How These 5 Tech Companies Stand Out in Austin

As a city, Austin holds onto things that it likes. 

The Texas town is known for being the only city in the world that still has “moontowers” — an impractical lightsource today but an innovative one in the late 1800’s. The tall metal towers used carbon-arc bulbs to illuminate the city. Today, there are still 15 of them throughout the area. 

The new station KVUE notes a long list of Austin facts, many of which point to a theme of keeping around the quirky things that have inadvertently become part of the city. Take the  Cathedral of Junk that is a pile of scrap that has been compiled since 1989. Or the city’s decision to make the last Saturday in April Eeyore's birthday, as celebrated by English Department students at UT Austin since 1963. 

The city has some oddities — and to honor that, Built In found four tech companies that have embraced the singular “weird” of Austin. 

 

Sysco LABS uses customer and market intelligence, data-driven insights and agile technology development to assist the foodservice ecosystem.

Best Place to Work: Sysco LABS is one of Built In Austin's Best Midsize Places to Work. “On top of our Austin ranking this year, we made Built In Houston’s list of Best Places to Work as well,” notes the company’s website. “We’re so proud to see our teams’ and colleagues’ hard work and dedication to building a cohesive, communicative, and quality-driven hybrid culture recognized across the tech workforce community.” 

 

 

Restaurant365 is a SaaS company providing the restaurant industry a cloud-based platform for accounting and back-office operations.

Giving Back: Restaurant365 wants to support the food scene of Austin and beyond with the CORE foundation, or the Children of Restaurant Employees. CORE provides grants to restaurant employees and their families when they face medical expenses, injury, death or  natural disaster.

 

 

Iodine Software is a leader in clinical AI for highly accurate capture of patient documentation.

AI, Advanced: Iodine Software now works with OpenAI’s large language model GPT-4 to develop clinical automation tools. “We are thrilled to collaborate with a fellow pioneer in the field of artificial intelligence,” said William Chan, ceo and co-founder on Iodine’s website. “The evolution towards generative AI is a natural next step for us. We are optimistic about its potential impact, yet cautious due to the significant impact on patient care, physician trust and patient reimbursements. Aware of its limitations, such as data hallucinations, we are committed to a responsible approach, ensuring we balance progress with prudence.” 

 

 

AffiniPay is a fintech company focused on professional services payments and project management software.

Best Place to Work: AffiniPay was named as a Best Place to Work by Built In Austin. “We are so excited to be named as one of Built In Austin’s Best Places to Work in Austin for the third consecutive year,” said Dru Armstrong, chief executive officer on AffiniPay’s website. “The culture we have implemented is a testament to AffiniPay’s executive leadership, elite performing teams and the mission of helping customers in more ways than one is at the forefront.”

 

 

Closinglock is a real estate tech company focused on simplifying the real estate closing experience for all parties.

Founded to Protect: Closinglock started because Abigail White was working at a real estate company and learned that one of their buyers nearly lost funds to a phishing email. White realized that when she and her husband bought their first home, they nearly did too. “We blindly wired our money to the title company’s account that had been emailed to us, without ever verifying it,” she noted on the company website. Based on these two scrapes with fraud, the pair  founded Closinglock.