It was red carpet week for Colorado tech and life sciences companies, as the leading industry and advocacy associations honored the state’s top companies and individuals. Next week in Boulder, the Internet of Things’ promise in helping to solve global problems will take center stage.
Reaching the Apex: The Colorado Technology Association celebrated its annual Apex Awards gala in Denver.
LogRhythm took home top honors for tech company of the year. The Boulder-based IT security company is one of the stars of Colorado’s tech industry, and 2014 has been a very good year for the company. In July, LogRhythm raised a $40 million Series E round, which brought the total raised by the company to $71.5 million.
CEO Andy Grolnick said the round will enable LogRhythm to continue to develop its product, which can detect when network security breaches occur, track what damage intruders do, and take steps to close the holes and protect the rest of the network. The company is expanding internationally.
The round also should be LogRhythm’s last, Grolnick said. The company’s now on a path to go public, although when remains to be determined.
Denver-based GeoPoll was named startup of the year. GeoPoll’s software enables humanitarian organizations, governments, and businesses to conduct polls using text messages, especially in the developing world.
GeoPoll is part of Mobile Accord, which also created mGive. mGive allows nonprofits and relief organizations to collect contributions via text messages and has been used in many disaster relief efforts. Last November, mGive raised $6.6 million to launch GeoPoll.
JB Holston and Jeremy Ostermiller took home individual awards. Holston won the lifetime achievement honor for his work with several Colorado tech companies, including NewsGator (which has been rebranded as Sitrion) and his advocacy and community-building work. Holston now is the executive director of the Blackstone Entrepreneurs Network of Colorado, an organization seeking to help successful startups make the leap to $100 million or even $1 billion companies.
Ostermiller is the founder and CEO of Altitude Digital, a Denver-based company. The video advertising startup develops programmatic advertising software that digital publishers use to automate the process of selling display, video, and mobile ads to advertisers through real-time auctions. Altitude Digital took in revenue of $21.9 million in 2013 and has made the Inc. 500 list three years in a row.
For other winners, check out the Colorado Technology Association website.
Colorado bioscience’s best: The Colorado BioScience Association also honored their industry’s leaders this week.
AlloSource, which is a nonprofit organization based in Centennial, was named company of the year by the association. AlloSource develops and distributes tissues that can be used in surgical procedures such as skin grafts and joint repair. It has more than 400 employees.
This year, AlloSource expanded its work in stem cell research and began using microbe detection technology developed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory to improve tissue decontamination procedures. AlloSource’s hope is that the NASA technology will cut the time it takes to get donated tissue and organs to recipients.
Boulder-based ViroCyt won the award for rising star of the year. The company’s Virus Counter is able to calculate a virus’ growth rate in minutes and is used in vaccine and drug development, viral therapeutics, and protein expression research.
For a list of individual winners, click here.
Internet of Things 101: For people obsessed with new technology, it feels like we’ve been talking about the Internet of Things for a long time. But there are still major corporations, institutions, and entire industries only beginning to understand key ideas and how they could affect them.
That’s the premise of a conference to be held in Boulder next week. The three-day “World’s Greatest Problem Solvers” conference begins Sunday and will take a look at how the Internet of Things and connected devices can address global problems such as cyber security, energy, agriculture, and terrorism.
Featured speakers include former Compaq and First Data CEO Michael Capellas, BBC World News anchor Katty Kay, and Cure Violence founder and executive director Gary Slutkin.
