The story
Dev Bootcamp is launching online classes next week and opening an Austin campus in July. [Austin Business Journal and press release]
Why you should care
It’s difficult — and sometimes risky — to commit the funds and time to complete a coding bootcamp. But California-based Dev Bootcamp has is owned by Kaplan, an established brand in continuing education and professional development that’s already teaching an array of coding languages at its schools in San Francisco, New York, Chicago, San Diego and Seattle. The Austin campus will be at 1705 Guadalupe St.
The story
With the help of an undisclosed angel investment, the Austin-based startup is expanding the hard way: By driving to new markets and meeting with small business owners and users in person to maintain high quality, authentic recommendations on their service. [Austin Inno]
Why you should care
almost left town because, according to co-founder Joah Spearman, local investors aren’t interested in consumer tech. Now, the company has recommitted to staying, well, local.
If it can continue navigating a path between the business relevance of Yelp and the social element (and struggles) of Foursquare, it may have a hit on its hands.
The story
The high-end, low-friction car rental service usually parks its vehicles at airports with business travelers in mind. But
took a different approach in New York, where it initially stationed cars in Manhattan. On Tuesday, the company added two new locations: Newark Airport and Brooklyn. [Press release]
Why you should care
The Newark Airport location may have been par for the course, but the Brooklyn location is in Williamsburg, a trendy and upscale neighborhood that’s a healthy hike from any airports — and most likely a business traveler’s destination. That may mean Silvercar is putting more chips on the urban ridesharing business dominated by the likes of Zipcar and crowded with newer entries from the same rental car companies already losing their lunch money to Silvercar at the airports.
The story
This week, two Austin tech companies announced closing funding rounds. Silverton Partners led a $4 million series A equity investment in
, and
raised $6 million. [Built In Austin]
Why you should care
Investment activity picked up this month — moreso in deal volume than in dollars — in an investment landscape that’s supposedly strained these days.
’s new CEO
The story
Keith Nealon previously served as the president and chief revenue officer for Adaptive Insights, leading sales, channel and professional services teams. Nealon has also held executive leadership positions at both public and private companies, including ShoreTel, Eloqua and Conductor. [Press release]
Why you should care
The Austin-based fintech company was formerly known as NewComLink until announcing a rebranding and enhanced product line last week. Hiring Nealon seems to be part of a pivot to chase new strategic partnerships alluded to in the press release announcing his hire.
Kony’s new CTO
The story
Kony’s development platform helps enterprise app makers deploy and manage their software across a multitude of devices. They’ve hired Bill Bodin from IBM to manage their mobile application development platform as CTO. [Press release]
Why you should care
Recruiting Bodin as Chief Technology Officer is a significant recruiting success for
. The former IBM CTO of mobile computing is credited with creating and deploying IBM’s entire mobile ecosystem.
Verity Voting
The story
The Austin company’s latest system supports paper and electronic voting for the entire election cycle in one platform. [Press release]
Why you should care
For one, it’s an election year and Verity claims to have new contracts to announce in the coming weeks. But generally, voting technology is a tough exercise in security, user experience and design, and Austin tech stands to gain from a foothold in an industry that (hopefully) isn’t going away any time soon.
And voters will benefit, too. If this touch system takes off, maybe we won’t have to worry about our votes not counting because we misread the instructions in a bizarre adult coloring book.
Have a news tip for us or know of a company that deserves coverage? Tell us or tweet us @BuiltInAustin.
