It’s been quite a busy week here for Northwest-area technology companies and entrepreneurs. There haven’t been a particularly high number of straight deals, but while flipping through my notebook this week, I realized that there’s been a lot of smaller news that speaks to some interesting trends and happenings.
—Portland, OR-based social e-commerce company ShopIgniter appointed Dave Hersh, the chairman of the board and former chief executive of Jive Software, to its board of directors. The company says Hersh’s social business software background will help it prepare for “explosive growth” in the fast-growing retail and e-commerce space. ShopIgniter, founded in 2009, raised $3 million in Series A financing from Seattle-based Madrona Venture Group in March. As part of the deal, Madrona partner Matt Compton joined the company as chief executive.
—Salesforce.com, the San Francisco-based enterprise and cloud-computing company, has secured space in Seattle’s South Lake Union neighborhood for a new development office, according to a report by TechFlash. The 12,000-square-foot space is located in the West 8th building at the intersection of Westlake Avenue, 8th Street, and Virginia Street. Woodson Martin, the senior vice president in the office of the CEO, told TechFlash that the “sky is the limit” in terms of hiring in Seattle. See the full story here.
—Seattle-based WhitePages expanded its Seattle-, Los Angeles-, and San Francisco-based social buying site, DealPop, nationally with DealPopUSA. Unlike other deal-a-day sites that promote discounted deal items specific to a particular location—by city, region, or neighborhood—DealPop is offering a new campaign of deals available nationwide. DealPop launched in July, joining the ranks of other deal-a-day sites like Groupon and the locally owned Tippr.
—Troy, MI-based national disaster restoration and reconstruction firm InStar has set up two new offices in the Seattle area and Southern California. The local office, located at 605 W. Main Street in Centralia, opened at the end of August. The space houses water extraction and drying equipment for commercial construction.
—Seattle-based online and mobile scheduling software company Shiftboard rolled out a new partnership program designed to offer cloud-based scheduling services to small businesses and independent vendors. The program is meant to help facilitate a relationship between software developers, technology service providers, and the Shiftboard platform. Partners can choose to between using Shiftboard’s system, and offering a custom-branded white-label version. Read more about Shiftboard in our exclusive interview with CEO Rob Eleveld.
