South by Southwest just announced four Austin startups made the finalists and two companies made the alternates list in the highly competitive SXSW Accelerator Pitch Event.

The finalists from Austin include Litmus Health in the Health and Wearables category, FishViews and Makerarm in the Innovative World Category and SPLT in the transportation category.

The alternates include Maidbot in the Innovative World category and Claimbot in the Payment & FinTech category.

Overall, 50 finalists in ten categories made the cut for the ninth annual SXSW Accelerator Pitch Event which takes place March 11-12 during SXSW Startup Village track at the Hilton Downtown Austin.

This year, the SXSW Accelerator Pitch Event received more than 500 applications from startups based in cities around the world. The event added three new categories: transportation, sports and security and privacy.

“This year’s class of finalists are the best we’ve ever seen in the nine years we have been organizing this competition. I’m particularly excited about the diverse innovation we are seeing from all over the world – it’s the globalization of the startup ecosystem, and Accelerator is right at the heart of it. A couple of the most prevalent trends reflected across SXSW as a whole involve artificial intelligence and health and wearable technologies, and we are seeing an anticipated rise of innovation in non-traditional sectors, highlighted by our new categories,” SXSW Accelerator Event Producer Chris Valentine said in a news statement.

This year’s finalists hail from global cities like Moscow; Istanbul; Cork, Ireland; Liverpool, UK; Brussels; Ahmedabad; Calgary, Canada; Frankfurt, Germany; London; Auckland, New Zealand; and more.

“SXSW Accelerator alums have raised over $3.1 billion in funding, and we are so excited to give these 50 companies the opportunity to add to these accomplishments,” Valentine said.

For a complete list of the 2017 Finalists, including alternates, and the Accelerator Pitch Event judges, visit the SXSW Accelerator Pitch Event website.

We’re still basking in the glow of the Austin Technology Calendar Party last Friday at Galvanize Austin.

It was a great event and a good time for all. If you missed it and you want a Austin 2017 Wall Sized Tech Calendar for $30 each, please contact Laura Lorek.

Austin always has a lot of events going on. This week, we’ve picked out five that should be on your radar.

TUESDAY: Austin Internet of Things Meetup at Sherlock’s Baker St Pub, 9012 Research Blvd from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Kevin Saye of Microsoft will give a talk about Azure Machine Learning, Cognitive Services, and IoT to secure a location and eliminate human error and false alarms.

Also on Tuesday, the VR Austin Meetup at The North Door, 502 Brushy St. from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. The meetup will feature demos of The Town by Troll House Games and VR Dungeon Crawler by Potato Face Games.

WEDNESDAY: The Rice Alliance – Austin Chapter and Central Texas Angel Network are hosting a pitch competition that kicks off at 6 p.m. at Alamo Drafthouse, 1120 S. Lamar Blvd. Tickets cost $25. The winner of the pitch competition will receive a prize package.

THURSDAY: Built In Brews at Procore Technologies at 221 W. 6th St, 18th floor from 5:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Procore just moved into larger offices in Austin. This is a chance to check out their new space and to learn about the jobs they have open. (Full disclosure: Procore is an advertiser with Silicon Hills News)

SATURDAY: Business Fundamentals for Musicians at General Assembly from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. at WeWork, 600 Congress Ave., 14th floor.

Thoma Bravo, a private equity firm, announced Thursday its plans to acquire Planview, an Austin-based software company.

The two companies have entered into a definitive agreement for Thoma Bravo to acquire Planview form Insight Venture Partners. The financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

Thoma Bravo will become the new majority shareholder of Planview upon the closing of the transaction, while Insight Venture Partners will maintain a minority stake in the company.

Planview’s CEO Patrick Durbin founded the company in 1989. The company makes project portfolio management tools and has offices in the U.S., Europe and Asia. It has more than 550 customers worldwide including Wells Fargo, WellPoint, Citi, Hallmark, Freddie Mac, BP, Aetna and others.

“Planview is on an exciting journey that is redefining our company, the market, and the value we can provide to our customers,” Greg Gilmore, CEO of Planview said in a news statement.

The company plans to keep its headquarters in Austin. The deal is expected to close in the first quarter of this year, subject to regulatory approval.

In 2013, Zac Maurais and Ben Doherty launched Favor in Austin to deliver food to people’s doorsteps.

The startup quickly grew and later that year, Favor attracted $2 million in seed stage funding. The next year, the company landed $13 million with plans to expand nationwide.

Those plans came to a halt this week.

Favor announced it is pulling out of all cities outside of Texas. At its peak, the company operated in 23 cities across the U.S. and Canada. But it began scaling back operations last June when it pulled out of five cities: Chicago, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Miami and Washington, DC.

Favor faced a lot of competition in the food delivery business from Instacart, Postmates, Uber Eats, Amazon and others.

The Austin-based mobile delivery app reported it achieved “3X growth” in 2016 and it is “aggressively pursuing a clear path to profitability with a singular focus on continued rapid growth throughout Texas.”

“We’re incredibly proud of the strong growth we experienced in 2016, especially in Texas” Favor CEO and President Jag Bath said in a statement. “As part of our ongoing smart growth strategy, we are shifting our near-term focus back on Texas, creating a clear line of sight to profitability while still maintaining an impressive rate of growth.”

“As an Austin-based company, Texas makes up a significant part of our business, and as the second most populous state in the nation, we have ample room to continue growing our dominant presence throughout the state. Our approach mirrors the growth strategy of several successful Texas brands, including Alamo Drafthouse and HEB, that perfected their model within the state before expanding more broadly. We are excited about our prospect for growth and profitability in 2017 and beyond,” Bath said.

Last year, Favor reported more than $60 million in gross product sales. It has more than 20,000 active runners. The company did not comment on how its scaling back will affect contract and full time employees.

Last year, the company, with 121 local employees, moved into 12,000 square foot headquarters at 1705 Guadalupe Street.

By LAURA LOREK
Reporter with Silicon Hills News

Austin entrepreneurs Joseph Kopser and Bret Boyd have launched Grayline, a corporate consulting firm.

Kopser previously worked as global president of moovel, a subsidiary of Diamler AG. Moovel recently announced plans to consolidate operations to Portland.

Kopser cofounded RideScout and sold it in 2014 to Car2Go, an Austin-based subsidiary of Diamler. He has roots in Austin and has become deeply involved in its entrepreneurial ecosystem. With Grayline, he saw an opportunity to build something special with Boyd, who previously worked as a vice president for Stratfor, a geopolitical analysis and consulting firm. Boyd built and ran Austin-based Stratfor’s enterprise business. Both men graduated from the U.S. Military Academy and served in the U.S. Army. They met in Austin four years ago and they thought the timing was right now to partner.

Grayline provides strategy and corporate development support for companies, public institutions and investment groups. It is focused on the energy industry, manufacturing, smart cities, transportation and more.

“We’re not going to try to boil the ocean,” Kopser said.

The new company focuses on bringing together experts, data and solutions to help companies and public institutions manage disruptive change in areas like national security, energy security, strategy and leadership development, Kopser said.

Grayline will focus on helping senior executives plan around trends that impact their businesses, Boyd said.

“We are at a point and time right now when the global economy is more connected than ever before,” Boyd said. “It’s an engine of growth. But it’s also an engine of risk.”

One idea in an unrelated industry has ripple effects through other industries, Boyd said. Disruptive technologies like autonomous vehicles, 3D Printing and artificial intelligence are going to have a huge impact on a lot of industries, he said.

“These are issues everyone has to think about and prepare their organizations for,” he said. “Yet it’s difficult for them to cultivate the expertise to do that.”

That’s where Grayline comes in, Boyd said.

Grayline recently completed a project for the Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada. They hired Kopser as the facilitator and lunchtime speaker for a large transportation technology summit at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

In addition to Grayline, Kopser said he plans to continue working closely with The Bunker Labs Austin and he is going to become an entrepreneur in residence at the University of Texas at Austin and work with Professor of Innovation Bob Metcalfe at the Innovation Center. He also volunteers as chairman of NSTXL working to improve U.S. Energy Security policy.

Grayline works virtually right now but will most likely get an office at WeWork on Congress, Boyd said.

Grayline will also be contributing as investors in a fund that Joshua Baer, director of Capital Factory, is putting together, Kopser said.

Grayline also plans to develop its website as a resource for companies with articles by subject matter experts that understand the industries and speak the language of senior leaders.

“We built the site to be something between a blog and a publishing platform,” Boyd said. “We want to create a platform around these big issues. Trends of how people are living. Look at some of the emerging technologies within cities. That body of expertise is a very cross disciplinary look. It matters to consumer products companies. It matters to defense companies. We are really trying to stake out a deep body of expertise in these catalysts that are changing these systems.”

By LAURA LOREK
Reporter with Silicon Hills News

Roomify moved from Dallas to Austin last summer to plug into the city’s vibrant tech entrepreneurial scene.

“This is where we wanted to scale the company,” said Shanil Wazirali, the startup’s co-founder.

Last May, Wazirali, 27, and his cousin and co-founder, Sagar Hemani, 25, raised a seed stage round of funding from angel investors, as well as funds like Kombo Ventures, Marc Bell Capital, and FireStarter, which includes managing member Sam Yagan, CEO of Match.com. The investment allowed them to relocate and expand operations.

This year, they rebranded the company name from Dorm It Up to Roomify aiming to reach an even larger audience and building a brand around all college students, Wazirali said.

Moving to Austin made a lot of sense, Wazirali said. He and Hemani like Austin’s tech ecosystem and being around other like-minded entrepreneurs. They travelled to Austin for its annual startup crawl and immediately made plans to relocate here. He wrote about the experience on post called “Going All In” on Medium.

Austin, home to the University of Texas, is also the perfect college town for Roomify to cater to undergraduate and graduate students and young professionals looking to furnish their first apartment.

“We understand the college market is huge in itself and we haven’t even scratched the surface,” Wazirali said. “The idea is to establish the brand in that space first.”

Wazirali and his cousin first came up with the concept for Dorm It Up, now Roomify, when they went to college.

“We dragged our parents from store to store and realized there needed to be an easier way to shop for college. What if you could get everything delivered in a box?” Wazirali said.

“We looked at the market and we were like wow, there’s $20 billion in shopping every year in the U.S. for college supplies including dorm furnishings, text books and other items,” Wazirali said. “And we said if you look at it, students are going to Target, Wal-Mart and all these stores because they don’t have a brand to turn to.”

At that time, digitally-native brands like Warby Parker just launched and people developed their own brands, Wazirali said. They focused on staple necessities and owned their own brand from start to finish and that helped them succeed, he said.

In 2008, the founders of Warby Parker launched a new online business that allowed people to buy glasses for just $95 a pair. The company is now valued at more than $1 billion.

Wazirali and Hemani saw the same opportunity to build a vertically integrated brand in the college shopping space.

“In this space, we can control the experience, we can get students pumped and we can stand behind our designs and quality and say this is ours,” Wazirali said.

Wazirali graduated from Texas A&M University with a business degree in 2012 and Hemani graduated with a business degree from the University of Missouri in 2013. They founded the company in the summer of 2013.

Roomify markets its products online primarily through word of mouth advertising. Students show off its bright green boxes all over the internet. Other brands like Tide and Red Bull also include samples in the boxes as freebies for the customers.

It’s working. The company sells out of its inventory every year, Wazirali said. However, it’s no easy business, according to a statement from Hemani. The company is currently seasonal and has an intricate supply chain, dealing with more than 30 manufacturers and 500 products.

“We team up with designers from top fashion brands, brand our products, control the quality, and service students directly,” Hemani wrote in a statement. “This model allows us to provide high quality products, extreme convenience, and save students up to 50 percent versus retail.”

Right now, this market is full of incumbents, Wazirali said.

Students spent $6.23 billion in 2016 on dorm furnishings, up 43 percent from 2009, according to a study by the National Retail Federation. Other online competitors in the dorm furnishing space include DormCo, based in Cheektowaga, New York and LeighDeuxDorm.com, based in Charlotte, North Carolina.

“It’s super fragmented,” Wazirali said. “Nobody’s innovating and giving students this unique experience.”

Roomify sells college students bundles of dorm room supplies including Twin XL sheets, comforter, pillowcases, towels, shower caddy and other supplies starting at $175 for 24 items to $299 for 42 items. It also offers items a la carte.

“You can pick your colors and within a matter of days you have everything you need right to your doorstep,” Wazirali said. The company offers more than 80 bundle combinations.

“There’s a lot of guess work out in the industry,” Wazirali said. “Students don’t know what to bring. We come in and avoid all the guesswork. Here’s what you need.”

Chegg, which started out doing text book rentals, became a leading student brand that’s public and they have revenue of more than $200 million a year, Wazirali said.

“They own about half of all college students on their platform,” he said. “Their founder is our advisor. We look up to them and how they started with one business model and created a student hub. We want to do that with physical goods and services.”

Roomify opened its office off 5th and Brazos. They have made their space feel like a college classroom and dorm with chalkboard walls, bright green walls, and even a dorm bed. They are hiring. They also recruit college students during the summer to provide customer service.

National Instruments announced this week it has opened an Industrial IoT Lab in Austin.

The new lab will focus on technology that connects things to the internet including microgrid control and communication, advanced control for manufacturing and asset monitoring for heavy equipment.

National Instruments will also work with other companies to make sure devices work together. In particular, the lab will focus on communications protocols, controller hardware and other software and hardware.

The lab’s sponsors include: Analog Devices Inc, Avnu Alliance, Cisco Systems, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Industrial Internet Consortium, Intel, Kalypso, OPC Foundation, OSIsoft, PTC, Real-Time Innovations, SparkCognition, Semikron, Viewpoint Systems and Xilinx.

“We are excited to strengthen partnerships with other world-class technology companies. A working showcase for new technologies can help all companies involved drive breakthrough innovations for utility grids, manufacturing, asset health monitoring and several other industries,” Jamie Smith, business and technology director at NI, said in a news release.

NI, founded in 1976 in Austin, creates hardware and software platforms for a variety of industries including healthcare, automotive, consumer electronics and more.

Main Street Hub, announced this week, that it has closed on $27 million debt refinancing and expansion with Silicon Valley Bank.

The Austin-based startup plans to use the funds to further develop its technology and sales operations.

To date, Main Street Hub has raised more than $70 million of equity and debt financing. The company has more than 500 employees.

“This new funding enables us to invest even more in our customers in 2017 and beyond,” Matt Stuart, co-founder and co-CEO of Main Street Hub, said in a news release. “With the expansion of our partnership with SVB, we will build on the new customer experience we launched in 2016 by releasing a series of new products that amplify our customers’ brands across the web and utilize our data on local business performance to drive better business outcomes for our customers. We’ll also continue to build the technology, training, and leadership that has made our sales team the best in our space.”

“We’re pleased to continue our long-standing partnership with Main Street Hub,” Dax Williamson, Managing Director for Silicon Valley Bank in Austin said in a news release. “Main Street Hub is enabling small businesses to leverage the power of marketing in a single, automated platform. We look forward to facilitating Main Street Hub’s future growth with the right financing, connections and services.”

Main Street Hub created a small business marketing platform that integrates social media, customer reviews, web and email marketing. The company, founded by Stanford graduate students Stuart and Andrew Allison, moved to Austin in 2011 after visiting the city during SXSW. Silicon Hills News named Main Street Hub one of its 20 hot Austin-based startups to watch this year.

“When local businesses have to spend time on marketing, that’s time they aren’t spending on the true purpose behind their work—preparing a delicious meal for a guest, making sure a customer’s car will keep them safe on the road, or helping a client accomplish a wellness goal,” Matt Stuart, co-founder and co-CEO of Main Street Hub, said in a news release. “With our full service ‘do-it-for-you’ SaaS marketing platform, we help local business owners spend more time on the things they love.”

The Silicon Hills News Tech Calendar Party kicks off on Friday at 6 p.m. at Galvanize.

There are still a few regular priced tickets available, but only through Monday. We hope to see you there.

Silicon Hills News would like to thank Alamo Beer, our beer sponsor for the event along with Tito’s Vodka, our spirits sponsor.

A big shout out to our super-cool calendar sponsors; Temple Health & Bioscience District, Galvanize, Austin Chamber of Commerce, Procore Technologies and InnoTech Austin and InnoTech San Antonio. And a big thank you to John Davidson, photographer who took all the photos for this year’s calendar. And thank you to all the Austin technology leaders featured. (They will soon all be revealed,)

So cheers to a great week of filling your brain with knowledge and networking.

MONDAY: Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday. Austin’s MLK March kicks off at the Martin Luther King Jr. Statue at the University of Texas at Austin campus at 9 a.m. with a short program. The marchers then progress South to the State Capitol for another program and then marchers will continue on to the historic Huston-Tillotson University for a festival.

TUESDAY: Podcasting Panel: How to Utilize a Podcast for Your Brand put on by Dave Manzer of PR Over Coffee and Manzer Communications at General Assembly on the 14th floor at WeWork Congress starting at noon until 1 p.m. Manzer will moderate the panel featuring Omar L. Gallaga, co-host of Statesman Shots, Moby Hayat, host of Austin Fire Show, Paul O’Brien, founder of MediaTech Ventures and partner in 1839 Ventures and Laura Lorek, host of Silicon Hills News’ Ideas to Invoices podcast.

WEDNESDAY: Trump’s Impact on Austin Tech, a panel discussion at Capital Factory starting at 6 p.m. and running until 7:30 p.m. Panelists include Matthew Dowd, ABC News Chief Political Analyst, Ainee Athar (FWD.us), Omar Gallaga (Austin American-Statesman), Shalini Ramanathan (RES Americas), and Ian Clarke (The Freenet Project).

THURSDAY: Industrial design and mechanical engineering & intelligent robot creatures at the Austin Hardware meetup at Capital Factory starting at 7 p.m.

FRIDAY: Silicon Hills News 2017 Austin Calendar Party at Galvanize starting at 6 p.m. and running until 8:30 p.m. Get your ticket here.

SATURDAY: Tacos, Tech, Drinks & Data: Galvanize Austin Info Session – 10:00 a.m. to noon at Galvanize. Dual-Info Session to learn about Galvanize’s 24-week Web Development Immersive program and its 12-week Data Science Immersive program over tacos and mimosas.

SATURDAY: Austin Startup Games 2017 at Fair Market starting at noon and running until 6 p.m. featuring top Austin startups battling it out in games like beer pong, ping pong, liar’s dice, connect four, darts, foosball and more. There’s always a surprise event. The teams battling it out for the top prize are: uShip
Trendkite, theCHIVE, Sparefoot, OwnLocal, OutboundEngine, OneSpot, Modernize, LawnStarter, Headspring, Capital Factory, Boundless, AffiniPay, Aceable, Academic Works, Scalefactor and ShippingEasy.

Coming up:

JAN 25th: Rice Alliance-Austin Chapter and Central Texas Angel Network Pitch Competition.

FEB. 4th: Food+City Challenge Prize