufacturers and now syndicates product videos to over 850 ecommerce sites. “This recent round of funding enables us to further expand our video library content , secure our leadership position in video syndication to online retailers and manufacturers, and deliver valuable new features like embedded video players,” states Craig Wax, Invodo CEO. “In light of the recent business climate, we’re very proud to have continually built additional value in our company … it’s a testament to our employees, customers and stakeholders.”

The Series B funding was raised to expand market presence, enhance the delivery platform and to accelerate sales and marketing activities. The deal was led by Jackie Kimzey, General Partner with Sevin Rosen, and Brian R. Smith, Managing Director of S3, both of whom are enthusiastic about Invodo’s prospects. “It’s been very promising for Invodo to establish itself as an early leader in this tough market. The additional funding comes with considerable confidence that the company will continue to scale its customer base and expand its value proposition within the online economy,” states Kimzey.

CrunchBase Information

S3 Ventures

Sevin Rosen Funds

Information provided by CrunchBase

Bazaarvoice Moving to New Headquarters

Posted on July 17, 2009 by Bryan Menell

One of the challenges of being a rapidly growing company, is trying to keep your staff all under one roof. You need to bite off a bigger chunk of office space than you need right now, but how much more? If your growth rate accelerates, then the space that was supposed to last for a year, now has employees officing in the hallway after six months. It’s a great problem to have, but it’s still a problem.

Such is the ongoing challenge of one of Austin’s fastest growing tech startups, Bazaarvoice. After moving 8 times in four years, the company is planting its flag at a new 55,000 square foot headquarters on 360 and Lakewood Blvd. “We started looking six months ago at many buildings, and reduced the list over time. When we felt we had good visibility into our business future, we pulled the trigger” said Sam Decker, Chief Marketing Officer at Bazaarvoice. “The 360 corridor was our preferred neighborhood, and it’s great that it worked out for us.”

CrunchBase Information

Information provided by CrunchBase

BreakingPoint Selected for AlwaysOn Global 250

Posted on July 16, 2009 by Bryan Menell

BreakingPoint today announced that it has been selected to the 2009 AlwaysOn Global 250 List. The AlwaysOn Global 250 Award is given to private, emerging technology companies creating new business opportunities in high-growth markets. BreakingPoint was selected by the AlwaysOn editorial team based on demonstration of growth, market opportunity, quality of innovation and customer traction.

BreakingPoint CEO Des Wilson:

“With a series of game-changing innovations, award-winning products, a rapidly growing customer base and consistently strong revenue growth, it’s clear that BreakingPoint has become the new standard for realistic application, performance and security testing. We are honored that AlwaysOn has recognized our contributions toward helping organizations in both the private and public-sector accelerate innovation and ensure network resiliency.”

BreakingPoint and the other AlwaysOn Global 250 Winners winners will be recognized at the AlwaysOn & STVP Summit at Stanford, taking place at Stanford University in Palo Alto, CA, on July 28-30. This two-and-a-half day executive conference is co-presented by the Stanford Technology Ventures Program will highlighting the significant economic, political and commercial trends affecting the global technology industries.

“It’s no secret that technology and innovation are vital to bringing our country out of economic recession,” said Tony Perkins, founder and editor of AlwaysOn. “The companies on this year’s list have not only created innovative technologies that solve real business problems, but have stimulated economic growth through the generation of new jobs. I congratulate every winner selected for this year’s award and wish them all tremendous success in the future.”

The AlwaysOn Global 250 winners were selected from among hundreds of other technology companies nominated by investors, bankers, journalists and industry insiders. The AlwaysOn editorial team conducted a rigorous three-month selection process to finalize the 2009 list.

Mumboe partners with General Counsel Solutions

Posted on July 15, 2009 by Bryan Menell

Mumboe, an Austin-based company designed to give businesses a simple, affordable way to track and manage their agreements with customers, partners and employees, has announced a partnership aimed at helping companies reduce contract costs and improve business accountability General Counsel Solutions, a leading provider of corporate legal services. We’ve previously covered Mumboe here and here.

With the new deal, GCS’s corporate legal services with be paired Mumboe’s on-demand software application, providing customers with a complete solution for their contract management needs. The partnership came about when GCS discovered that key contract details, such as automatic renewals, expiration dates, rebate windows and termination clauses, were often catching companies by surprise. GCS clients wanted software with automatic email notifications and reporting capabilities. At the same time, Mumboe was fielding requests from its customers for services to help them identify and develop opportunities for better contract management. The companies decided to join forces to offer businesses a complete solution. So, starting today, Mumboe will be offering GCS clients a free 90-day trial of Mumboe Pro, the company’s on-demand contract management application while GCS is offering Mumboe customers a free assessment of their legal requirements and the opportunity to try its managed legal services for 90 days at discounted rates and will waive any quarterly commitments for the first year.

“Mumboe includes some of the most advanced contract management features on the market, yet their on-demand pricing makes it very affordable for any business,” said Gregg Schor, General Counsel Solutions’ CEO. “We were also very impressed with Mumboe’s simplicity and ease of use. We think our clients will love it.”

Bill Kane, Mumboe CEO, said that the partnership will help Mumboe’s customers get more out of the company’s application. “Many of our customers are small and growing businesses, as well as corporate departments, that do not have the resources available to plan and manage their contract management initiatives. GCS has the experience and expertise to help our customers realize the benefits of good contract management in a way that’s cost-effective for their business.”

Q&A Wednesday :: Better Than The Van

Posted on July 15, 2009 by Bryan Menell

Today’s Q&A Wednesday is with Todd Hansen, one of the founders of Better Than The Van.

Give us the elevator pitch for your company?
Better Than The Van connects bands with free places to stay across the US, Canada and Europe. By hosting bands you support live music in your community and directly connect with the artists. Bands can save money, meet other bands and make valuable local contacts that can evolve into new or expanded fan-bases in those cities.

How did the company get started? Who had the idea?
I had the idea about a year ago after realizing I wanted to take a break from playing and touring in bands. I was really struggling with what to do next and this seemed like a natural progression. Scott Miller and I have been bootstrapping the company ever since, although if we could find the right capital partner, we would be interested in that.

What was your first indication that you really had something interesting here?
It was during the first publicity push that I did by myself. I landed a piece on Wired’s – Listening Post and from there NY Times, USA Today, Independent UK, Mashable all picked it up. The national attention really pushed early site sign ups and created solid momentum that’s carried us this far. Traffic is steady as are new user sign ups. It’s great!

How has customer adoption been so far?
We started with a very simple concept and as the site grows we listen to what the user-base wants from the site. As long as we continue to meet their needs, they’ll stick with us. Many of the site users are also a part of our Street Team who promote and organize BTTV events in their cities.

What can we expect to see in the future from your company?
We will continue to grow and listen to our users needs. We are rolling out some functionality and UI changes in about month. Spring of 2010 we will roll out a subscription-based service targeting music festivals, record labels, bookers, managers, and promoters.

Update from PetsMD.com [video]

Posted on July 13, 2009 by Bryan Menell

PetsMD.com co-founder Tina Cannon spoke with us at Capital Factory the other day. We’ve got the video to prove it. In this video, Tina talks about the iPhone app that PetsMD has coming very soon now, as well as existing features like the interactive symptom checker, and finding a vet.

Do you like short videos featuring emerging Austin tech companies? Let us know in the comments.

ProductCamp Coming Back Aug 15th

Posted on July 13, 2009 by Bryan Menell

ProductCamp is a collaborative, user organized unconference, focused on Product Marketing and Management topics. At ProductCamp everyone participates: by presenting, leading a roundtable discussion, helping with logistics, securing sponsorship, or volunteering. ProductCamp is a great opportunity for you to learn from, teach to, and network with professionals involved in the Product Management, Marketing, and Development process from the Austin area! The first ProductCamp Austin in June 2008 had over 130 people sign up, and over 90 participate. The second ProductCamp Austin in January 2009 had 250 register and over 170 participate! Inspired by Austin’s great participation, the ProductCamp concept has swept to other cities such as Toronto and Boston!

Put simply: ProductCamp is a bunch of smart, passionate people coming together to discuss, debate, and collaborate on the issues they face every day. Everyone is welcome: in the first two ProductCamps, we had product managers, product marketers, marketing managers, developers, project managers, operations leads, lawyers, HR reps, directors and VP’s of marketing and product management, and consultants. Everyone brings different experiences and leveraging that collective knowledge is what makes ProductCamp special – and something you can’t get anywhere else.

ProductCamp Austin is FREE – go register and invite others. Interested in more details…read all about the ProductCamp experience.

iTaggit Launches "ValueRange It" Beta

Posted on July 10, 2009 by Bryan Menell

iTaggit.com, the leading online resource for valuing and organizing household items and collectibles, launched its “ValueRange It” tool in beta today. The new tool is designed to give users a value range for any item, providing them with data to make smart decisions on what to do with their belongings – be it sell, insure, donate, or simply track over time.

For iTaggit users looking to sell, the website offers time savings and convenience through our unique broadcasting services which allow “for sale” items to be syndicated when and where the user chooses. This means a single item that is added to the site with its description and, if available, pictures or video, can be placed into multiple online marketplaces and social networks, including Craigslist, eBay, Facebook and Oodle.

The highly robust iTaggit site caters to most anyone who owns things – from homeowners to estate planners and from comic book collectors to seasoned antiques aficionados – quickly giving them the latest market prices, and the ease to sell their items any time they are ready.

Here’s how it works:

The “ValueRange It” tool uses proprietary technology and recent price data on millions of items to determine an accurate value range. Users can refine their ValueRange It results for a completely customized value range for their specific item.
The “Sell It” function empowers members to post their items once on iTaggit and then broadcast them to multiple online marketplaces and social networks, as frequently as desired.

“Our newly launched ValueRange It tool functions much like an online ‘Blue Book’ for users interested in understanding the value of something in order to sell, research or donate an item,” explains Lauranne Jarrett, iTaggit CEO. “In fact, we aim to be the premiere, trusted location for finding the value of countless, disparate items. So, if you’re wondering about the price of that antique vase or the Dually Double Baby Jogger that’s gathering dust in your garage, iTaggit is the place for you.”

Members can get more return from their items and collectibles by using the following iTaggit functions:

* Quickly and easily add items in 4 ways, including via a free iPhone application, also named ValueRange It, available at the iTunes store
* Store item descriptions, images, receipts, documents, notes and audio/video links
* Link to other site profiles and marketplaces for increased visibility and sales promotion

iTaggit strives to be the ultimate resource to find value and act smart. To this end, we regularly develop, enhance and release new features with an end goal of being the premier site for valuing, selling, organizing, showcasing, and protecting items and collections.

Did You Know Twitter Does Not Save All Your Tweets?

Posted on July 10, 2009 by Bryan Menell

I’ve seen some Twitter traffic recently from people who have tried to look back and see what their very first tweet was. To their surprise, they couldn’t find it! It makes sense really, Twitter has so many messages that it would be really hard to keep them all forever. Luckily, a local Austin company will take care of that problem for you for free.

BackupMyTweets will backup all your tweets so you can retrieve them whenever you need. You don’t even have to give them your Twitter password! It seems to work by just signing up for an account, and then letting BackupMyTweets follow your Twitter feed.

If you want to sign up, or find out more information you can check out the website at www.backupmytweets.com, and follow them on Twitter @backupmytweets.

If you find the concept interesting, they also have offerings to backup your email, your blog, and your online photos.

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