Let’s catch up with the latest innovation news from Xconomy Texas.
Austin:
—CognitiveScale, an artificial intelligence/cognitive computing startup, announced it has raised $21.8 million in venture funding to promote global sales. The two-year-old startup has developed software to create a cloud-computing platform that uses machine learning to mine very large databases.
—Most delivery startups have focused on bringing us lunch or fetching our dry cleaning. Dropoff wants to leverage software and GPS to digitize business-to-business courier services. Two years after launching in Austin, the startup has expanded service to Los Angeles.
Dallas:
—Health IT startup Cariloop started out connecting users to adult care and assisted living facilities for seniors. After a year of being out in the market, founder Michael Walsh says they realized that what time-pressed caregivers need is more along the lines of a community to exchange ideas and a “planning coach” that can help them make decisions.
Houston:
—Houston’s CS Disco has raised more than $18 million in a Series C investment round. The startup makes software for law firms to help them more efficiently sort through and find documents needed in business litigation. CS Disco started operations three years ago and has now raised $38 million.
—Bring the beauty salon home with the Pageboy app. The Houston-based startup launched last fall offering blowouts in the Houston area. Pageboy has now expanded to Austin, TX (with additional Texas metro areas to come) and will soon offer manicures/pedicures, spray tans, and other salon services.
San Antonio:
—Closing the gender gap in technology companies has become a priority for many firms. Linux for Ladies, a program started by San Antonio cloud computing company Rackspace, is one step in helping that effort.
—StemBioSys, the San Antonio biotech that sells products for stem cell production, has signed a distribution deal with Cellaviva AB to distribute the products in Sweden and Denmark. The deal also gives the Swedish company non-exclusive rights to the rest of Europe, StemBioSys said in a statement. StemBioSys develops an extracellular matrix from bone marrow stem cells. In July, StemBioSys signed South Korean distribution rights to life science equipment distributor SeouLin Bioscience Co., and in May signed a similar deal with Funakoshi Co. Ltd to sell its stem cell-based product in Japan. All three deals include rights to future StemBioSys products.
—The San Antonio tech-focused co-working space Geekdom has hired a new chief operation officer. David Garcia, who previously was the regional manager for Apple’s retail stores in San Antonio, started with Geekdom on July 25, taking over for interim COO Luke Owen. Owen, a former Rackspace (NYSE: [[ticker:RAX]]) employee and co-founder of recruiting software-focused startup TrueAbility, is taking on the role of Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Geekdom, which now has 1,100 paying members. “One of the things that (Geekdom CEO) Lorenzo (Gomez) has challenged me with is to bring in a little structure, and still keep a startup culture here,” Garcia said in a telephone interview. “Finding that right balance is definitely one of the challenges for me.”
Xconomy National Correspondent David Holley contributed to this report.
