The Austin Technology Incubator at The University of Texas announced that Toopher has officially graduated into its Incubator as an IT portfolio company.
Last December, Toopher closed a $2 Million Series A round of funding from investors including Alsop Louie Partners of San Francisco.
Toopher was started in 2011 by Evan Grim, a University of Texas PhD student in software engineering, and Josh Alexander, an adjunct professor teaching financial derivatives at UT’s McCombs School of Business. They developed security software that authenticates a person’s identity from a smartphone using its location-based technology so that they can log into online accounts. The software uses two forms of authentication to verify the user to prevent identity theft and fraud.
“Toopher is doing something that is very technically difficult, but is very easy for customers to integrate into their system, and is very simple to use,” Stewart Alsop, partner, Alsop Louie, said in a news release. “That’s what we look for: entrepreneurs that have solved a really difficult problem and have the opportunity to grow really fast.”.
“Toopher is revolutionizing authentication and finally making security work for us, utilizing the technology already in our pockets in ways mirroring our everyday activities and interactions” Kyle Cox, director of ATI’s IT/Wireless and Longhorn Startup Development Portfolios said in a news release. “It is great for Austin that this game-changing technology is coming from our students and faculty at the University of Texas, and we are excited for ATI to be part of the continued growth of Toopher.”
In 2012 cybercrime caused over $114 billion in losses and affected more than 550 million users with the bulk of those victims coming from the U.S.
Tag: Toopher
Stacy Zoern, CEO of Community Cars, Inc., runs a car manufacturing business out of Pflugerville.
But that’s not the most remarkable part. Zoern, who uses a wheelchair to get around, wanted to find a car that would provide independence to wheelchair users.
Online, she found the Kenguru, an electric smart car. Only problem was the company ran out of money and shut down operations. So she raised $1.4 million and partnered with the company and they moved the defunct car operations from Hungary to Texas and began manufacturing the bright yellow smart cars in 2010.
That innovative and entrepreneurial spirit earned Zoern’s Community Cars Inc. a spot on the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce’s A-List, which recognized this week 28 innovative technology startups.
Zoern’s is the only car company to make the list.
The list is meant to shine a spotlight on some of the region’s most innovative technology startups that are seeking funding. To compile the list, the chamber’s tech partnership sought input from investors.
“Austin is rich with innovative startups that are primed for growth and simply need exposure and, most importantly, capital, to transform potential into reality,” Susan Davenport, senior vice president of Global Technology Strategies for the Austin Chamber, said in a news release.
Silicon Hills News has done profiles of several companies on the list including InfoChimps, BlackLocus, Calxeda, MapMyFitness, MassRelevance and Gazzang.
This slideshare contains screen grabs of the homepages of the 28 companies that made the Austin Chamber’s list for 2012.
South by Southwest Interactive announced today the 48 companies that will participate in its SXSW Accelerator program this year.
SXSW received applications from more than 670 companies and selected 48 companies to present in the fourth-annual SXSW Accelerator, sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark.
The SXSW Accelerator competition takes place on Monday, March 12 and Tuesday, March 13 at the Hilton hotel in downtown Austin.
Six Austin companies made the cut including SceneTap, Hoot.me, Umbel, Foreca.st, Toopher and Tugg.