Tech Ranch

Founders matter and Tech Ranch is dedicated to moving entrepreneurs forward in the early stages of their startup. We encourage you to signup for a development program, learn from our blog and participate in events to help find your why. Starting and growing an idea into a business requires having the right people, information and tools.

Quality Thrives

<p>Started by two young entrepreneurs in Austin, Texas, Quality Thrives aims to provide an inside look at the passion, dedication, and motivation of everyday entrepreneurs by conducting 250 documentary-style interviews in various cities across the country.</p>

Gridmates

<p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.7272720336914px; line-height: 17px;">Gridmates brings peer to peer energy sharing in the first cloud platform to eliminate energy poverty | Connect with energy.&nbsp;</span><br style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.7272720336914px; line-height: 17px;"><br style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.7272720336914px; line-height: 17px;"><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.7272720336914px; line-height: 17px;">We have a bright vision. Imagine a world where people everywhere could give a small portion of their available energy to others in need.&nbsp;</span><br style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.7272720336914px; line-height: 17px;"><br style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.7272720336914px; line-height: 17px;"><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.7272720336914px; line-height: 17px;">Gridmates was founded to expand on and execute this vision and create the world's first cloud platform that enables peer-to-peer energy sharing. Gridmates brings an energy cloud platform and ecosystem to eliminate energy poverty!&nbsp;</span><br style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.7272720336914px; line-height: 17px;"><br style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.7272720336914px; line-height: 17px;"><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.7272720336914px; line-height: 17px;">Started from post doctorate scientific research on optimization and game theory, Gridmates Inc. is an innovator that offers Smart Grid 3.0 software and cloud services to utilities and non profit organizations.&nbsp;</span><br style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.7272720336914px; line-height: 17px;"><br style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.7272720336914px; line-height: 17px;"><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.7272720336914px; line-height: 17px;">Utilities around the world can use Gridmates cloud platform a

Tastegraphy

What Tastegraphy does can be segmented into the two target markets: restaurant owners and restaurant eaters.<br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: 'Open Sans', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: 'Open Sans', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">For the eaters, we provide a free dish-centric taste visualization and rating platform to help them figure out what to eat. Every dish has a rating, but also a graph where we break the taste down into the main components. This allows users to understand exactly what they are in for. It also aligns with how people crave food and accounts for the subjective nature of taste. Tastegraphy revolutionizes the way people experience food by allowing them to see the taste even before they order it. Additionally, the more the users interact with the website, the better we understand their preferences to make personalized dish and taste recommendations.<br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: 'Open Sans', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><br style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: 'Open Sans', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">For the owners, we provide subscription-based analytic reports of user's taste preferences, prediction data on what flavors are trending and an advertisement platform to target the audiences most likely to be interested.

FuelSignal

<p><a href="http://fuelsignal.com">FuelSignal</a> is a free app and loyalty program that offers members the most current and accurate fuel prices, exclusive discounts on fuel and purchases, and the ability to earn points for your next visit. Use the FuelSignal app to receive special in-store offers from your favorite convenience store and check your loyalty point balance directly from your app to start saving.&nbsp;</p><p>Our goal is to create a large and happy community of drivers to spread the fuel savings. We hope you will share your positive experience and spread the word to your friends and family. Please give us 5 star ratings if you love this app! "Like" our Facebook page and "Tweet" about FuelSignal.</p><p>FuelSignal was chosen as the&nbsp;<a href="https://media.ford.com/content/fordmedia/fna/us/en/news/2014/11/20/ford-announces-app-pursuit-hackathon-winner-at-2014-los-angeles-.html">Ford&nbsp;Connected Car-Connected City App Pursuit Challenge</a> winner at the LA Auto Show on November 20^th, 2014. Team FuelSignal leveraged Ford’s SYNC^®&nbsp;AppLink^™&nbsp;and data from the City of Los Angeles to create an innovative app allowing users to sign up and receive discounted gas prices and earn loyalty credits for use at gas stations<br><br>FuelSignal is currently in beta launch phase and only available in Austin, TX. FuelSignal is an&nbsp;<a href="http://ati.utexas.edu/" target="_blank">Austin Technology Incubator&nbsp;</a>startup, a wing of University of Texas.</p>

Breach Productions LLC

<p class="heading-subtitle"><em>Breach Productions LLC</em> is an Austin-based marketing company that operates statewide. We guarantee your satisfaction and promise a top of the line campaign.&nbsp;</p><p class="heading-subtitle">We offer a variety of services including:</p><p class="no-styles">&nbsp;</p><p class="no-styles"><strong><em>Web Design</em></strong><br><i>We'll build your website from scratch! Choose the theme and we'll do the rest!&nbsp;</i></p><p>&nbsp;</p><p class="no-styles"><strong><em>Branding and Graphic Design</em></strong><br><em>Need a logo? We've got you covered.&nbsp;</em></p><p>&nbsp;</p><p class="no-styles"><em><strong>Commercials</strong>&nbsp;</em><br><em>Our award-winning film production team is happy to work with you day in and day out to make sure your product looks great on camera!</em></p><p>&nbsp;</p><p class="no-styles"><em><strong>Videographic Services</strong></em><br><em>Event coverage, cinematography and postproduction services</em></p>

QuickLeaser

<h1 dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.5;margin-top:10pt;margin-bottom:0pt;">QuickLeaser is an online database for leases and subleases.&nbsp;</h1><p class="no-styles" dir="ltr">Our goal is to provide the most user-efficient, comprehensive database for finding homes, condos and apartments for rent, and connecting roommates. We hope QuickLeaser will be a tool for renters to research and price out their favorite properties, then visit the property with their preferred leasing agent or locator.</p><p><span id="docs-internal-guid-089296d2-35b4-c2a6-73fd-35460eb9dd70"><span style="font-size: 15px; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; background-color: transparent;">We want you to find the best rental for you. You know what you want and you know your price range, now with QuickLeaser you know your options. We want to empower our users with the ability to find the perfect lease for them every time. </span></span></p>

Gowalla

<p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 17px;">Gowalla, a social travel guide for people on the go, is a fabulous way to share photos, places and highlights from your life with your friends. It’s also a delightful way to discover new places around you. As a company, we're a team of designers, engineers and enthusiasts who have inspired people to visit, photograph and shar over 2.5 million places around the world.&nbsp;</span><br style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 17px;"><br style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 17px;"><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 17px;">Based in Austin, Texas, Gowalla was launched in 2009 by Josh Williams and Scott Raymond. The company is backed by investors like Greylock Partners, Alsop-Louie Partners and Founders Fund. They’re all decent folk you wouldn’t mind hanging out with.</span></p>

G-51 Capital Management

<p>G-51 Capital Management is&nbsp;a premier, early stage venture capital firm that specializes in creating high value for our portfolio companies and delivering top returns to our investors. We&nbsp;lead Series A investments with $250k to $1 million and we syndicate Series A up to $3 million per round. We often syndicate our Series B investments&nbsp; with large institutional venture capital firms to provide the capital companies need to meet revised milestones or to extend their operational runway.&nbsp;<br><br>G-51 provides the sound experience, deep knowledge, and funding support that entrepreneurs and large venture funds need to close the operational, technical and financial gaps that open during the early process of building long-term commercially viable businesses.&nbsp;&nbsp;Based in Austin, Texas,&nbsp;G-51 invests nationally in the software, hardware, internet and cleantech sectors.</p>

Innovate Wireless Health

<p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 17px;">IW Health develops and deploys a customized prescription adherence platform solutions for people with chronic illness. By increasing medication adherence, we drastically cut direct health care costs for employers and insurers, as well as increase revenue for retail pharmacies and pharmaceutical companies. We help improve patient healthy outcomes, within the chronic illness communities.</span></p>

WhatsBusy

<p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 17px;">Time is the most valuable thing we own. Nobody lying on their deathbed wishes they had more money. Yet by the time we turn 70 we will have wasted three years of our lives waiting. Why do we waste so much time?&nbsp;</span></p><p><br style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 17px;"><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 17px;">We shouldn't have to. WhatsBusy was created to make each minute of our day count. Our consumer products enable consumers to discover when places will be busy. Our business products enable businesses to better manage supply and demand. We create the transparency so you can empower your decisions.</span></p>

Spreadster

<p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 17px;">Spreadster is a mass video distribution service. We help brands and content owners achieve maximum audience reach by spreading their content to more than 50 video and social platforms in the world. Sign up at http://spreadster.com to find out what we can do for you.</span></p>

Appconomy

<p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 17px;">Appconomy operates a global platform that increases app revenue, designed for brands, retailers, service providers, local merchants and mobile carriers. With powerful commerce and community services from its AppWallet™ technology, the Appconomy platform creates a simple way for CxOs and other business leaders to add AppCommerce functionality to apps, including: daily deals &amp; coupons, loyalty &amp; rewards programs, and&nbsp;</span><br style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 17px;"><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 17px;">social network &amp; private group sharing. The AppWallet™ is a cloud-based offering, initially focused on the US and China markets.&nbsp;</span><br style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 17px;"><br style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 17px;"><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 17px;">We hire high capacity, high velocity, creative thinkers with an entrepreneurial mindset. If you're ready to help create the future, follow us on Linkedin, Facebook, and Twitter. Or send us a hello at [email protected].</span></p>

Totus Solutions

<p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-family: 'helvetica neue', arial, helvetica, freesans, 'liberation sans', 'numbus sans l', sans-serif; line-height: 20.99993896484375px; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">TOTUS Solutions™ is the leading provider of Outdoor Lighting Based Security Platforms. TOTUS Security Platforms™ incorporate optimized LED lighting, megapixel IP surveillance, multi-day media storage, and secure wireless communications in a single solution. Our purpose-built security platforms are designed to transform passive surveillance into Active Deterrence™ to help prevent and deter crime instead of just recording it while it occurs.</p><p style="margin: 0.75em 0px 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-family: 'helvetica neue', arial, helvetica, freesans, 'liberation sans', 'numbus sans l', sans-serif; line-height: 20.99993896484375px; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">The company provides its security solutions to critical infrastructure, university campuses, military installations, and mass transit stations and bus stops. Its products are deployed along pedestrian walkways, streets, roadways, campuses, parking areas, and perimeters of critical infrastructure. The company serves federal, state, and local government agencies; and private institutions.</p>

Bigwig Games

<p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 17px;">Bigwig Games. Big Business, Big Fun!</span></p>

Rêv Worldwide

<p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 17px;">Our world is complex. Rêv’s dream is simple. We believe everyone in the world deserves the same access to trusted payment solutions that allow them to play a part in today’s mainstream economy.&nbsp;</span><br style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 17px;"><br style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 17px;"><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 17px;">More than 2.5 billion people currently lack such access.&nbsp;</span><br style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 17px;"><br style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 17px;"><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 17px;">That’s why we’ve built a global network designed specifically to innovate cutting-edge, end-to-end payment solutions that bring financial empowerment to underserved markets. Rêv’s processing platform allows us, and our partners, to achieve standardization and consistency worldwide while seamlessly adapting to local currencies, customs, languages and laws.&nbsp;</span><br style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 17px;"><br style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 17px;"><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 17px;">Whether delivering mobile payment solutions in Latin America, prepaid cards in India or reload networks in Europe, Rêv meets the unique challenges of serving each country’s unbanked and under-banked populations with speed, relevance and integrity.&nbsp;</span><br style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 17px;"><br style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 17px;"><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 17px;">Rêv is headquartered in Downtown Austin, Texas and operates in North America, Latin America, Europe and Asia-Pacific.</span></p>

Structured Polymers

<p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 17px;">Structured Polymers produces polymer powders for the 3D printing industry.&nbsp;</span><br style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 17px;"><br style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 17px;"><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 17px;">Our proprietary manufacturing method allows us to produce both new and traditional materials with improved material properties at a lower cost.&nbsp;</span><br style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 17px;"><br style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 17px;"><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 17px;">We have experience in materials development, mechanical and manufacturing engineering in a start-up environment.&nbsp;</span><br style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 17px;"><br style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 17px;"><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 17px;">Our team includes the original inventor of Selective Laser Sintering, the largest industrial 3D printing process.</span></p>

Kwelia

<p style="margin: 0px 0px 14px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-family: 'helvetica neue', arial, helvetica, freesans, 'liberation sans', 'numbus sans l', sans-serif; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 20.9999389648438px; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Problem</p><p style="margin: 14px 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-family: 'helvetica neue', arial, helvetica, freesans, 'liberation sans', 'numbus sans l', sans-serif; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 20.9999389648438px; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Apartment markets are often misunderstood because of the private nature of rental transactions. This leads to a huge data problem where stakeholders spend countless hours trying to piece together market movements. Many property managers have to "guess and check" when it comes to things like setting rental pricing. The result is millions of hours wasted and billions of dollars left on the table every year.</p><p style="margin: 14px 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-family: 'helvetica neue', arial, helvetica, freesans, 'liberation sans', 'numbus sans l', sans-serif; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 20.9999389648438px; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Solution</p><p style="margin: 14px 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-family: 'helvetica neue', arial, helvetica, freesans, 'liberation sans', 'numbus sans l', sans-serif; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 20.9999389648438px; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">We have built a platform that automatically aggregates the noisy market data that signals apartment market movements. We make sense of this data by applying pricing algorithms that predict rental prices based on an apartment's location and attributes.</p><p style="margin: 14px 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-family: 'helvetica neue', arial, helvetica, freesans, 'liberation sans', 'numbus sans l', sans-serif; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 20.9999389648438px; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Product - Competitive Intelligence</p><p style="margin: 14px 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-family: 'helvetica neue', arial, helvetica, freesans, 'liberation sans', 'numbus sans l', sans-serif; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 20.9999389648438px; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">We automate and improve the offline and manual process landlords and managers use to survey apartment markets. Our SaaS product provides real-time price tracking of competitive buildings, our algorithmic pricing technology, and other market research tools (heat maps, graphs, etc.)</p>

Acxiom

Acxiom’s expertise managing consumer data drives on-line, off-line and mobile marketing decisions for more than 7,000 global clients with worldwide annual revenue of $1.4 billion. Interested in Acxiom? Learn about our Equal Opportunities, job postings and more @About UsFollow Us on TwitterLike Us on FacebookAcxiom CareersAcxiom is an affirmative action and equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, religion, color, national origin, sex, age, status as a protected veteran or status as a qualified individual with a disability.

Cerity

Cerity is leveraging predictive modeling, advanced analytics, and a modern tech stack to completely transform the way small businesses purchase & manage workers’ compensation insurance. Headquartered in downtown Austin, our vision is to make protecting small businesses across the country simpler, easier, and faster.