AIEA News
The Austin Inventors and Entrepreneurs Association News Feed. Stay tuned to updates on upcoming events of interest and other association news.
- Angel Investing: A Podcast with Sohl Posted: Sep 01, 2006 9:22 AM CDT Topic/Type: Finance & Accounting; Funding Sources
Author: Ken Berlack
Have a listen to this podcast (from the Capital Formation
Institute) featuring UNH's Jeffrey Sohl, the leading expert on angel investing. Sohl talks about latest trends he sees in the angel market, and goes into detail on the nature of angel groups compared with individual angels. This podcast gets a little choppy toward the end, but it's worth your time to check this out (especially if you're interested in looking for angel backing). - United Devices Inc. is opening an office in London to address the company's growing European business.
Austin-based United Devices provides software and services that link companies' computers and systems around the world to centralize control.
Company officials say the new office will allow United Devices to meet increasing demand from current and potential customers, particularly those businesses adopting grid solutions to consolidate large-scale data centers and manage high performance systems. - Nineteen Austin-area businesses recognized
Nineteen Austin-area businesses were recognized for outstanding business accomplishments during the Sixth Annual Greater Austin Business Awards held August 30 at the Hilton hotel. This year’s theme, “Summer in the City”, incorporated all that’s hot about regional businesses.
Thom Singer of Wells Fargo served as the Master of Ceremonies with award presentations by KVUE, KXAN, Univision, KEYE and News 8 news stations.
“What an evening!,” said Wade Cooper, Partner with Jackson Walker and the 2006 Event Chair. “All of the businesses nominated are outstanding. Our region would not be one of the best places in the nation to live and work without the wonderful accomplishments of our business community.” - Study: Austin No. 3 among innovative cities Austin Business Journal
Austin ranks high among U.S. cities when it comes to innovation, according to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal.
The city had the third-highest number of patents in 2005 -- 1,705. That follows No. 1 ranked San Jose and No. 2 Sunnyvale, Calif., according to information gathered by Chicago-based intellectual property advising firm ipIQ.
The company went in search of places where American innovation was alive and well outside of Corporate America.
IpIQ's Reed Albergotti headed the analysis, which explored more than 12,000 U.S. cities ranking them by gross number of patents. Albergotti says the technological migration of companies and independent inventors illustrates the resilience of the national economy.
Austin is the only city outside of California in the top five. Among other Texas cities, Houston ranked No. 11 and Plano placed at No. 17. - Austin venture investing reaches a 2-year high
Heightened second quarter investing in semiconductors is believed to be one reason why Central Texas reported its strongest venture capital quarter in two years, said The Statesman. A 134 percent increase was achieved from a year ago, after $170.5 million was raised 21 companies.
PricewaterhouseCoopers, Thomson Financial and the National Venture Capital Association conducted the survey. It was the best performance since the second quarter of 2004, when 22 companies raised $188.9 million. - Chamber Announces Finalists for the Sixth Annual Greater Austin Business Awards
Austin – Do you know a business that could be a winner?
The Greater Austin Chamber announces the finalists for the Sixth Annual Greater Austin Business Awards event that will be held Wednesday, August 30 from 5:30-9 p.m. at the Hilton Austin, 500 East Fourth Street.
Created in 2001, the Greater Austin Business Awards continues to set the standard for business excellence in the Greater Austin area. In the past, the Awards recognized only Chamber members. This year marks the first time that the Chamber will recognize companies across the entire Greater Austin business community including businesses in Georgetown, Leander, San Marcos, Buda and all other cities within the Central Texas region. - UnWired Buyer Secures $6.1 Million in Series B Funding
AUSTIN -- UnWired Buyer, Inc., a provider of real-time, interactive mobile notification and transaction services, today announced it secured $6.1 million in Series B funding.
Gefinor Ventures led the round with participation from Accent Texas Fund I, LP, Aegis Texas Venture Fund, DFJ Mercury and other investors. The funding will be used for product development, marketing and customer acquisition for UnWired Buyer's voice- based e-commerce platform.
"We believe that UnWired Buyer will be a significant player in the global market for mobile commerce, which is expected to grow to $10 billion by 2010," said Wes Cole, principal at Gefinor Ventures. "UnWired Buyer combines unique VoIP-based technology infrastructure with widely adopted mobile phone technology. The company's proven solution brings the power of mobile e- commerce to the mass market, allowing Internet retailers to reach new and existing customer segments -- truly anyone who carries a mobile phone. This investment demonstrates our confidence in the exciting mobile e-commerce market opportunity, the Unwired Buyer product and the team's ability to grow the business." - Staples Turns to Inventors For New Product Ideas
By WILLIAM M. BULKELEY
Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal.
From The Wall Street Journal Online
Neil Grimwood once missed a meeting because a Post-it note he'd stuck on his computer as a reminder fell off. That inspired him to invent a small rubber disk with strong adhesive on the back to serve as a stick-anywhere, mini bulletin board to which lists, photos and other papers can be affixed with push pins or thumb tacks.
In 2004, after years of fruitlessly marketing what he called StickDots to large companies, the Marina del Rey, Calif., inventor entered a Staples Inc. contest for inventors called InventionQuest. Winners of the contest receive $25,000 and up to an 8% royalty. Mr. Grimwood didn't win, but the office-supply chain sometimes grants contracts to runners-up. In this case, the company agreed to carry the product under the Staples brand name, rechristened it TackDots and now sells packets of eight for $3.99. - BlabberMouth L.P
BlabberMouth L.P., the only public relations firm to offer its clients 100% representation by senior-level practitioners, announced today that it has been named agency of record by Austin Technology Council (ATC). Founded in
1992 by George Kozmetsky and IC2, ATC is Austin’s preeminent member-driven association that exclusively represents the interests of the technology community in Central Texas.
http://austin.dbusinessnews.com/shownews.php?newsid=84950&type_news=latest - Software company Surgient Inc. has raised $20 million in a series C round of funding.
Crosslink Capital and Goldman Sachs co-led with participation from existing investors Austin Ventures, BlueStream Ventures and MFI Austin.
Bruce MacNaughton of Crosslink Capital and David Campbell of Goldman Sachs will join the company's board of directors.
Boston-based investment bank Revolution Partners acted as the placement agent.
The new funding will be used for growth in the U.S. and in Europe.
Along with the funding, the company named Tim Lucas as its new chief financial officer. Prior to joining Surgient, Lucas served as director of financing for the Canadian, Latin American and government business unit of SAS Institute Inc., a software company based in North Carolina. - Wintegra backs out of IPO
Austin Business Journal - 11:58 AM CDT Wednesday
Wintegra Inc. has withdrawn its initial public offering, citing unfavorable market conditions.
Wintegra delayed its IPO last month after lowering the initial asking price for its stock price to $12 to $14 a share. The company was proposing to trade under the Nasdaq symbol WNTG.
Wintegra originally filed its IPO on Feb. 17.
Austin-based Wintegra is a semiconductor design and software firm. The company has about 100 employees and operations in the U.S., Israel, Canada and Scotland.