Bigcommerce, a site that lets anyone create an online store, raised $40 million from Revolution Growth.
Steve Case, co-founder of the Revolution Growth fund and founder of America Online, will also join Bigcommerce’s board.
The Austin-based company, founded by Eddie Machaalani and Mitchell Harper in 2009, has raised $75 million to date.
Bigcommerce’s software has already helped more than 35,000 companies launch online stores, market their businesses and build brands for just $25 a month. Its customers include Gibson Guitar, Zaggora.com, YETI Coolers and many more.
“Bigcommerce is a big idea that aligns perfectly with Revolution Growth’s philosophy: that technology can enable any entrepreneur, in any industry, located anywhere, to build a successful, high-growth business,” Case said in a news release.
Bigcommerce plans to use the funds to further develop its product and for marketing. The company is also hiring new employees.
“At our core, we are simply entrepreneurs helping other entrepreneurs build the business of their dreams,” Bigcommerce co-founder and co-CEO Mitchell Harper said in a news release.
Tag: high technology
Photo courtesy of Wikipedia
I covered the conference for the local newspaper.
Florida made quite an impression on me. I thought he understood the high-tech workforce better than anyone.
And at a time when everyone focused on globalization and a mobile workforce, Florida’s message was that cities needed to create places where talented people liked to live.
“Place is the single most important thing in the global economy,” Florida said at the time.
That’s still true.
That’s why Austin does so well in attracting and retaining a high-tech workforce. The city is a wonderful place to live and raise a family. It’s affordable and the city has a thriving creative class of artists, musicians, writers and high tech workers. The city has lakes, hike and bike trails, parks and more. Austin Fit, a marathon training program downtown, regularly attracts between 300 to 500 people at 6 a.m. on a Saturday during the sweltering summer heat to train for marathons. Austin and its citizens focus on recreation and exercise. But they still know how to have fun with festivals like Keep Austin Weird and Eeyore’s Birthday as well as the nationally known Austin City Limits and South by Southwest. Austin also has great restaurants, bars and more than a dozen coworking sites.
One of the things that makes Austin attractive, in my humble opinion, is the collective intelligence of its people. Maybe it’s because the University of Texas makes it home there, but Austin people are whip-smart.
San Antonio isn’t on the list – yet. But I think San Antonio is making huge progress toward becoming a high-tech hub. Mayor Julian Castro has addressed the obesity epidemic and put a huge focus on the importance of exercise and nutrition. San Antonio has the Fit Family Challenge with free Zumba classes and more every week in city parks.
The city is also focusing on improving its high school dropout rate, which is among the highest in the country. San Antonio is affordable, beautiful and has a creative class of artists, musicians and writers. And it’s high-tech workforce has also been growing.
This month, Richard Florida has a revision of The Rise of the Creative Class book coming out: The Rise of the Creative Class Revisited and he’s compiled a list of the top tech cities in the U.S.
Seattle, home to Microsoft and Amazon, claims the top place from Silicon Valley, which ranked first in his last book. Silicon Valley, which consists of the San Jose metro area, ranks second followed by the greater San Francisco area.
Portland, Oregon claims the fourth spot followed by Austin.
Raleigh, San Diego, Durham, Greater Boston and Boulder round out the top 10.
New York and Washington, D.C., don’t make the list despite their growing high-tech regions.
Florida ranks the top Tech cities by technology, talent and tolerance.
“While technology is an important driver of economic growth and development, it needs to be part of a broader social and cultural ecosystem before it can generate real prosperity,” Florida writes in this article in Atlantic Cities. “There is considerable overlap between the Technology Index and the Creative Class, which makes up more than 35 percent of the workforce in 14 of the top 20 Technology Index metros, and exceeds 40 percent in six of them.”
Rekha Bangalore, founder and chief technology officer of NanoThermo, developed a heat dissipation technology for Light Emitting Diodes, known as LEDs. The company’s composite nanomaterial fits into existing and new light fixtures and improves efficiency by 20 percent. That makes the LEDs last longer. The company will also work with light fixture manufactures to create custom LED sockets. The company is currently testing its products with LightinghouseUSA, its first customer. The company is seeking an initial investment of $1 million to further develop its prototype and evaluate the product.
By L.A. Lorek
Got tech talent?
Then Austin companies want to recruit you.
A group of Austin CEOs plan to travel to San Francisco and Sunnyvale on Sept. 13th and 14th to hire engineers, software developers and others with technology skills.
Many Silicon Valley area companies already have a presence in Austin, but this will be the first organized effort by area CEOs to hire high tech workers from California, said Joel Trammell, chairman of the Austin Technology Council.
“We certainly have good talent in Austin,” said Trammel, who also serves as CEO of CacheIQ. But the city’s growing high-tech industry needs more, he said. His company seeks three or four more software developers, he said. And it’s not alone.
In May, the Austin Technology Council hosted a high tech CEO summit and many company executives reported a shortage of engineers, coders, programmers and software developers.
The 30 companies travelling to Silicon Valley to recruit include Homeaway, BazaarVoice, Gowalla, CacheIQ, Ravel and Creditcards.com.
Why would software developers pull up stakes and move to Austin? The city repeatedly lands on best place to live in the country lists. Austin ranked second behind Silicon Valley on the nation’s most innovative places list compiled by Forbes Magazine. And Kiplinger’s list of best cities for nurturing a business. Austin offers a much lower cost of living, shorter traffic commutes, high quality schools and a strong high tech community, Trammell said. Also, Texas does not have a state income tax, he said.
“The lifestyle is amazing,” said Bart Bohn, chief operating officer of Ravel, which needs four new employees focused on product sales and services. Ravel does analytics on big data.
“Austin is shockingly easy to recruit for,” Bohn said. “It has great brand recognition. Everyone thinks of it as fantastic lifestyle with good technology jobs. A lot of people get exposure to it in other ways like Austin City Limits Music Festival and South by Southwest.”
Already, several big Silicon Valley companies have offices here.
“Most people don’t know that Apple has a 3,000 person office in Austin,” Bohn said.
Google and Facebook also have offices here and Evernote is going to open one soon, he said.
“Austin is known to have a great talent base,” Bohn said.
Austin has recently seen an explosion of good, credible start-ups combined with the opening of established tech companies’ offices and that has increased the demand for technology talent, Bohn said.
“Maybe that sucked up a lot of talent that would be available for other companies,” he said.
CreditCards.com wants to add up to five new employees to its staff of 55 in Austin, said CEO Chris Speltz.
“We need to grow the talent pool here,” he said.
For more information, you can follow the Austin Technology Council on Twitter @ATCouncil or follow the conversation on Twitter with #ATXGrow.
