Innovation + Job News

SalesWarp recently closed its second round of financing and is planning a third round before the end of the year. The Canton e-commerce company is also adding five employees in engineering and product management to its current full-time staff of 16.
 
Private investors funded the first and second rounds, CEO David Potts says. He declined to give specific numbers but says that to date, SaleWarp has raised under $5 million.
 
He says that the third round of financing will be “more traditional,” intended for venture capital investors and with a goal of $5 million to $10 million.
 
SalesWarp’s Storefront Management System is an enterprise software product for retail environments from online stores to warehouse systems. It manages data from product to market, and processes orders.
 
“Our software filled a gap we found in the market,” says Potts.
 
SalesWarp originally worked with service providers to integrate its software with clients’ systems. However, about a year ago, SalesWarp decided to service its clients directly, “to make sure all the systems work. It gives us a higher quality product at the end of the day," says Potts. 
 
SalesWarp retains partnerships with service providers for some aspects of e-commerce like front-end merchandising and branding and marketing, if the client chooses.
 
“It allows us to offer an array of services beyond SalesWarp,” says Potts. The third financing round will be used to continue building services for clients.
 
According to Potts, sales have been growing quarter to quarter 50 to 100 percent for the past six quarters.
 
Within a year of launching its system in 2009, the company had acquired the top 10 retailers in the country as clients, he says. This summer, additional clients in the high-end fashion and shoe industries will be announced. He declined to specify brands but says their names will “resonate in those spaces.”
 
6th Street Commerce developed and is the corporate entity for SalesWarp. The privately financed SalesWarp is located in the incubator Emerging Technology Center at Canton. Potts hasn’t decided if  the company will move with the ETC to it new location in Highlandtown in October.
 
Whatever the decision, he says SalesWarp will need an office for at least 20 people. Last year, the company doubled the number of full-time employees from eight to 16. 
 
Source: David Potts, SalesWarp
Writer: Barbara Pash

Adashi Systems LLC, a Canton emergency management software developer, is expanding its market to include the  federal government and is coming out with the latest version of its software platform for first responders within the next few months.
 
Brian Pollack, business development manager, says the company’s traditional customer has been local government. This year, the company is changing its sale focus to federal agencies, starting with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA.
 
Pollack says Adashi has 1,500 customers at city and county levels in nearly every state in the country. In Maryland, they include Baltimore City, Baltimore County and Queen Anne’s County.
 
The majority of customers are fire departments or hazardous material teams within fire departments. It also has customers among police departments and US Marine bases that have their own fire departments.
 
Adashi offers four software products. Dispatch, the basic offering, provides navigation, routing and planning data. First Response offers navigation, planning data, hazard modeling and incident guidance. Command Post, the most comprehensive, combines the Dispatch and First Response products and provides a response management system linking commanders.
 
The fourth product, Navigation and Routing Option, has a GPS tracking system. It is included in Dispatch and optional with First Response and Command Post.
 
Pollack says the technology was developed at the U.S. Army Edgewood Chemical Biological Center, at Aberdeen Proving Ground. Edgewood and a company called OptiMetrics had a license to develop the software.
 
The privately funded Adashi is located in the incubator, Emerging Technology Center at Canton. Pollack does not know if it moving to the ETC’s new Highlandtown location in October.
 
Adashi is a finalist in the state’s 2013 incubator company of the year award, the winners to be announced next month. The company has a staff of 12, and has immediate openings for four positions for engineers and developers.
 
Source: Brian Pollock, Adashi Systems LLC
Writer: Barbara Pash

America’s Best Racing promoted the 138th Preakness Stakes held May 18 at Pimlico Race Course on its new website featuring fashion, food, celebrities, gambling and insiders' tips. The site focuses on the horseracing lifestyle and competition.

New York nonprofit Jockey Club launched America’s Best Racing last year and is funding it with $10 million over the next five years.
 
The website is part of a multimedia platform designed to build awareness of thoroughbred horse racing and to pique public interest in the sport, especially among young adults, according to Jason Wilson, vice president of business development of The Jockey Club.
 
“The sport historically has not been promoted on a national basis in a coordinated way. America’s Best Racing is a recognition that help was needed and how we could fill the void,” Wilson says.

To promote specific races, a tour bus with America’s Best “ambassadors” arrives in cities to give interviews and generate excitement for upcoming events. A tour bus arrived in Baltimore earlier this week with staffers and video crews, and will be on the track for Saturday's race.
 
“We want to get the flavor of what’s going on at the Preakness,” he says.
 
Besides the website, America’s Best has hired a communications director to generate stories about the sport and specific races on TV, radio and social media outlets. The platform produces TV programming and distributes videos through the internet taken at race events.
 
America’s Best is also looking into making an application and games. “We have a game in development and we are looking for people who have existing games about horse racing,” says Wilson.
 
Founded in 1894 as a nonprofit, the Jockey Club oversees registration of thoroughbreds nationwide and supports thoroughbred racing on a national level. The club’s vice chairman is Stuart Janney III, who is active in Maryland racing and co-owns the Kentucky Derby winner, Orb. Kevin Plank, founder of the Baltimore firm Under Armour Inc, is a member of the club.
 
The Jockey Club has no connection to the Maryland Jockey Club, which is affiliated with the Stronach Group and runs Pimlico and other racing properties, Wilson says.
 
The Jockey Club launched America’s Best in response to a study it commissioned. The study showed a declining interest in thoroughbred horse racing, and the impression that it was a sport for the elite.
 
“We decided to get the word out about racing, that it’s for a mainstream audience,” Wilson says. “We are focused on having the next generation get into the sport.”
 
Source: Jason Wilson, The Jockey Club
Writer: Barbara Pash
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

SmartLogic Solutions LLC is looking for a new home to accommodate its growing staff as the web and mobile application developer expects to double revenue by next year.

Currently located in the Emerging Technology Center at Canton, the eight-year-old web and mobile application developer intends to leave the incubator within the next six months for another location in the city. The ETC is moving to Highlandtown in the fall. 
 
President Yair Flicker has been scouting commercial buildings in Canton, Federal Hill and Fells Point for a 2,000-square-foot office.  “We need to find something quickly,” he says.
 
SmartLogic develops software for web and mobile products like iPhone and Android applications and brings in about $1.5 million in annual revenue. In one year, from the first quarter of 2012 to the first quarter of 2013, revenue grew 34 percent, according to Flicker.

“If we’re not at $3 to $4 million in revenue by the end of 2014, I’d be disappointed.”
 
To that end, he has instituted several changes. SmartLogic recently hired a marketing director and a development director. The company is also hiring four more employees this year, primarily developers and programmers, to add to its staff of 11.
 
A new website is in the works, with a focus on attracting  small- and medium-sized businesses. Clients include Woofound and McDonogh School. During the course of a year, the company works on 12 to 15 projects.
 
Founded in 2005, the privately financed company moved into the incubator, Emerging Technology Center at Johns Hopkins Eastern in 2006. In 2011, it relocated to the Emerging Technology Center at Canton.
 
Source: Yair Flicker, SmartLogic Solutions LLC
Writer: Barbara Pash
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Startup Spotkick this week is introducing its first product, cybersecurity software. Located at an incubator on the University of Maryland, Baltimore County campus, the cybersecurity service provider is releasing three versions of the software it uses for its own clients. All the software, so far unnamed, is found on Spotkick's website and one of the versions is free.
 
CEO and founder Eric Fiterman says the free version is staying on the website for the foreseeable future. There is a fee for the other two versions, standard and premium. 
 
“Not all businesses can afford services like ours and other providers,” he says. “We want to make it accessible to them.”
 
All three versions are designed to take inventory of a company’s computer system and provide a report of vulnerabilities, although at different levels of complexities. The software is web-based, with users filling out a profile online. Reports are delivered online as well.
 
“Different companies have different levels of exposure based on factors like the age of their computer system,” Fiterman says.  “We run inventories of different capabilities depending on what clients want. We look for things that are hidden or hard to find.”
 
Fiterman calls the free version a “walk-through” that gives users an idea of their exposure to cyber risks like getting hacked or having their data compromised.  
 
The standard version, a flat fee whose price is likely to be under $49, has detailed information about where the user’s system is most vulnerable and to what kinds of cyber-risks. The premium version, likely under $79, not only identifies the risks but provides options on how to protect the system and even counter-attack.
 
Fiterman, a former U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation agent whose specialty was cyber crimes, founded Spotkick in 2011. It was the first startup accepted into the then-newly formed incubator known as the Northrop Grumman Cync Program. The program is the result of a partnership between UMBC and Northrop Grumman Corp.
 
Fiterman says Spotkick will continue to market its cybersecurity services to clients, among them the U.S. Department of Defense, Northrop Grumman and other Baltimore area startups.
 
“We have service contracts and are generating revenue,” he says, although he declined to give a figure. 
 
The privately financed startup has a staff of five. Fiterman will hire at least two more developers this year.
 
Source: Eric Fiterman, Spotkick
Writer: Barbara Pash
 
 

Baltimore County's Roseda Beef expects to hit $5 million in sales this year thanks to the expanded distribution of Ripken Gourmet Burgers.

Named after baseball’s Hall of Fame and former Baltimore Orioles baseball star Cal Ripken Jr., the burgers will help bring in an extra $2 million in sales, says Mike Brannon, vice president of Roseda Beef. The number of outlets for the burgers nearly doubled in one year, from 173 stores last year, when the product was originally introduced, to more than 400 stores last month.

Located at Roseda Black Angus Farm in northern Baltimore County's Monkton, Roseda Beef makes and markets the frozen and boxed burgers. Roseda Beef is part of Roseda Black Angus Farm and Old Line Custom Meat Co., a meat processor located in a 17,000-square-foot plant at 1600 South Monroe St. in Southwest Baltimore. 
 
Brannon says the Ripken burgers, priced at $10 per box for four six-ounce patties, is a first for the company. “It’s a big undertaking, our first pre-packed, co-branded product,” he says.
 
Roseda Beef sells fresh meat under its own name to restaurants and grocery stores like Graul’s Market, a local chain. “We raise cattle and sell strip and tenderloin. But selling the ground beef is a challenge. The Ripken burgers enable us to sell more of the middle meat,” says Brannon.
 
Roseda Beef and Ripken signed the deal in 2012. A portion of sales goes to Ripken himself and to the Cal Ripken Sr. Foundation. Ahold USA’s Giant Food grocery chain  is the exclusive outlet for the product because, says Brannon, “Ripken had a relationship with Giant through his community baseball projects.”
 
Ripken burgers were originally sold in 173 Giant stores in Maryland and Washington, D.C. Sales were so strong that this spring the product was introduced into more than 200 stores in Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia as well. In the latter two states, the stores operate under the name Martin’s Food Market. Brannon says there is a possibility of expanding to even more Ahold USA stores in the future.
 
Roseda hired the Florida-based Studio Spear to organize and conduct a social media and public relations campaign. The campaign kicks off this month, officially designated as National Hamburger Month and the start of the “grilling season,”  Brannon says.
 
Ripken is scheduled to promote the product through appearances at a Little League baseball clinic at his Aberdeen Stadium and an end-of-summer picnic to be held at the Roseda Black Angus Farm.
 
A contest for tickets to attend the picnic will be held this summer via Giant and promoted on the Ripken baseball website that becomes operational the end of this month.
 
Source: Mike Brannon, Roseda Beef
Writer: Barbara Pash

VisiSonics Corporation is seeking $750,000 in its first round of funding from angel investors so the College Park startup can launch its first software product, RealSpace, by the fall. 
 
VisiSonics produces software and hardware to improve the sound spatialization, or three-dimensional perception, over headphones and on smart phones and tablet devices.

Last year, the company changed its business direction to focus on developing and marketing its software, which CEO Ramani Duraiswami says is a bigger market compared with hardware.
 
The software, for mobile and consumer electronics, is currently in a testing stage. The goal is to make it easy-to-use and more efficient for consumers and potential industry clients like the gaming industry.
 
“Customers want better audio and music on their portable devices. Our software can be programmed into any device to make it full and rich,” says Duraiswami.
 
Founded in 2009, VisiSonics is a spinoff from the University of Maryland, College Park, and is located on the College Park campus’ incubator, the Technology Advancement Program.
 
The company originally focused on special hardware, called an “audio camera,” to capture sound, with accompanying software to analyze the sound for a variety of uses. The hardware captured sound in already-existing spaces like classrooms, concert halls, stadiums and work environments.
 
Duraiswami says the company had over $500,000 in sales of hardware, from customers like the University of Sydney, University of Melbourne, Stanford University and the US Naval Research Laboratory.
 
“If they were designing a concert hall, for example, the hardware would determine if and where the sound was appropriate,” says Duraiswami. “It helped customers to characterize the sound environment.”
 
Last month, the Baltimore-based University of Maryland Ventures chose VisiSonics as the first winner of a newly created Start-Up Prize to help startups commercialize their products.
 
UM Ventures is the first joint partnership between the University of Maryland, Baltimore and the University of Maryland, College Park. The UM Ventures prize is intended to bring innovative technologies to the market.
 
James Hughes, director of UM Ventures and president of Research Park Corp. says the criteria for the Start-Up Prize is a combination of the potential impact of the startup’s technology and how far the startup has come since founding, especially in the last year. VisiSonics was a semi-finalist in this year’s Investment Maryland Challenge.
 
Hughes says the prize will be awarded annually and with a dollar amount at least equal to the $5,000 VisiSonics received. VisiSonics also received a $75,000 loan from the Maryland Technology Development Corp. (TEDCO) for commercialization.
 
VisiSonics has six full- and part-time employees. It is looking to hire up to four staffers, in software and business development, this year.
 
Sources: Ramani Duraiswami, VisiSonics; James Hughes, University of Maryland Ventures
Writer: Barbara Pash

The state is hiring more than 400 staffers as it proceeds to implement the federal health program known as Obamacare.

The Maryland Health Benefit Exchange, a key element in the plan, is hiring more than 300 people around the state, of which 107 are in the Baltimore metro and Anne Arundel County region, to operate a program that enrolls individuals and small businesses in the exchange. The exchange is also hiring another 75 to 100 people to operate its central call center. These positions are in addition to the 70 jobs announced earlier whose staffers would be involved in setting up the exchange itself.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, required that each state set up a marketplace for the public and health insurers. In 2011, the Maryland General Assembly created the Maryland Health Benefit Exchange, an independent state agency, to fill that role. The state is beginning to roll out programs in the state, starting with the Connector Program, which signs up people for the plan, and the call center.

The Connector Program enrolls individuals and small businesses in the exchange. Enrollment for individuals officially begins Oct. 1, and for small businesses on Jan. 1, 2014. The program is hiring staffers, called navigators and assistors, to guide individuals and small businesses through the health insurance options in the exchange. Training for staffers will begin in July and August in anticipation of the official enrollment dates.

The exchange has hired six healthcare vendors to set up the Connector Program in regions around the state. Leslie Lyles Smith, the Health Benefit Exchange’s director of operations, says each vendor has its own hiring practices and application deadlines may vary. Job-seekers can visit the exchange website for the names of the vendors in the regions. Smith says vendors may be contacted directly.

The exchange is spending approximately $24 million, split among the vendors, to set up the program.

Besides the six vendors for the program, nearly 50 subcontractors will support their efforts. Vendor positions include training development and delivery for the Connector Program and staffing and running the central call center, named the Consolidated Service Center. The center is scheduled to open in August. Smith says the state will announce the vendor awarded the call center contract in a few weeks.

Besides the over 400 employees being hired to operate the program and call center, the exchange itself is continuing to hire staffers and vendors for other, future programs. The exchange website has job listings under the “careers” category and instructions to apply. Requests for vendors is on the website under “procurement” along with information about vendors who have already been awarded contracts.
 
The Maryland Health Connection is the exchange’s online portal for the public to get information about its programs, health insurance and tax credit, and enrollment. Smith says the exchange is also launching a social media campaign, tentatively set for May, as a way to inform the public about the healthcare options.
 
Source: Leslie Lyles Smith, Maryland Health Benefit Exchange
Writer: Barbara Pash
 
 
 

Baltimore’s underground band scene and city kids on dirt bikes are among the themes featured in movies with local ties at this year’s Maryland Film Festival. Taking place May 8-12, the festival will host 50 features and 80 short films.
 
The following movies have local ties:
•  Matthew Porterfield’s “I Used to Be Darker,” which was filmed in Hamilton, Roland Park and Ocean City and has won festival awards in Nashville and Buenos Aires;
• “Hit & Stay,” which tells the story of priests and nuns in Catonsville who challenged U.S. intervention in Vietnam;
• “12 O’Clock Boys,” a documentary about a Baltimore dirt-bike rider, which just won the HBO Emerging Artist Award;
• “If We Shout Loud Enough,” a movie on Baltimore’s underground music scene and the band Double Dagger; and,
• “I Am Divine,” a documentary on the legendary drag icon that features interviews with John Waters.
 
The film festival added an extra day of movies in response to demand from the audience, says Maryland Film Festival Director Jed Dietz. Many people were turned away from films they wanted to see so festival organizers added more screening times.
 
Gabriel DeLoach, one of the filmmakers behind “If We Shout Loud Enough,” says the movie highlights the great music coming out of Baltimore.
 
“There’s a lack of cutthroat-ness and everyone is really encouraging of one another. There’s all these opportunities for musicians to put themselves out there.”
 
DeLoach lives in Charlottesville and became familiar with Double Dagger and other bands while attending the Maryland Institute College of Art. The band will be present for a Q&A after its Saturday evening screening. 

Says DeLoach, "It's a film made in Baltimore about one of Baltimore's best bands, so I think its only fitting that it screens there."



Writer: Julekha Dash
Sources: Jed Dietz, Maryland Film Festival; Gabriel DeLoach

OptiCul Diagnostics Ltd. this month submitted an application to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for approval of its first product, a device that tests for bacterial presence and promises to shorten hospital stays. Upon regulatory approval, which is expected this year, the Rockville biomedical startup with ties to Baltimore plans to market the device next year.
 
The startup is also seeking $5 million in funding from angel and venture capital investors this year, says CEO and Co-founder Israel Gannot. His wife Gallya Gannot is president and co-founder. Last year, the company raised $400,000 from angel investors.

The startup has eight full- and part-time employees. It plans to hire an additional eight employees, in engineering, marketing and sales, this year in preparation for selling the device in 2014.

Called an Optidet, the device OptiCul is developing can determine if a patient is carrying bacteria and if so which kind within three minutes. 

“The device helps with diagnosis and allows you to treat patients quicker, resulting in shorter hospital stays,” says Gannot, professor of biomedical engineering at Johns Hopkins University and a professor at Tel Aviv University.
 
The Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development awarded grants totaling $300,000 for research, which OptiCul conducted with the University of Maryland microbiology and chemistry departments.  
 
OptiCul Diagnostics was founded in Israel in 2008 with seed money from the Israeli government. In 2010, it opened its American headquarters and main laboratory to the William E. Hanna Jr. Innovation Center, an incubator in Montgomery County, where it is still located.
 
Gannot says the device, about the size of a small box, is designed to be placed in a hospital laboratory and used multiple times. The samples, about the size of business cards, are disposable. The device is priced at $10,000 and the samples at $3 each.
 
The initial marketing focus will be the I-95 corridor, Boston to Washington, D.C.,  where, by Gannot’s count, there are 2,500 hospitals with laboratory facilities.
 

Source: Israel Gannot, OptiCul Diagnostics Inc.
Writer: Barbara Pash
 
 
 
 
 
 

Baltimore news station WBAL-TV recently signed an agreement with New Jersey's Dyle mobile TV to bring live broadcast programming to viewers who want to watch news and other programs on their cell phones. The move will help the local NBC affiliate expand its reach and stay ahead of the competition with new technologies. 

Roger Keating, senior vice president of digital media for WBAL parent Hearst Television Inc., says the technology will be available by the end of this year. 

Dyle mobile TV operates through a receiver accessory, sold for $84.98 on Amazon.com and other outlets. The accessory, about the size of a matchbox, has an antennae. It plugs into a smart phone or tablet, turning it into a television. Dyle technology is available now for iPhones and will be ready for Android devices in a few months.

“The worst case scenario is that it wouldn't begin until the end of this year,” Keating says. The timeframe depends on the engineering work, like upgrading WBAL's transmission tower, that is needed to implement mobile TV.

Dan Joerres, president and general manager of WBAL-TV, calls Dyle mobile TV the "next step" in television technology. "The intent is to build another product for our consumers," he says.

"We are trying to build a network in a market. Maybe there will be other TV networks in Baltimore that will have [mobile TV] in the future."

Indeed at least one already has. Sinclair Broadcasting Group Inc. said earlier this month that it is doing so in 10 of its stations, including WBFF Fox 45, in the next six months.

Mobile Content Ventures, a partnership of 12 major broadcast companies, operates Dyle mobile TV. Keating says Hearst TV already transmits the Dyle service to three of its stations, in Cincinnati, Greenville, S.C.; and Orlando, Fla.

 
Sources: Roger Keating, Hearst TV; Dan Joerres, WBAL-TV
Writer: Barbara Pash

Healthcare IT company Analytical Informatics Inc last month signed a partnership with SchedFull LLC, a Detroit patient scheduling company, to broaden its product offerings. The SchedFull partnership is the first of several agreements the downtown Baltimore company expects to announce this year.
 
CEO Chris Meenan says the downtown Baltimore company is looking to improve efficiency and quality via deals with small companies like SchedFull and with hospitals in the “hot areas” of healthcare, such as staffing efficiency and patient experiences. He hopes to announce a hospital partnership next month.
 
The company offers a suite of tools that improve hospitals' efficiencies. For example, the company has a staffing model that shows which hours are busiest and how many rooms need to available for operations and radiology, both expensive-to-run facilities.
 
SchedFull works with hospitals and physician offices to electronically notify patients about appointments and cancellations. The partnership allows Analytical Informatics to offer an application that addresses the patient experience. 
 
“In the healthcare field, hospitals are trying to understand patients. Hospitals can save a lot of money if they can reduce their no-show rates,” says Meenan.
 
Analytical Informatics was spun out of the University of Maryland, Baltimore technology transfer office in 2011. Data from hospitals, physicians and other providers is aggregated into a central platform to which applications can be added.
 
The company invented some of the applications itself or, like SchedFull, has acquired them through partnerships. Others are licensed from University of Maryland School of Medicine. Analytical Informatics charges about $4,500 per month for the basic model plus several applications of a client’s choice. Other applications can be added for extra fees.
 
The company already has partnerships with hospitals that include Johns Hopkins, University of Utah Health Care and Indiana University Health.
 
Besides Meenan, company staffers are the other three cofounders: Mark Daly, Max Warnock and Christopher Toland. In June, it is hiring at least two staffers, in software development and sales and marketing.
 
Source: Chris Meenan, Analytical Informatics Inc.
Writer: Barbara Pash
 
 

Butchers Hill web design and development firm Fastspot LLC is expanding. The company is adding a new department in analytics and search optimization to boost its marketing support for clients and will hire four employees to add to its staff of 14 over the next six months. It is looking for web developers and designers and project managers, President Tracey Halvorsen says.
 
The company is also adding new features to its free open source content management system, BigTree, to make it more efficient. The Butchers Hill web design and development company's updated product will be available this summer to the web community through its own website and that of BigTree’s.
 
“Anyone who wants to use it can,” Halvorsen says.
 
Fastspot introduced BigTree as open source software last year, where it turned out to be popular among higher educational institutions and museums. Halvorsen says the new features are being developed but declined to specify them as they are still being developed. She says the company will continue to sell it as part of a project.
 
“But we don’t want clients to feel locked into it and we want to see what others in the design and development community do with it,” she says.

Halvorsen says the company will roll out its new department over that timeframe. The department’s services will be offered on an hourly fee basis. The department comes in response to client request.
 
“After we launch a website, it’s important to know who is coming to the site, is the content performing as well as it should and is the structure of the site working?” she says.
 
Fastspot has a national client base of higher educational institutions, cultural institutions, nonprofits and museums. They include Bucknell University, Tufts University, Johns Hopkins University and the International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C.
 
Fastspot doesn’t take on projects of less than $50,000. Large projects can cost $200,000 to $500,000 and take from nine months to two years. Most higher education clients’ projects run in the six figures, she says. Fees are based on an hourly rate and annual maintenance contracts are available.
 
Fastspot was founded in 2001. Halvorsen says revenue at the privately funded company has increased by at least 10 percent per year since founding.
 
Source: Tracey Halvorsen, Fastspot LLC
Writer: Barbara Pash

Towson engineering startup Sustainable Infrastructure of North America LLC is going after its first round of angel funding of $115,000 by the middle of this year. The startup will seek to close on its second funding round of $500,000 by the end of the year. The company's goal is to have raised $1.3 million by early next year, primarily from investors and loans and, possibly, its first product. 
 
Founder and Owner Tom Greene, says the money will be used to produce aesir, a computer system intended to replace existing bridge inspection equipment. By 2015, he plans to produce another four aesirs.
 
The aesir system will contain three-dimensional, ground-penetrating radar, laser profiling and digital imaging. The system will be mounted on top of a van that is driven on or under a bridge. Scanning the bridge in a 3-D format allows the inspector to find defects below the surface, where deterioration typically starts.
 
The system’s data will then be analyzed to pinpoint where and what the problems are, and to compare it with previous bridge inspections for rate of deterioration.
 
Greene says technology like 3-D and lasers already exists, and aesir will integrate it into a single system. A Maryland Industrial Partnerships (MIPs) grant for more than $400,000 is funding development of the system Greene says.
 
There are more than 600,000 bridges in the US, of which about 159,000 are in urban locations. The bridges must be inspected annually or every two years depending under whose jurisdiction – local, state or federal – they fall.
 
Greene expects to price the aesir, which can be used multiple times, at about $400,000. He will initially market it to government agencies and, subsequently, to engineering firms that are often hired to inspect bridges.
 
“The infrastructure is aging while the traffic is increasing. You have the same number of bridges from the 1970s but traffic volume is six times greater and trucks are much bigger,” he says.
 
Greene founded Sustainable Infrastructure in 2011. A year later, the company moved into the TowsonGlobal Business Incubator at Towson University. The company has a staff of three.
 
“Aesir has potential use in tunnels but right now we’re focusing on bridges,” he says.
 
Source: Tom Greene, Sustainable Infrastructure of North America LLC
Writer: Barbara Pash
 
 
 

Interactive marketing and design agency idfive LLC moved its office from downtown to Hampden’s Meadowmill complex this year to accommodate its growing staff.
 
The company will hire four people by the end of the year, in sales, business development and design, and hired three shortly after the move. The company currently employs 16.
 
Andres Zapata, executive vice president of strategy, says idfive left a 3,200-square-foot office on East Redwood Street for a 3,700-square foot office at 3600 Clipper Mill Road. The company has use of a common conference room and facilities.
 
“We were out of space” downtown, he says. “It doesn’t sound like that much difference in square feet but the way the [Meadowmill] office is configured, we have more work space.”
 
The location offers free parking and is close to the Woodberry Light Rail, Zapata says. Zapata says idfive is making the office more eco-friendly by installing two large skylights in the roof. The skylights will bring in more natural light and reduce energy consumption.
 
Founded in 2005, idfive provides web design, social media and traditional advertising with a focus on higher educational institutions and nonprofits. Revenue was in the $5 million to $10 million range last year.
 
Last month, idfive published a book on higher education marketing. The book can be downloaded free through May. “University X: How to Rescue a College Brand from Bland” was written by Zapata, chief creative officer Sean Carton and marketing director Peter Meacham, and edited by creative director Matt McDermott.
 
After May, the book will be sold via Amazon and Google Play, with paperbacks and an iBook coming out as well. The paperback will be priced at $14.95; the digital versions, $6.99.
 
Source: Andres Zapata, idfive LLC
Writer: Barbara Pash