July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

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For entrepreneurs, Silicon Valley is no longer the only option. Burgeoning tech hubs like Seattle, Boulder, Austin and Denver offer a strong community, tax breaks, and a lower cost of living.

Source: Change.org

Colorado’s Gov. Hickenlooper is an entrepreneur ‘on loan to public service.’

During a recent trip to Colorado, I met with Governor John Hickenlooper (D), who stressed his commitment to tech, and revealed plans for a new state supported venture fund. The Governor told me views himself as an “entrepreneur on loan to public service.”

The region is growing its tech scene so rapidly that locals are even bandying around a new term: “Silicon Mountain.”

But is Colorado putting its money where its mouth is? Today, the State released its first ever report on the health of the startup ecosystem. Erik Mitisek, CEO of the Colorado Technology Association, said the results show that the spotlight on Colorado is “shining bright,” and now they have the “data to prove it.”

Key findings from 2012 Built in Denver report are as follows:

• In 2012 alone, local entrepreneurs launched 122 digital technology startups.
• 69 companies secured venture or angel funding of at least $1 million.
• 20 companies were acquired.
• 78 percent of the investment went to software and business to business digital technology companies.
• SendGrid was one of the largest fundraisers, raising $21.6M to further develop its cloud-based email infrastructure system.

Not bad, Colorado.

Much of the funding for startups came from the Boulder-based firm Foundry Group, although more than 47 out-of-state investors funded tech companies in 2012.

“Colorado has developed into a state that every investor should watch,” said Brad Feld, serial entrepreneur and managing director of the Foundry Group, in the report. “Our startup communities and economy are thriving and the companies being created here are awesome,” he added.

But before you buy a one-way ticket for Denver, it’s important to be aware of the limitations.

Even Governor Hickenlooper admitted that venture funding is still in short supply. When he got elected in 2010, he said he interviewed local entrepreneurs for the Economic Development Program. “Better access to venture capital” was a consistent request across the State.

He also admitted that while the State has attracted its fair share of innovative “free thinkers,” it’s not dramatically different than cities like Seattle and Austin, the primary competitors for newly-forming tech hubs like Denver and Boulder.

Although Hickenlooper claims Silicon Valley is not the competition, it remains the only option for many entrepreneurs, particularly those at a later-stage of development or with specific talent needs.

Would you considering moving to Colorado to start your business? If not, why? Sound off in the comment section below. 

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

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Timbaland is feelin’ some startup action. The rapper and producer is leading the first round of funding for Open Labs, a music startup that creates hardware and software solutions for bands and producers.

Open Labs brought its flagship product StageLight to market six months ago and has seen significant growth since then. The $10 software makes it easy to create music. The SongBuilder tool allows you to choose a genre and then guides you through a step-by-step process to select instruments and patterns. After the songs are completed, you can share them with friends. Open Labs also designs touch interfaces that professional musicians use to create songs, but StageLight brought the company into the consumer market.

“Our focus as a company is to make music creation accessible to all people,” said Cliff Mountain, CEO of Open Labs. “The greatest obstacles have been price and the amount of time to become proficient on music software. With StageLight, we have overcome both challenges with an inexpensive, easy-to-use music creation software app. The software takes advantage of the historical knowledge and professional artist’s needs while focusing on teaching new musicians how to create songs.”

Timbaland said in a statement that he has been using Open Labs’ technology for years and wanted to invest in the vision to bring “music creation to the masses.” Open Labs has signed deals with Dell, Lenovo, Microsoft, and Intel, and this round of $500,000 will help the company add more customers and continue growing StageLight. The company is based in Austin.

Now in addition to producer, songwriter, and rapper, Timbaland can add angel investor to his list of titles.

Photo Credit: Live at J&R/Flickr

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

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Over the last few years, media companies and brands have turned to Mass Relevance’s social curating platform for plenty of projects, and now the startup said it’s hit a big milestone.

Today, Mass Relevance announced that it’s pushed 25 billion pieces of “social content” (tweets, Vines, status updates, Instagram photos, and such) through its platform from the more than 250 big media companies that are its clients. That’s a lot of social content when you consider that Mass Relevance’s tech is focused on reviewing everything  before it goes out and doing it in a way that’s, well … pretty. And if you haven’t heard of Mass Relevance, that’s because the company stays largely behind the scenes.

Mass Relevance is worth keeping an eye on because it’s helping Twitter and Facebook use their social interaction data in unique ways that are appealing to media companies and big brands during live or notable events. For example, it’s in the CBS’s best interest to curate and increase social interactions during the Super Bowl because it can then justify the higher advertising rate prices to advertisers that want to run a commercial during the big game.

The platform itself allows highly visible media companies to manage the flow of social information they’re consistently getting hit with. It takes social data streams from various social networks (Twitter, Facebook, Vine, Instagram, YouTube, and others) and weaves them into a single console for clients. From there you can set word/hashtag filters, audience demographic filters (age range, gender, geography), media or social network filters, and so on — basically fine-tuning all that social data for a specific purpose. The platform can also help its clients display that “social content” intelligently through mobile apps, live TV broadcasts, websites, projector screens at conferences, stadium displays, and other visualizations that run alongside media events.

Source: Mass Relevance

Mass Relevance CTO Eric Falcao presenting to President Obama during his recent trip to Austin, Texas.

You’ve probably experienced Mass Relevance’s tech in action without realizing it, too. It’s already working with all four major broadcast TV stations (Fox, CBS, ABC, NBC) as well as the most socially engaged prime time television shows (X Factor, Glee, American Idol, and The Voice). Previously, the company curating tweeted questions from audience members watching panels at SXSWi back in March, helped launch the first Twitter Town Hall for President Barack Obama, managed Twitter data during the 2012 Olympic Games, integrated Facebook data for CNN’s coverage of the 2012 election, and also worked with some of last year’s biggest media events (2012 Grammys, MTV music video awards, Super Bowl XLVI, the BET awards, NBA Finals).

Mass Relevance isn’t the only startup offering media companies (and brands) a way to streamline interactions from across multiple social networks. One example is indirect competitor Echo, which has seen success of its own platform of social curation tools with clients like pro wrestling company WWE. Yet, Mass Relevance does seem to be emerging as a leader when it comes to building tools for large events. While it didn’t disclose financial figures, the company said its revenue quadrupled in 2012 (compared to the previous year), and estimates doubling revenue again by the end of 2013.

Founded in 2010, the Austin-based startup has previously raised $5.5 million in total funding to date. Mass Relevance has 90 employees, but plans to double its R&D team in the next year as well as open an international office in London, U.K. this month.

Photos via Mass Relevance

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

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The latest city that incubator program TechStars will expand into is bustling tech city Austin, Texas, the organization announced today.

TechStars is an incubator program that selects only a handful of startups in each city it operates in, which receive $118,000 in seed funding ($18,000 plus optional $100,000 convertible note), support from plenty of mentors at successful startups, opportunity to pitch investors, and lots of perks that an up-and-coming company would need to make a big impact. Hundreds apply for a spot in the program, but it only selects 10 in each location. The program itself runs three months and is only conducted once per year.

Austin seems like a shoo-in for the program, as its already a booming tech city with tons of vibrant startups and a good base of offices from large tech companies like Intel, Dell, Samsung, Applied Materials, IBM, National Instruments, and plenty of others. A handful of the company’s successful startups — Mass Relevance and Stormpulse, both of which count the White House as a client of its services — even got praise from President Barack Obama on his recent trip to Austin last week. There’s also the week-long (or two weeks, if you count music) SXSW event every March.

So, what exactly took so long for TechStars to get here?

“We know that Austin is one of the top startup communities in the country. But timing is everything,” TechStars cofounder David Cohen told VentureBeat via email. “We don’t do anything unless we can do it with very high quality, and we haven’t been ready until now. It’s not so easy to just launch new locations and do it with extreme quality.”

Jason Seats will manage TechStars Austin. He previously founded Slicehost and was VP of software development at RackSpace. He’s also managed TechStars Cloud in San Antonio for two years, which means he has a very good background when it comes to running the Austin branch.

Applications for the Austin program open today. As for what TechStars is looking for, Cohen said:

“In terms of company selection, we’ll be opportunistic in Austin, like we are anywhere else. We are not focusing on any particular vertical area for that program – it’s just like our others in New York, London, Boston, Chicago, Boulder, and Seattle in that sense. As you know, we generally see about a 1 percent acceptance rate, so we’re looking for disruptive companies which leverage the power of the Internet, most importantly founded by amazing entrepreneurs. Team, team, team, market, progress, idea – in that order.”

The new Austin branch will also see support from the city’s most notable venture firms and investors, including Austin Ventures, Silverton, Live Oak, Brett Hurt, Sam Decker, Jeff Dachis, Josh Baer, Rony Kahan, Bill Boebel, and others.

Austin downtown skyline photo via Dylan Tweney/VentureBeat

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

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It’s official: Google Fiber is coming to Austin.

Google made the announcement this morning at the Texas capital’s Brazos Hall, where City of Austin councilwoman Laura Morrison hinted at where Google’s superfast broadband network could take the city.

“Austin is already the live capital of the world. How about making Austin the live music capital of the Web?” Morrison said.

As with Kansas City, Google plans to organize the Fiber buildout into so-called “Fiberhoods,” bringing high-speed Internet access — at speeds up to 100 times faster than existing options — to homes, public schools, libraries, and community centers.

Google Fiber lead Milo Medlin said that the move is all about making Austin a more awesome place to live.

“We know that abundant high-speed Internet access will make communities stronger. This is why we’re going to give everyone living within the city of Austin the option of Google Fiber,” he said.

Medlin added that Google Fiber TV will carry the Longhorn Network, the sports station home to all the sporting events from football powerhouse University of Texas. (This is a feature that not even Austin’s local cable providers provide.)

Texas Governor Rick Perry wasn’t vague in what he thinks the Fiber news means to the state.

“This really goes back to the Texas history of innovation,” Perry said, noting the state’s history as a home to the space industry, microchip advancement, and other technology industries.

Alongside the event today, Google has launched an information page for its Austin efforts. Interested residents can check it out here.

VentureBeat images/Tom Cheredar

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

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Update: This story has been updated with a statement from Gig.U as well as information about tomorrow’s event hosted by the City of Austin.

A leaked press release from gigabit internet organization Gig.U congratulating the city of Austin and Google on their new Google Fiber partnership was quickly removed today.

Gig.U is a group that works with city governments and collegiate universities to bring a gigabit broadband Internet infrastructure for the community. The release was yanked because obviously neither Google nor the City of Austin have made an official announcement regarding the status of the speculated Google Fiber expansion. It’s entirely possible that someone jumped the gun in publicizing a congratulatory press release that ultimately used a media headline to highlight the Gig.U project and raise awareness about what it’s trying to do.

Engadget was able to grab the text from Gig.U’s release before it was removed, which we’ve pasted below.

(WASHINGTON) Today, Google announced it will add Austin, Texas to the Google Fiber project, joining Kansas City, Kansas and Missouri as American communities that have the power to bring next generation networks home. Gig.U, a coalition of three-dozen research university communities working together to support educational and economic development by accelerating the deployment of next generation networks, issued the following statement by Executive Director Blair Levin:

Gig.U congratulates Google and the City of Austin for their initiative to bring a world-leading network to one of the world’s great research university communities. This effort will pay enormous dividends for the country, as it will help develop the human capital America needs to lead a global economy that increasingly creates value with big data and big bandwidth. The Austin project, as well as the recent response to the North Carolina Next Generation Network project demonstrates that university communities are increasingly recognized as attractive partners for next generation network deployments because of the innovative spirit and demand profiles of their residents. We look forward to watching and learning from the exciting growth and innovation to come from the Google Fiber projects, and accelerating such efforts in Gig.U communities throughout the country.

Some news sites are reporting that this is a confirmation that Google Fiber is coming to Austin, Tex., but this is not entirely true. Both the Austin city government and Google are expected to make an announcement about something tomorrow, which VentureBeat will be attending.

When we reached out to Gig.U, who told us the press release was actually never meant for publication, and was sent under embargo to a few news organizations (including, it looks like Engadget) in the event that Google Fiber was announce.

“I wanted to note that the release we sent was embargoed and was sent in order for authors to have on hand in case an official announcement is made tomorrow, as has been reported by other news outlets,”  Gig.U program direction Ellen Satterwhite told VentureBeat.

While a bit presumptuous on Gig.U’s part, it otherwise doesn’t provide much proof that Fiber will be announced tomorrow. However, what is telling is that Texas Governor Rick Perry will be among those in attendance tomorrow, according to local broadcast news station KTBC.

Photo via Sean Ludwig/VentureBeat

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

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Google and the City of Austin just sent out a slew of invitations to an event next week, but they declined to provide details on what will be announced.

While city officials are staying quiet, multiple sources tell VentureBeat that the announcement could involve expanding Google’s gigabit broadband Internet service Google Fiber to Austin. Alternately, the city could announce plans for a new Austin-based Google campus, or even some partnership to involve the city with a new Google service. Whatever the announcement, it’s safe to say that it’ll be of interest to a broad section of the local community.

Here’s the invitation itself:

On Tuesday, April 9, at 11 a.m., the City of Austin and Google will make a very important announcement that will have a positive impact on Austinites and the future of the city. We anticipate more than 100 community leaders and elected officials to be in attendance to celebrate this announcement. The event invitation is attached for your convenience. Although we cannot share the details of the announcement with you in advance, we know readers will want to learn more, so we encourage you to join us on Tuesday.

Google Fiber offers download and upload speeds that are 100 times faster than the average consumer broadband Internet connection, and at a much cheaper price. The service launched in the Kansas City area back in July, which instantly prompted competing services from Time Warner Cable to boost their own offerings. Currently, Google Fiber is only being offered in Kansas City, Kan. and nearby Olathe, Kan., as well as Kansas City, Mo., but Google chairman Eric Schmidt has previously stated that this is not a side project for the company — implying that Google Fiber could launch elsewhere in the future.

The presence of Google Fiber within Kansas City has sparked an increase in new tech startups in the area, as VentureBeat’s Sean Ludwig previously pointed out. Austin already has a robust startup culture and is home to several large tech company campuses, including Dell, National Instruments, Intel, Apple (call center), Samsung, and others. That said, Austin is very much a tech-focused city, so the availability of Google Fiber would only add to that.

Photo by Sean Ludwig/VentureBeat

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

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Advanced Micro Devices, the perpetual No. 2 to Intel in PC microprocessors, said Tuesday it would sell its corporate campus in Austin, Texas, and then lease it back. The transaction will generate $164 million in much-needed cash for Sunnyvale, Calif.-based AMD.

The campus will be sold to real-estate firm Spear Street Capital and is expected to close on March 26. The sale is part of a strategy to get rid of non-core investments and double down on the core business of making microprocessors for PCs and other devices.  Unfortunately, it also seems like the kind of move that healthy companies wouldn’t make.

“As we reset and restructure AMD for long-term success, we are taking a number of steps designed to optimize our business and monetize assets,” said Devinder Kumar, chief financial officer of AMD. “The sale of our Austin campus will unlock a significant amount of capital, while the multi-year lease back of our Austin campus reconfirms our long-term commitment to the city that so many AMD employees have called home since 1979.”

AMD has mroe than 1,900 employees in Austin. The company will take a charge of $50 million as it books a loss on the selling price compared to the carrying value of the property. Nokia did the same thing with its Helsinki headquarters in December, raising $220 million. AMD lost $1.18 billion in 2012.

But AMD said that it is in the midst of turning itself around. The company recently announced a deal to supply combo graphics-microprocessor chips to Sony for the PlayStation 4. It announced its Richland mobile computer chip platform and new Radeon graphics chips recently.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

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This is a guest post by Julie Huls, President and CEO of the Austin Technology Council

Silicon Valley is still the gold standard for tech entrepreneurship. However, Austin is now emerging as a new destination of choice for tech startups as well as larger enterprise companies — for a variety of economic and cultural reasons.

Companies like Apple, Google, Facebook and Oracle are headquartered in Silicon Valley and there’s no question it’s is a hotbed of skilled labor; both workers and entrepreneurs from around the world migrate to the Valley to pursue their dreams and careers. It’s not unusual for startups to land funding rounds in the neighborhood of $50 million.

Austin is doing the same thing, just in a more organic, sustainable manner. Austin now hosts a healthy mix of larger companies and savvy entrepreneurs coming in droves from California, New York and other tech hotbeds. Private investors are often surprised at the number of seasoned executives operating here, but the truth is that Austin has grown into one of the nation’s go-to spots for startups and large players alike, and a market for high-growth companies to thrive.

A year-round ecosystem for success

One estimate has it that one-third of the companies that are moving to Texas originated in California, where the high cost of doing business often sends companies looking for alternate options. In addition to homegrown companies like Dell, established tech companies that employ more than 2,000 people in Austin include Apple, Microsoft, AT&T, Flextronics and Samsung.

We’re also home to an ecosystem of hot startups spanning across numerous industry sectors: OutboundEngine (DIY marketing), Taskbox (social task management), Macheen and Mutual Mobile (mobile), Zilliant (pricing optimization), WP Engine (site hosting) Bazaarvoice (social commerce) and GameSalad (gaming) and numerous other exciting and rapidly growing startups.

Austin’s economy is diversified outside of hardware and software, too. We’re a biotech hub with more than 160 companies and 8,200 employees. Whole Foods, Keller Williams, Sweet Leaf Tea and many other major brands are also headquartered in Austin.

Incentives for growth

One of the most unique draws for companies is the incentives structure propagated by the state of Texas. The state offers companies about $19 billion per year in incentives, the highest amount of any state in the union. The Emerging Technology Fund in particular reflects Texas’s commitment to growth within the tech sector. This fund awards grants that help product development, public-private partnerships and the recruitment of research talent. So far, more than $410 million in awards have been given, with an estimated 54,000 jobs created.

Austin has arranged an ecosystem that welcomes early-stage companies in particular. Our incubators, notably the Austin Technology Incubator, and Capital Factory, nourish young companies. Our universities, which include the University of Texas and Texas A&M, feed our talent pool, as do colleges from the southeast and Midwest. A recent Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL) reportranked Austin as the fifth major U.S. technology market out of 20 surveyed. Austin’s nearly 2,600 tech companies provide 50,000 jobs; the sector grew by 8.1 percent in 2012. When you consider that each innovation job creates an additional five jobs in the local economy, it’s no wonder that Austin continues to see net growth, even during the national recession.

Low Taxes, low cost of living

Greater Austin is one of the nation’s fastest-growing metropolitan area according to the most recent available statistics; 65 percent of the population migrated here.

In addition to a favorable funding, regulatory and legal environment for businesses, Austin boasts housing costs, utility expenses and tax burdens that are lower than most of the rest of the country. Texans don’t have to pay corporate or personal income tax. It is 47th of the 50 states in terms of taxes paid per $1,000 of personal income, according to the local chamber of commerce.

Compare that to Silicon Valley, where housing prices are more than three times higher than in Austin, and hefty taxes and regulations challenge the ability for companies to compete on securing the best talent.

Bigger Doesn’t Mean Better

Like Austin, Silicon Valley started organically. Back in the 1980s, it used to be the Valley against Boston. The Valley won because of its casual culture, freedom to experiment, and collaborative environment . People flocked from the Midwest and elsewhere to pursue their entrepreneurship and innovation dreams.

That’s akin to where Austin is today. The JLL report termed Austin a rising market, whereas Silicon Valley and San Francisco are closer to being peaking markets. Investors love our open landscape, literally and figuratively: information sharing and collaboration are standard practice here in Austin. Our seed rounds may be smaller, but we focus on organic growth to scale our companies, cultivating a sustainable environment in the process.

Everything Silicon Valley is doing, we’re doing, too — just on a smaller scale. And that comes with its own unique benefits.

Julie Huls has served as the President and CEO of the Austin Technology Council since 2009 where she collaborates regularly with state and national leaders on economic and workforce policy development. 

photo credit: Stuck in Customs via photopin cc

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

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With slick new version of its gesture-based mobile email app now available, productivity startup Taskbox announced that it’s raised a $600,000 seed round of funding today.

Taskbox is focused on bringing a better, more efficient way to sort through your email while on a mobile device. It differs from competitors like Mailbox because it always wants to help you turn email messages into a prioritized task list without harvesting your personal data. It’s currently only available on the iPhone for Gmail and Google Apps users, but the startup does have plans to expand in the near future.

The additional capital will be used to hire additional employees for engineering and design. Taskbox tells me it’s already hired two new employees to help reach its goal of becoming your “one-stop shop” for staying more productive throughout the day, more akin to an Evernote instead of just being a solid smartphone email client.

The new seed round was led by Central Texas Angel Network (CTAN) with participation from other notable angel investors, including McAfee’s CTO Michael Fey and James Foster.

Founded in 2012, the Austin, Texas-based startup has raised a total of $850,000 in funding to date. Taskbox is seeking to raise a series A round of funding in the later half of 2013.

Money image via Shutterstock

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

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You know what sucks worse than email? Waiting in line to use an app that’s supposed to make using email easier. That’s exactly what you’ll have to do if you download the hotly discussed mobile email iPhone app Mailbox.

Fortunately, rival Taskbox can do pretty much everything Mailbox does, but without the ridiculously long waiting period.

Like Mailbox, Taskbox is an iOS email client app that operates under the assumption that it’s much easier to plow through your messages using figure gestures on your smartphone. For example, flicking your fingers right lets you archive or delete worthless messages, while swiping the opposite direction gives you the option to mark a message important.

“Clearing through your messages is really only half the battle people face when dealing with email overload. The real challenge is what to do once you’re finished,” Taskbox CEO and founder Andrew Eye told VentureBeat in an interview recently. “All your assignments and tasks usually originate from the inbox, so we really felt it was necessary to do something that addressed those problems, and not just improve your mobile email experience.”

I first encountered Taskbox back in October 2012 shortly after its initial launch and was pretty much sold on the experience. However, the startup is planning to launch a new version with a cleaner, more simplified UI, which I’ve had a chance to check out.

When you mark a message as important in Taskbox, you actually move it into a separate “Taskbox” folder and have the option of rating it by importance on a scale of 1 to 5. You can also mark messages as “complete” or “delegate” (both of which also have their own sub-folders), send short canned responses, and schedule deadlines.

Right now, the app only supports Gmail and Google Apps accounts, but more email services are planned for the future, as are native apps for Android, Windows Phone 8, and BlackBerry 10. The app runs into some issues with threaded conversations that all appear as separate messages, but if you’re constantly sorting your email through Taskbox, they shouldn’t cause you much of a problem.

The iPhone app will also set you back $3, whereas Mailbox is free; still, there are some advantages to paying for the app. Eye points to Mailbox’s bout of downtime last week as one reason to opt for a paid service.

“Downtime in email is unacceptable,” he said. Unlike Mailbox, he explained, Taskbox isn’t running all your data through its own servers, which means there’s no downtime and fewer security risks.

“Taskbox is a pure email client with no server technology necessary. That means no storing or mining of your personal information on proprietary servers… [and] no additional company/technology between you and your mission critical email,” Eye said.

Founded in 2012, the Austin, Tex.-based startup has six employees and is seeking a Series A round of funding.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

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In its push to grow beyond its San Francisco roots, ride-sharing service SideCar has reportedly purchased Austin, Texas-based competitor Heyride, according to an AllThingsD report published today.

The acquisition probably has something to do with the SXSW conference that’s held in Austin every year in early March. And as a new resident of this fair city, I can attest to its horrible traffic congestion during the morning and evening rush, which will undoubtedly be worse with an enormous event happening. That said, ride sharing services will likely see plenty of use during SXSW.

Much like SideCar, Heyride is an iPhone app that searches your immediate area for people who are available to transport you around town for a fee. That fee is determined prior to someone picking you up, and the transaction is done entirely over your smartphone, which eliminates awkward situations that involve breaking large bills or being surprised that the driver doesn’t have a credit card machine. You’re able to track your ride using the smartphone’s GPS and rate drivers once you’ve been dropped off.

Buying Heyride is a smart move for SideCar. Not only will it gain Heyride’s local user base, but it’ll also put the spotlight on SideCar and potentially take attention away from rival ride sharing service Lyft.

We’ve reached out to SideCar for more details about the acquisition as well as its plans for SXSW. And as always, we’ll update this post with any new information.

Founded in 2012, the San Francisco-based SideCar raised a $10 million round of funding back in October from Lightspeed Venture Partners and Google Ventures. Since launching last year, the startup has facilitated over 50,000 rides and grown a community of hundreds of drivers and thousands of passengers.

The 2013 South By Southwest Interactive event is likely to bring hundreds of smart, plucky startups to Austin, Tex. next month, but co-working space/accelerator program Capital Factory wants at least one to stick around.

Capital Factory is inviting startups to enter into its “relocate to Austin” competition for a shot at getting a relocation package worth up to $50,000.

“We aren’t doing this because we think its hard to get people to move to Austin,” Capital Factory Director Joshua Baer told VentureBeat, adding that its relatively easy to attract entrepreneurs to the area based on the number of startups that have popped up over the years. “We’re just trying to capitalize on that, and on SXSW being here.”

Baer said the types of companies that are likely to stand apart in the competition will be those with “a clear path to revenue,” and those that are similar to the types of companies Capital Factory admits into its accelerator program, which attempts to cultivate profitable companies with $1 million in funding or less.

And as a testament to the sense of community in Austin, several local startups are donating resources to help make the relocation package happen, including six months of free hosting from Rackspace, three-months free rent in a three-bedroom house via HomeAway, free groceries via Greenling, six months of free storage unit space via SpareFoot, some moving expenses via uShip, six months free office space at Capital Factory and more.

“I’m sure between now and the actual event, the package is going to get even better,” Baer said.

The top five companies based outside of Austin will present at an event March 8 at SXSW. The winning startup will also automatically be enrolled into Capital Factory’s accelerator program. Applications to enter the relocation competition are currently open via AngelList and run through Feb. 24.

Image via Capital Factory

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

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Adometry is startup that generates analytics to get a better return on advertising, and it’s raised a $8 million round of funding, the company announced today.

Adometry tracks multiple sets of data across different ad channels (TV, web display ads, email, print, and so on) and provides analytics to show exactly where you’re actually getting the most effect. Clients can then adjust their advertising budgets accordingly to avoid paying for advertising that isn’t working — and spend more on ads that are.

The startup said it plans to use the new capital to advance its product roadmap, hire more people, and expand into new markets.

The new round was led by Shasta Ventures with participation from Austin Ventures and Sierra Ventures. Under terms of the deal, Shasta Ventures Managing Director Jason Pressman will join Adometry’s board of directors.

“Using big data to optimize and influence advertising spend is the future of marketing, and many of the world’s largest brands already rely on Adometry’s robust platform and expertise,” Pressman said in a statement.

Adometry’s clients include Microsoft, Kroger, IPG, Hyundai, Kia Motors, AT&T, and others.

Founded in 2005, the Austin, Texas-based startup has raised a total of $8.45 million in funding to date.

Image via Adometry

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

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The problem with most digital display advertising is that it’s rarely as compelling as the content it runs besides on a webpage.

OneSpot, a new advertising startup that launches today, thinks it can fix that problem by converting news articles, reviews, and blog posts into display ads.

The service essentially takes a link from an outside source, and refits it to the specifications of an ad. Founder Matt Cohen walked me through the process, which appeared to be very similar to what you’d find when sharing a post on social networks like Facebook, LinkedIn, or Google Plus. Each add contains the post’s artwork and headline, although if you have concerns over the chosen photo, there is an option to swap out something different.

So for example, if I wrote something particularly favorable about a service or product that a company liked and wanted to share, it can now go a step further than just posting my article on their Facebook page or tweeting it out over Twitter. Now, those companies can re-purpose my content as an ad, which will drive traffic to my post and spread the word to potential customers. Of course, there is something a bit unsavory about non-commercial content getting used as an advertisement, but its nothing new. This just happens to make the process simpler.

“We’re not doing anything that isn’t already being done on Facebook and Twitter,” OneSpot founder Matt Cohen told me in an interview Friday. He added that any publisher that does have a problem with their content being used can request that it be taken down. Honestly, I don’t know many publishers that will complain about getting new traffic though.

The real power of OneSpot lies in its ability to plug its advertising into various platforms like Google Adwords, Facebook, and others. Clients set a budget for their ads based on a particular set of parameters (gender, location, age range, etc.), and the OneSpot service will assess the best ad platform for the money. It also tracks all of ads and offers reports to its ad clients.

The Austin-based startup has about 20 clients at launch, and has raised a new $1.5 million round of funding from RSL Venture Partners, 500 Startups, Ralph Mack, Mike Maples, Sr., Josh Baer, and others.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Austin, Tex.-based startup SocialGood.TV recently announced its intentions to purchase Current TV, the struggling cable channel led by former Vice President Al Gore and founder Joel Hyatt.

Current launched in 2005 as an Internet user-curated progressive news channel. Originally, the network tried to integrate functionality of community news sharing site Digg with traditional television programming. In late 2009, Current scaled back its online presence to focus on just programing. Over the last year the network, rebranded itself as a left-leaning news channel with prime time political shows hosted by Keith Olberman (no longer will the company), former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer, former San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom, and The View co-host Joy Behar.

Last month, Hyatt confirmed to the NY Post that the network was formally taking steps to put the cable channel up for sale, should the right offer come along. The decision, Hyatt said, came after the network was approached about an acquisition deal on three separate occasions this year. And now it looks like SocialGood.TV could be the first to make a formal offer.

SocialGood.tv is an online video startup focused on driving engagement to worthy causes through its content. The startup’s intent really reminds me of the early days of programming on Current, which was dominated by shows like infoMania, user-curated news show Current Tonight, and its documentary-style journalism series Vangaurd. But SocialGood.tv has been operating in stealth-mode for the last eight months, and only recently decided to pop up on the public radar after hearing news of Current’s potential sale.

“When we heard Current was up for sale, we obviously shifted gears,” SocialGood.tv founder Stephen Vogelpohl told me in a phone interview. “The Current network really lines up with what we’re doing at SocialGood, (and) this is such a good opportunity that we couldn’t pass it up.”

Vogelpohl said the deal may involve relocating the San Francisco-based cable network to Austin, Tex., which is something that would likely benefit Austin’s growing technology and startup scene as well as other parts of the community. Also, the network’s programming would shy away from political commentary in favor of unbiased coverage of important issues.

Since the startup doesn’t have enough capital to purchase Current on its own, Vogelpohl reached out to a number of potential investors with experience closing deals of this size and are familiar with the media industry. And while many of the details are still being determined, Vogelpohl told me he’s spoken to around five different investors that account for about 80 percent of the funds needed to make an offer on the cable network. Investors would also be creating a brand new company that would push Current forward, rather than using the SocialGood.tv brand, he said.

Even if SocialGood.tv and its crop of investors are able to raise sufficient funds to make a formal offer on Current, they may not be the only potential buyer. While nothing has been officially expressed, Comcast/NBCUniversal or Disney/ABC News might have an interest in buying the ailing network.

It’s hard to say how much Current’s owners will ask for the network, which doesn’t have stellar ratings  Current is available in 60 million U.S. homes, and brought in an estimated $16.9 million in ad revenue in 2011, according to the NY Post.

Photo via MSNBC

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Life is tough for AMD nowadays.

As demand for PCs has slipped, so have AMD’s prospects: Since January, its stock price has dropped over sixty percent, and there are persistent rumors that it’s looking for someone to buy it.

Now, the chip company is looking to action off its own property. Reuters reports that AMD plans to sell its 58-acre Austin, Texas campus and lease its office space back from the buyer. The deal, worth upwards of $150 million, won’t help AMD’s situation too much, but for a company that’s $2 billion deep in long-term debt, any bit of cash helps.

The sale is yet another effort by AMD to solve its persistent money problems. After reporting some weak earnings for the third quarter this year, the chipmaker announced that it would be slashing its workforce by 1,700 employees – a 15 percent cut.

Funny enough, AMD’s campus-selling strategy is one also employed by Nokia, which has also been looking to sell its Espoo, Finland headquarters to solve its own cash concerns. Like AMD, Nokia is also a company that hasn’t adjusted well the current age of the smartphone. Maybe the two companies have a lot to learn from each other.

Photo: Flickr/rutlo

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Confirming rumors from earlier this week, the mobile payments company Isis said today that it will finally launch on  October 22.

Jaymee Johnson, the company’s head of marketing, sent us the following statement this morning: “Isis will be launching in Austin and Salt Lake City on Oct. 22. By year end, as many as 20 Isis Ready handsets are expected to be in market.  We look forward to sharing more details on Oct. 22.”

Isis, a joint project between AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile, was announced in November 2010, but it has been criticized for taking so long to launch. The company has been testing its near-field communications (NFC) mobile payment service in Salt Lake City and Austin throughout 2012, but it refused to lock down a specific launch date until today.

During Mobile World Congress this past February, Isis chief executive Michael Abbott told me he didn’t see any mobile wallet war brewing (competitors from Google and PayPal have already launched). He also said the company wanted to take its time and get mobile payments right the first time, since it’s building a network that needs to last for than a decade.

“We’re solving for a four-sided market,” he said at the time, pointing to the fact that Isis needs to make sure consumers, merchants, payment companies, and its parent carriers are happy with its product.

As part of Austin Startup Weekend, tremendously cool co-working space the Capital Factory held its own demo day event featuring 14 of the city’s up-and-coming tech companies.

Much like other demo day events, founders were invited to pitch their startups to a crowd of potential investors, peers, and media attendees within five minutes. During that time, they had to explain the company’s business model, explain what void it fills, and outline its current and future funding plans. (There were also complimentary breakfast tacos, because as I previously mentioned, Capital Factory is tremendously cool.)

We’ve highlighted five startups from the event that caught our attention.

StormPulse

StormPulse is a startup that began its life as an intensive weather forecast service but pivoted into something that uses severe storm data for more than planning your wardrobe. In its current form, StormPulse provides information useful for minimizing the cost of damage caused by natural disasters. For instance, a deep sea oil rig might want to shut down certain services and clear its facility based on storm data and damage estimates. StormPulse’s target clients include oil and refining companies, clean energy facilities, and several operations managed by the Department of Defense. The company is seeking a $300,000 seed round and has investment commitments from 500 Startups.

Vivogig

Vivogig focuses on filtering photos that people take during music concerts and festivals. It pulls from several different services like Twitter and Instagram but strips out anything that isn’t directly related to a particular performance. That means pictures of your cat, whose name might be Justin Bieber, won’t appear within the stream of images from last night’s Bieber fever concert. The startup plans to package these social photo streams as a service targeted at artists and event organizers. The stream can then be integrated into websites, mobile apps, and other non-traditional visual promotions, like sending photos to a screen on stage during the performance. Vivogig, which eventually wants to expand its focus to other entertainment and sporting events, also plans to sell merchandise and tickets through the service to generate additional revenue.

AuManil

AuManil provides a service that focuses on “Whale Analytics,” which actually has nothing to do with marine biology or tracking porpoises. (I was disappointed at first, but not at all surprised due to the lack of happy-looking dolphin photos in AuManil’s PowerPoint slides.) The startup is intended for social and mobile game developers that want to identify only the players that generate a lot of revenue — the “whales.” AuManil founder and CEO Bart Bohn explained that Zynga is a good example of a company that focused on its whales rather than its useless players. As a result, Zynga was able to dramatically increase revenue through its games. And if knowledge is power, then a good game developer can boost revenue without sacrificing the game play. The startup currently has $100,000 in seed funding and is seeking a $1 million series A round by Q1 of 2013. AuManil faces competition from similar game analytics services, like Kontagent, Flurry, Apsalar, and others.

Rockify

While music festivals are good at generating a profit from an actual venue, monetizing its performances for a digital audience is much more difficult. Video startup Rockify provides festivals, such as Austin City Limits, with an easy path to publishing video content across several platforms, both on the web and through its white label native mobile apps. One benefit of the service, according to Rockify CEO Joel Korpi, is that clients don’t have to spend countless hours uploading and managing video content through multiple services just to make money. Its native apps are flexible enough to let each festival choose how they want to monetize. Additionally, its service can pull in user-generated content from outside services (YouTube, Vimeo, etc.). The startup is seeking a $250,000 seed round, which it will use to bring on full-time employees and take on more clients.

Taskbox

Any startup that wants to make managing email less of a pain has my attention. Taskbox takes a unique approach by zeroing in on people that frequently check their email on mobile devices rather than desktop clients or web apps. Those with a large number of unread emails can quickly determine the importance of each message,and then assign it to a category. Important messages get ranked by priority, and you assign a due date that keeps the message at the top of your message list. Having watched the demo on screen, I have to say I kind of love the idea.

Photo via Joel Goodman/Instagram

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Samsung is aiming to double-down on its Austin, Texas chip making plant: The company announced today that it would invest around $4 billion in the plant to boost the production of mobile processors.

The investment in Samsung Austin Semiconductor will be the single largest injection of foreign funds ever into Texas, according to MarketWatch. Samsung has now spent over $13 billion on the Austin plant since it launched in 1996.

It makes sense for Samsung to pump up its chip production since it needs to keep a steady supply of chips for its Galaxy S III line, as well as its many other models. Samsung toppled Nokia back in April as the world’s biggest mobile phone maker — partially due to the strong sales of its low-end devices and Galaxy line, and partially due to Nokia’s market share free fall. If Samsung is to continue growing, it’ll need the chip capacity to power future phones.

Samsung will be replacing equipment meant for making memory chips with newer hardware for building mobile chips, reports the Statesman. The company will hire around 2,000 temporary workers to complete the equipment upgrade, and it says there won’t be any layoffs at the Austin plant.

Apple is planning a new $304 million campus in Austin. Rick Perry, Texas governor and failed Republican presidential candidate, announced the news today, just in time for Austin’s annual festival of Mac-lovin’ nerds, SXSW. The location will handle customer support, accounting, and sales for the company.

This kicks off a week of SXSW announcements that are soon to be flowing out of Austin, Texas. Perry’s statement said the Apple project would add 3,600 jobs in Austin, where Apple already has a large headquarters with an existing staff of about 3,500. The Texas Enterprise Fund, a state program for creating jobs and encouraging businesses in Texas, will kick in $21 million over the next decade for the project. It’s the largest amount the fund has sunk into a single company since it started in 2003.

“Investments like this further Texas’ potential to become the nation’s next high-tech hub,” said Perry in a statement.

A hipster-rich college town, Austin has a prime and growing pool of tech-job applicants. Home to the University of Texas, the city has a population of almost 700,000 with a median age of 30. A growing tech spot, Austin is sometimes called the “Silicon Hills” (every entrepreneur-town needs a catchy nickname).

Texas image via ShutterStock

Too much noise?

Are you an entrepreneur looking to push your big product idea to the next step?

Consider shutting out the noise of SXSW for a few minutes (there are tens of thousands of companies vying for attention here), and sitting down with me and some partners from Austin Ventures, one of the best venture firms in Austin. We’ll give you some calm but efficient feedback on your idea. Whether it be on your product, go-to-market strategy, business model, or technology, we’re offering our free advice, no strings attached.

For sure, this is part of our ongoing drive to meet amazing entrepreneurs, for a number of reasons.

First, on the VentureBeat side, we’re looking for great stories to write, and there’s nothing better than finding an entrepreneur with a kick-ass idea. Second, this is part of our global effort to invite the best companies to launch new technology products at our DEMO conference in April.

We’ve got time to meet with ten companies on Sunday, March 11, from 9:30am until 1:30pm at the Hilton in downtown Austin (Room 415A). This is the last call, and you can apply here.

Otherwise, a few others from the VB team and I will be attending SXSW and participating in all kinds of things. Here’s a breakdown:

• I’ll be judging the SXSW Accelerator.

• Sebastian Haley of GamesBeat will be speaking on the panel “Connected Living Rooms, Contentious Networks” along with Netflix CEO Reed Hastings and others.

• Writer Jolie O’Dell will be speaking on the following panels: ”How to Harvest Consumer Intent from the Social Web” and “The more music services change…“

• This year, we’ll also be co-hosting our own lounge at SXSW at the Hilton in downtown Austin, and we hope you’ll drop by. From Friday, March 9 to Tuesday, March 13, we’re inviting developers, techies, entrepreneurs, and VCs to relax, recharge, drink, and grub with us and Alcatel-Lucent’s NG Connect team. Along with IDA Singapore — a program that cultivates the IT industry in Singapore, making it the premiere launchpad to Asian markets — we’ll be conducting a series of interviews with hot startups live in the lounge. Our friends at Flurry will also have an area in the lounge.

Looking forward to seeing you in Austin!

SXSW is a monster. Some 20,000 attendees run around downtown, creating a bunch of noise. But amid the cacophony, there’s some really cool stuff, and it’s our job to unearth it for you.

Here’s what else we’ve got planned:

The A5 processors are manufactured in a factory in Austin, Tex., according to a Reuters report that cites sources familiar with the matter. It’s a big surprise since Apple usually gets its components through Asian manufacturing companies that can keep their labor costs down, which in turn, brings costs down for Apple.

The $3.6 billion factory, which belongs to Korean electronics company Samsung, is a 1.6 million square foot facility (about the size of 9 football fields). It employs about 3,500 people and is the second non-memory chip production facility owned by Samsung. According to the Reuters report, the facility was expanded to include a production line for such chips when Samsung signed a contract with Apple earlier this year.

Although the information isn’t confirmed, it would make sense for Samsung to produce the crucial Apple A5 chip in Austin. The city has plenty of potential talent that comes from the University of Texas’ engineering schools. Austin is also home to a very large Apple customer call center, which employs thousands of people.

If you’re based in the Austin region and are looking to launch a new tech product in the near future, join us for a meetup at one of Austin’s most respected venture capital firms, Austin Ventures.

We’ll be inviting up to 10 companies that are contemplating launching products at DEMO (either at the upcoming DEMO event in September 12-14 in Silicon Valley, or DEMO Spring 2012) to pitch on Tuesday, June 7 at Austin Ventures’ offices at 300 West 6th Street.

This is part of our ongoing quest to find the best entrepreneurs in the world for DEMO, the event VentureBeat co-produces every six months. The next conference is scheduled for September 12-14 in Silicon Valley. It’s an event where a long list of successful companies have launched their earliest products, including Netscape, VMWare, Salesforce, Palm, TiVo and E-Trade.

DEMO has been the launching ground for a number of successful Austin companies as well. The list includes Whole Security (acquired by Symantec), Bones in Motion (acquired by Adidas), Sailpoint, InfoChimps, Zosh and many more.

We also just launched a new DEMO Scholarship Partner Program, which will make DEMO free for the earliest stage companies. This next event is going to be huge.

If your company is interested in coming, please fill out this form. If you’re selected as one of the 10, we’ll follow up immediately with more information about the presentation and who will be there, etc.

These meetings are not designed to be pitches for funding. They are a great opportunity to develop an early relationship with the firm’s partners without the pressure that comes with a typical pitch.

Look forward to seeing you in Austin!