Tech Talk Santa Barbara 2020
Our In-Depth Look at the Region’s Vast High-Tech Industry, from Startups to Success Stories
By Leslie Dinaberg | October 1, 2020
Section Sponsored by:
There’s no question that technology plays an increasingly critical role in all of our lives. Think about what it would have been like if the global pandemic had hit in 1980 instead of 2020: no cell phones (cordless phones weren’t even mainstream yet!), no internet, and no public email, let alone video calls, instant messaging, texting, and screen-sharing. Home computers, if you even had one, were clunky and slow, and, while ubiquitous, TVs only had four channels, and the whole family would have to agree on what to watch.
Fast-forward to today. With COVID forcing us to move our lives indoors and online, everyone from toddlers to grandparents have been whiplashed into relying on devices for school and business, health and wellness, to learn, communicate, connect, and be entertained. For many of us, the classroom, home, and workplace are headquartered on a single device in a tiny corner of the house.
“Organizations are fundamentally changed now,” explains Kyle Lewis, a UCSB professor and chair of its Technology Management Program. “Working in any type of organization — especially in one that is focusing on innovation, has technology products, or uses technology to do their work — the world has completely shifted.”
The shift is happening in Santa Barbara too. As technology becomes more central to all of our lives, the region’s high-tech sector is enduring big changes and enjoying sustained growth.
Once dominated by the aerospace industry, which is still a prominent player, a wave of significant, broad-ranging tech companies began in this ecosystem, including Citrix Online (formerly Expert City), Software.com, Alias Wavefront, Yardi, Lynda.com, AppFolio, and Sonos, among others. Maturing startups such as Procore and Apeel Sciences continue to grow, as do the wealth of exciting new technologies and companies. Meanwhile, our investment community is on the rise, and the already-critical UCSB just keeps getting better and better, pumping out more and more motivated-to-stay-in-town entrepreneurial energy.
Meanwhile, some of the biggest players in tech — Google, Amazon, Zoom, Apple, Microsoft — now have a presence in Santa Barbara. And then there are the increasing numbers of tech pros who can work from anywhere and have chosen to make Santa Barbara their homes.
The last time the Santa Barbara Independent addressed the tech sector in any depth was a special section called Tech-Topia in 2015, in which author Matt Kettmann described the scene as “quietly booming.” Having talked to more than 30 executives and researched more than 100 tech companies for this issue, I can attest to how much bigger, broader, and more interesting our tech sector is today.
Like a lot of the very best people and things in Santa Barbara, many of these tech companies still operate on the down-low, not interested in tooting their own horns or bragging about their accomplishments. They’d rather just do good work than talk about it.
But success begets success. As Jason Spievak, the managing partner for Entrada Ventures put it, “Some of the biggest names in technology are waking up to Santa Barbara and are establishing themselves here through acquisition and investment.”
Read on for a hefty helping of the Santa Barbara tech scene’s players, history, innovations, and opportunities. Once quietly booming, I’d say Santa Barbara’s tech sector is now awake, ready, and raring to go.
What’s It Like to Be a Tech Employer in Santa Barbara?
Observations from Central Coast Tech Industry Leaders
What’s It Like to Be a Tech Employer in Santa Barbara?
Observations from Central Coast Tech Industry Leaders
by Leslie Dinaberg
“Elizabeth Chowalsky CEO of HG Insights | Credit: Daniel Dreifuss”
As Santa Barbara’s tech sector continues to grow and evolve, so do the challenges and opportunities presented here. I asked a bunch of industry leaders for their observations, and what follows is a snapshot of what’s going on today.
A common complaint is that it’s hard to attract employees here compared to larger markets like Silicon Valley. “There’s a little bit of truth to that — you generally have a bigger pool — but you also don’t have the extreme competition and somewhat lack of loyalty of employees in that market,” said Elizabeth Cholawsky, president and CEO of HG Insights. “There’s a lot more turnover of employees in the Bay Area.”
As the former CEO of the Sunnyvale-based Support.com, Cholawsky said the challenges of attracting top talent are offset by advantages. “It is a small community, so people that aren’t at the top of their game often don’t survive in Santa Barbara because everybody knows everybody and experiences get shared pretty openly,” she said. “The cream of the crop rises in Santa Barbara, because a lot of people want to stay here because it’s such a beautiful place to live. So you do your best to do your best and if you’re not, it gets weeded out by the fact that we’ve got a tight-knit community.”
Others appreciate that advantage as well. “Santa Barbara is very underrated in terms of its ability to offer a challenging and a healthy tech environment, maybe without some of the rat-race elements that Silicon Valley has become,” said Mike Muench, CEO and president of Seek Thermal, who worked in Silicon Valley while a VP for Apple. “I’ve talked to a number of transplants from Silicon Valley at the executive or professional level and, almost without exception, they’ve felt the same way: Why didn’t I do this 10 years ago? This still gives me all the technical and professional challenges that I need, but from a lifestyle tradeoff, it’s a lot more balanced and healthy.”
“People who join the company tend to stay in the company longer, which is nice,” said ParentSquareco-founder Anupama Vaid. “In the Bay Area, the churn is so high.”
Having been a VP of the Leaf Group in Santa Monica, Estrada Ventures’ operating partner Julie Henley McNamara agrees. “There’s a real sense of loyalty here,” she said. “You’re not stressed when you get to the office because there wasn’t a lot of rigmarole to get there. From Carpinteria to Goleta, there is traffic, but nothing like the Bay Area or L.A.”
“Santa Barbara, especially in the day and age of COVID, offers a great quality of life and a growing, thriving, tight-knit community,” said Amy Meyer, Chief People Officer at AppFolio. “There are a lot of interconnections, just a couple degrees of separation, and the Santa Barbara community has a lot to offer. We also do a lot of work in the community — giving back through our employee-driven give-back program.”
ParentSquare’s employees have access to Gold’s Gym just downstairs, explained Vaid, “and our Christmas parties and our annual get-togethers are always something outdoorsy.”
Nathan Ziv of Invoca said that their employees did a lot of team hikes prior to COVID, and that he often will take an employee out for a one-on-one meeting by walking to Stearns Wharf, just a few blocks from their office at the bottom of State Street. “When surf is good, go take a longer lunch and get in the water and then come back,” he said. “After that, you can do meetings and whatnot. I don’t think you can do that as easily in a big city.”
Henry Ventura, who manages diversity, inclusion, and equal employment for the County of Santa Barbara, is spearheading a Diversity Roundtable coalition with a diverse group of companies. That includes leaders from Amazon’s Alexa branch, MarBorg,Deckers Brands,Just Communities, InvocaSonos, and Procore, among others, to promote equitable practices in the workplace.
The cost of living is “definitely a challenge,” said Meyer. “In light of living in a pandemic, people are now more than ever choosing where they want to live and having more flexibility. It’s going to get easier in some respects to recruit and to attract people to Santa Barbara because of that quality of life.”
Success will only create more opportunity, as Meyer explained, “Often, companies are headquartered wherever the founder lives.” But she believes the biggest continued growth will be thanks to UCSB’s established tech ecosystem and a growing talent pool from Westmont College. She explained, “Both will continue to create the space for entrepreneurial, innovative thinkers and draw them.”
Why Santa Barbara Is Great for Entrepreneurs
Veteran Executive John Greathouse Explains What Attracts Tech Companies to Town
Why Santa Barbara Is Great for Entrepreneurs
Veteran Executive John Greathouse Explains What Attracts Tech Companies to Town
by Leslie Dinaberg
“John Greathouse | Credit: Daniel Dreifuss”
From the Santa Barbara tech boom’s earliest successes (Computer Motion, Expertcity, GotoMeeting) to some of the area’s most promising businesses (Invoca, HG Insights) and early investment funds (Entrada Ventures, Rincon Venture Partners) — not to mention teaching at UCSB’s Technology Management Program and writing regularly about entrepreneurs for Forbes — John Greathouse is a veteran of the region’s tech sector, serving as an executive, board member, and investor since the early 1990s.
The concerns evolved into finding spouses jobs, but that stopped about six years ago. “I would hear the opposite,” he said, “‘I can’t believe how much is here.’”
He sees a lot of similarities between people who choose to work in Kauai. “For the most part, they are there because they want to be there, and they’re making it work,” he explained. “It’s a concerted initiative to live in that place. What comes with that is a certain joy. In Hawai‘i, there’s a real aloha, where people are just happy that they’re here and are able to make it work. To some extent, we have that in Santa Barbara.”
That aloha sensibility doesn’t appeal to everyone. “It’s not a one-size-fits-all mentality, and that’s fine,” he admitted. “But I think for the folks it does work with, it feeds off itself and we’ve been able to create this very collegiate, very congenial community that’s really willing to help each other and is much less sharp-elbowed and worried about somebody taking something from them.”
For him, success is all about the people. “Great people can turn a marginal opportunity into a fantastic one,” he explained. “It’s all about making sure you start out with a great core team, and then you’ll deal with the vagaries of the market. If you have the right team, they’ll be the winners.”
Concluded Greathouse, “I feel really bullish about Santa Barbara long-term.”
How One Santa Barbara VC Firm Mentors Startups
Entrada Ventures’ Julie Henley McNamara Discusses Specialized Strategy
How One Santa Barbara Venture Capital Firm Mentors Startups
Entrada Ventures’ Julie Henley McNamara Discusses Her Firm’s Specialized Strategy
By Leslie Dinaberg
Julie Henley McNamara and Jason Spievak of Entrada Ventures | Credit: Daniel Dreifuss
Founded in 2018 by a who’s who of veteran Santa Barbara tech operators, entrepreneurs, and investors, Entrada Ventures focuses on early investments that help startups develop into strong businesses ready for their first round of institutional financing. The firm and its team’s list of affiliations include ACT (Medtronic), Appel Sciences, Aurrion (Juniper) , CallWave, Invoca, Local Market Launch, SmartReceipt (Mobivity), Software.com, ValueClick (Conversant), and Web Ignite, among others.
Entrada was started under the principle that there was not much investor support in Santa Barbara. “There’s money, but not a lot of support about how to navigate fundraising, building a company, operations, financials, marketing, and all of that,” explained Julie Henley McNamara, Entrada’s operating partner and a Cal Poly grad. “We want to give money but also be helpful to the community with our portfolio of companies. It’s all about the 805.”
When business is not restricted by COVID, the VC fund team holds regular office hours at UCSB, Cal Poly, and the downtown Kiva Cowork space. “Julie is really the inspiration behind some of this,” said managing partner Jason Spievak. “We want to make that capital conversation more accessible to small businesses here in the region.” They aren’t necessarily looking for proper pitches, just an introduction. “The office hours are also a way to put less pressure on young people if they just want to talk.”
Once Entrada invests, the collaboration is geared to the need. That ranges from becoming part of the board and meeting weekly to a much less active role. “It really kind of depends on the company,” said McNamara. “The way we like to work with them is to be as helpful as we can but not be interfering and not be intrusive.” And if she’s the interface but the need is something she cannot provide, McNamara can call on one of her partners or search through her extensive network to find the right solution.
The Top Five Things Investors Need
Jason Spievak of Santa Barbara’s Entrada Ventures Offers Checklist for New Companies
The Top Five Things Investors Need
Jason Spievak of Santa Barbara’s Entrada Ventures Offers Checklist for New Companies
By Leslie Dinaberg
Julie Henley McNamara and ason Spievak of Entrada Venture | Credit: Daniel Dreifuss
With a career as an investor and founder spanning three decades and a broad range of technologies from agricultural sciences to virtual reality, Entrada Ventures cofounder Jason Spievak believes these five things are critical for attracting investors.
“There’s some core criteria that we look for, and job one is integrity, far and away. Because if you can’t trust someone, you can’t rely on them and you can’t work with them, so that is absolutely binary. There is no wiggle room on what I call situational ethics.”
“Does this person have the skill and the experience to do the thing that they need to do to succeed in their role? Are they actually the right person for the job, so to speak, in terms of skills, experience, and aptitude?”
“We all, unfortunately, know people who were raised from childhood to believe that success happens to other people and it’s their job to get the ball to the one-yard line and toil away in anonymity while somebody else makes it happen. We really want to invest in folks that believe that they deserve success.”
“It’s a little bit esoteric, but do they have something to prove? You want to bet on someone — I don’t care if you’re proving it to your mom, your dad, your teacher who gave you a B, your coach who didn’t start you, your boyfriend who broke up with you. Who feels like they have something to prove? They work really, really hard. And they work hard when no one’s watching.”
“Would you want to sit next to this person on an airplane for six hours? The only guarantee is you’re going to spend a heck of a lot of time together when you invest in someone’s company, and as a result, you want to enjoy that time. You want to be learning; you want to look forward to that time together and not roll your eyes when you see their name on the phone, so it’s pretty important. People talk about investing in someone’s company as being like a marriage. It’s more than marriage in a way, because you can’t get divorced.”
“There’s absolutely an overwhelming amount of evidence out there that shows that founders who build and successfully exit a company are more likely to do it again. So a proven track record is ideal. However, when you’re doing early-stage investing, as we like to do here in the region, it’s often the case that this is the first company for these founders, otherwise they would not necessarily be seeking early-stage capital — they would have it already.”
Investor Insight into Tech Trends
Santa Barbara Angel Alliance Founder John Petote Analyzes the High-Tech Marketplace
Investor Insight into Tech Trends
Santa Barbara Angel Alliance Founder John Petote Analyzes the High-Tech Marketplace
By Leslie Dinaberg
John Petote of Angel Alliance | Credit: Daniel Dreifuss
Having invested in more than 100 startups (“which means I’ve looked at well over 1,000 of them”), Santa Barbara Angel Alliance founder John Petote shares these insights on today’s tech trends.
“You’ve got the government coming down on the four or five big leaders in technology. That’s going to slow them down in some form. I’ve seen this cycle a number of times, where three to four horses take off and they just start dominating. Then the government gets involved, and that means there’s a new fertile ground opportunity for startups to really address niches that they can exploit in a three- to seven-year period.”
“The more you increase bandwidth and the cheaper you make it, the more opportunity there is for new technology to exploit it. We’re going to see a lot of startups come up to take advantage of that, and they should. It is going to be a whole new cycle.”
“Some of the companies that are starting to mature as startups and getting ready to go to a blast-off phase are Apeel Sciences, Invoca, and Impact Radius. You don’t hear about [Impact Radius] much, but they’re doing really well. Some data companies as well, including HG Insights and Carpe Data, are starting to accelerate. They are young enough and nimble enough to keep morphing their product to capitalize on more bandwidth that’s faster and cheaper.”
“When I started investing in 1997, the VCs would laugh at us and say, ‘It’s just a little beachy tourist town.’ When a billion-dollar company exits like Lynda.com (purchased by LinkedIn, then by Microsoft), Procore is probably $4 billion now, and Apeel is probably hitting $1 billion, and it goes on and on, then they go, ‘Wow.’ They’ve got to take that seriously. Over the last 15 years, the Bay Area is really so crazy, and it’s polluted and it’s so crowded, so they’re saying, ‘We’ve got to get out and come to Santa Barbara.’”
“When a company exits, these people either get rich or get richer and then they think, ‘Well, I’ll be bored,’ so they want to have fun again and start another company and bring more talent in. Or they become an investor, if you’re like me, and help coddle these companies and sit on boards and really mentor them.”
‘Grit and Hustle’: Understanding Santa Barbara’s Tech Sector Growth
Attorney Michael Pfau Compares Santa Barbara’s Evolution to Silicon Valley
‘Grit and Hustle’: Understanding Santa Barbara’s Tech Sector Growth
Attorney Michael Pfau Compares Santa Barbara’s Evolution as Much Like Silicon Valley
By Leslie Dinaberg
Attorney Michael Pfau | Credit: Daniel Dreifuss
Representing tech-sector businesses for more than 30 years, attorney Michael Pfau, who is a founding partner of Reicker, Pfau, Pyle & McRoy LLP, provides a unique vantage point of the Santa Barbara scene.
The same way it did in Silicon Valley. What happened was that the university attracted some real national quality talent to its faculty. Many of those people were entrepreneurially inclined, and they exported technology from the university and formed companies.
Some of those were sold off and were successful; they put money into people’s hands. Over time, you have a collection of technology, engineering, and management talent that has some money in its pocket and wants to do it again. One success begets two successes and four successes, which beget eight successes, and it just evolves naturally that way.
In parallel with that, we had the build-up of infrastructure to support these companies: angel investing, like the Santa Barbara Angel Alliance; venture firms like Kevin O’Connor’s ScOp Venture Capital and Entrada Ventures; and law firms and CPAs that are used to dealing with these things.
It becomes a self-perpetuating cycle.
Maybe, but the answer is probably no.
The analysis for any opportunity is A) what is the problem you are trying to solve? B) how do you solve it? And C) what is your sustainable competitive advantage? In other words, why are you different from everybody else?
You have to be solving a real-world problem. What they all have in common is they believe they can go through brick walls, and they will do it to get to their outcome.
It’s just grit and gristle, and in the end, a disciplined approach to business always pays off. The technology guys are more successful because they’re building companies with what we call fatter revenues — lower expenses to higher net revenue — so they are more profitable, and that’s why people think that maybe there is something better about it. But no, I’m just selling something or creating something that can be sold as more valuable.
Saving the World, One Byte at a Time
Last Call for Food, ChowMatch, EVmatch, and Other Companies Using Tech for Good
Saving the World, One Byte at a Time
Last Call for Food, ChowMatch, EVmatch, and Other Companies Using Tech for Good
By Leslie Dinaberg
Erin McGeoy of Last Call for Food | Credit: Daniel Dreifuss
An increasing number of tech companies are working to create products and applications to improve our lives and make a difference in ways both small and large.
While Apeel Sciences works to end hunger on a global scale, Last Call for Food matches hungry college students with discounted end-of-night restaurant meals. Founder and CEO Erin McGeoy, a Santa Barbara High water-polo standout, developed the platform while at George Washington University.
Despite scholarships and working throughout college, she still struggled financially and developed clever ways to access more affordable food. After working on the food-waste team at the World Wildlife Fund, she focused her energy on the intersection of college food insecurity and wasted restaurant food to launch Last Call in 2017.
“The technology we use allows restaurants and other food vendors to share deals they have on surplus food to the Last Call website, and it enables Last Call to communicate these deals to our subscribers,” said McGeoy, who launched on the East Coast but is now actively working in her hometown to bring the service to UCSB and SBCC students. See lastcallforfood.com.
ChowMatch is also counteracting food waste locally. The initiative was launched by the Community Environmental Council (CEC) in partnership with the Santa Barbara County Food Rescue Program and is supported by COVID-19 relief funding. Explained the CEC’s Julia Blanton, “We help build relationships between donors with surplus food and charitable organizations to prevent produce and restaurant-quality prepared food from going to the landfill and instead direct it to those facing hunger throughout the county.” See chowmatch.com.
Wildnote’s mission is to protect natural resources by empowering professionals to accurately collect, efficiently manage, and effectively report on environmental compliance. Making the world a better place is emphasized at every meeting, said founder and CEO Kristen Hazard, who is based in San Luis Obispo. “It’s often the reason employees want to come work for Wildnote, because they feel a calling for their work to have meaning around the environment,” she explained. See wildnoteapp.com.
Heather Hochrein used a grad-school group thesis idea to win third place at UCSB’s New Venture Competition, and then she founded EVmatch, a peer-to-peer network for finding electric-vehicle charging stations. The app directs drivers to privately owned charging stations, allowing apartment dwellers and travelers a flexible way to charge their vehicles. See evmatch.com.
Technology is also an excellent resource for crowdfunding and marketing innovative, eco-minded products. Frustrated with trying to eliminate waste in their everyday lives, Remaker Labs cofounders David Silverander and Sky Gilbar developed Hitch, a full-size reusable water bottle with a removable, barista-approved cup hidden inside. Through funny videos featuring familiar landmarks, Hitch raised $1.2 million on Kickstarter and is still pre-selling through Indiegogo. They plan to deliver in November, just in time for the holidays. See carryhitch.com.
The Final company sports a similar ethos of eliminating single-use products and also used humorous videos of mermaids to market FinalStraw, a reusable straw that folds down to keychain-size. “The idea around the mermaid is this human connection to the ocean, which has a fun fantasy aspect,” said founder Emma Rose Cohen, who was part of the Save the Mermaids activist group as a student at UCSB, dressing in mermaid costumes to encourage the City of Santa Barbara to ban plastic bags. Her Kickstarter campaign raised $1.8 million, and FinalStraw is now available at REI, as well as online, with additional products — FinalFork, FinalSpork, and FinalWipe— available for preorder. See final.co.
Apeel’s Santa Barbara Appeal
Why This Food-Preservation Tech Company Thrives on the South Coast
Apeel’s Santa Barbara Appeal
Why This Food-Preservation Tech Company Thrives on the South Coast
By Leslie Dinaberg
Megan Opp | Credit: Daniel Dreifuss
In a creation story fit for a feel-good film, the food-preservation company Apeel Sciences was founded by UCSB grad student James Rogers when he heard a radio story about global hunger while driving through California’s lush farmlands. He wondered how so many could be so hungry when there was much food around.
Upon learning that the culprit is spoilage, the materials science PhD candidate developed a product — made entirely from natural things in the food we already eat — that slowed down the rotting of various fruits and vegetables. Rogers won UCSB’s New Venture Competition, and the seeds of Apeel quickly began to sprout, funded in part by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation due to the promise of fighting malnourishment around the world.
That was around 2012. Fast forward to today, and Apeel, which is headquartered in Goleta and employs nearly 200 “Apeelers,” is growing like crazy, developing products for dozens of produce categories and working with a range of partners, from small organic growers to the world’s largest food brands. In late August, Apeel, which is currently valued at more than $1 billion, announced a partnership with the largest German retailer that will put Apeel-treated avocados and oranges in more than 11,000 EDEKA and Netto stores. And they’re just getting started.
I spoke with “Chief People Officer” Megan Opp about Apeel’s appeal.
The technology and product are so innovative and world-changing. We are thankful for UCSB for providing a strong pipeline of incredible talent, which of course includes our founders. People have the opportunity to positively change how the world accesses and enjoys fresh produce. What’s exciting is that it all started in this beautiful community of S.B. and has grown very quickly into a global company.
Most of our R&D happens right here at headquarters, but innovations can come from any part of the world. You can be based in Santa Barbara but also have opportunities to travel and work in new places. This is one of the most globally mobile companies I’ve seen, where we’ll give these opportunities as a way of sharing our company values and culture in different locations and also as a way to grow in one’s career and skills and global mindset.
We’re extremely fortunate to have great access to top tech talent who have chosen to study and live in the Santa Barbara area. We’ve also been able to attract talent from surrounding metro areas, including L.A. and the Bay Area. We always notice an uptick in applications from the East Coast and Midwest during winter months! Like any region for tech talent, Santa Barbara isn’t without its challenges. Santa Barbara’s cost of living and housing availability is one.
Our employees are very philanthropic, connected with nature, and embrace all of the outdoor adventures and amenities this area has to offer.
We are a global company that hires talent based not only abilities but the aligned belief in our mission — enabling a world that works with nature; we use food to protect food — and wanting to be part of something that will change the world. We hire and reward people with strong alignment with our values, which include humility and teamwork. We support each other and want to see us all succeed so that Apeel produce will be available throughout the world.
Food waste is a global crisis, and we are continuing to aggressively staff up to be able to tackle this issue head-on. Even through this challenging time of COVID, we’ve come up with creative ways to create a welcoming virtual environment for candidates and new hires. We always put people first and have created additional programs to support our working parents and caregivers and all of our employees during these challenging times. We feel so fortunate to be based in the Santa Barbara area with so many benefits within our reach!
ParentSquare Makes the Grade
Santa Barbara’s Anupama Vaid Developed School Communication Platform Now Used Nationwide
ParentSquare Makes the Grade
Santa Barbara’s Anupama Vaid Developed School Communication Platform Now Used Nationwide
By Leslie Dinaberg
Anupama Vaid of ParentSquare | Credit: Daniel Dreifuss
Entrepreneurs follow all kinds of inspirational paths. For Anupama Vaid, it was the halls of Santa Barbara’s Peabody Charter School that inspired her to start ParentSquare, a communication platform connecting parents to teachers and school administrators that is now used by 4,500 K-12 schools across the country.
A former computer engineer for Citrix, Vaid came up with the idea in 2011, when she took a sabbatical to be home with her young children and realized how much more school information was available to stay-at-home parents.
The platform’s development by Vaid and her husband, Sohit Wadhwa, emphasized a simple format that could be accessed via phones, laptops, tablets, and desktops for parents, teachers, and office staff. But making a solid product was only step one.
“Even if you build a good product, there is hindrance in adoption primarily because the education tech industry is a government industry and there are regulations and lots of things to learn,” explained Vaid, who spent almost four years learning the ins and outs of ed tech. “Education really teaches us about technology, but they are not the first ones to adopt technology. Whenever they are buying something, it has to be a collective decision. Plus, it has to be priced correctly because they are buying it with state funds.”
Upon cracking that nut, ParentSquare grew rapidly, but COVID-19 is presenting new challenges. The schools pay a fixed amount per student, but with online education becoming the norm in the spring, their normal usage patterns have gone up tremendously. “But we’re happy to be able to serve the schools during this time,” said Vaid. “It’s very satisfying to be able to do that.” In addition to consistently delivering helpful tips for better online communication, ParentSquare also added Health Screening Forms to the platform to help schools prevent the spread of COVID.
A more persistent challenge is hiring developers, as ParentSquare uses the same Ruby on Rails web-application framework that’s also used by some of the biggest companies in town, such as AppFolio and Procore. “Obviously, their pockets are much deeper,” she said.
But ParentSquare offers a unique advantage. “This is such a soulful company,” she said. “It’s a feel-good experience, and every one of the education industry people is so nice to work with because you know you’re all in it together for the common good. Unlike other industries I’ve been in, this is tech for a social cause, and it’s a different feeling being a part of such a company.”
Sprigeo Says Yes to School Safety
Santa Barbara’s Joe Bruzzese Founded Service to Prevent Bullying and Increase Campus Safety
Sprigeo Says Yes to School Safety
Santa Barbara’s Joe Bruzzese Founded Service to Prevent Bullying and Increase Campus Safety
By Leslie Dinaberg
Joe Bruzzese of Sprigeo | Credit: Daniel Dreifuss
When Joe Bruzzese founded Sprigeo in 2010, he wanted to help schools prevent bullying and provide a safe, anonymous method for students to report things that made them feel unsafe. The service has since evolved into a full-fledged school safety tip line reporting system, with a 24/7 call center accessible by phone, email, text, an app, or the website.
“Everything goes through the call center,” explained Bruzzese. “They triage those tips based on pre-set criteria to determine how serious of a threat the tip is. Some are very serious — ‘There’s a planned school attack,’ or ‘I’m planning to take my own life and I’m calling or reporting to get help’ — to something that’s far less serious, like, ‘I don’t like what they’re serving in the school cafeteria.’ We get the gamut of reportable tips, not all of which qualify obviously as a school safety threat.”
A virtual company from the get-go, Sprigeo now serves more than 4,000 schools across 28 states as well as administering the statewide tip lines for Oregon and Idaho. They recently signed on to provide the tip line for the state of Illinois, their largest customer so far.
That provides a lot of data to digest. One trend that Bruzzese sees is an uptick in middle-school students “really struggling with cutting and depression and other forms of self-harm.” Vaping is also on the rise, not just in high school but in middle school. Prior to the pandemic, Sprigeo was working on a series of videos featuring high schoolers telling middle schoolers how “uncool” and unhealthy vaping really is.
Unfortunately, that project is on hold at the moment, but one thing the company has been able to move forward on is an online educational conference that will launch on September 14.
“The culture around meetings and professional development really has changed, and people are now very comfortable with sitting in front of a screen and attending a Zoom meeting or a training session,” explained Bruzzese. “Districts still have the same professional development requirements by law, [so this is] helping them in a way that makes sense, which has been great. Everyone is really looking for opportunities for quality online training.”
A Hotspot for Seeking Heat
FLIR and Seek Thermal Make Santa Barbara a Hub for Thermal-Imaging Technology Companies
A Hotspot for Seeking Heat
FLIR and Seek Thermal Make Santa Barbara a Hub for Thermal-Imaging Technology Companies
By Leslie Dinaberg
Credit: Courtesy
Santa Barbara is a world leader in infrared technology, with a long history that dates back to the scientists at the 1960s-era Hughes Aircraft Co., which later became the Santa Barbara Research Center. With present-day industry bigwig FLIR located here, along with defense and aerospace industry heavyweights like Raytheon and Lockheed Martin and companies such as SE-IR Corporation, Electro Optical Industries, Seek Thermal, and Teledyne Scientific & Imaging developing technology for consumer and industrial applications — from smartphones and cars to night-vision cameras and sensors — this sector of tech is definitely a hot one.
“The Santa Barbara office is really the nerve center of a lot of our cores and components,” said Vatche Arabian, director of content marketing for FLIR, whose name is an acronym for “forward-looking infrared.” With the Central Coast as the home to approximately 450 of its 3,000 employees worldwide, FLIR is considered the global leader in the design, manufacture, and marketing of thermal imaging infrared cameras.
Seek Thermal was founded in 2012 by industry pioneering scientists Bill Parrish and Tim Fitzgibbons, who spent 40 years advancing the state of military and professional-grade thermal-imaging technology. Seek is their third venture, following the successful acquisitions of their last two companies, Amber Engineering and Indigo Systems, which is now part of Raytheon and FLIR, respectively.
Their mission is to make thermal imaging a part of everyday life. “We make devices, for example, that turn your phone into a thermal imager,” explained Seek’s CEO and president Mike Muench. “We make hand-held thermal imagers. We make products specifically for the fire and safety space, which are also stand-alone thermal scanning products.”
With manufacturing on-site in Goleta, the team of 100 employees at Seek Thermal was able to respond quickly to the COVID pandemic and the demand for screening measures. Said Muench, “We now make a scanning system for helping businesses to screen employees for elevated body temperature.”
thermal.com
How FLIR Stole Moments in the Spotlight
Goleta-Based Imaging Company Stars in Movies, TV Episodes, and Even Award Shows
How FLIR Stole Moments in the Spotlight
Goleta-Based Imaging Company Stars in Movies, TV Episodes, and Even Award Shows
By Leslie Dinaberg
FLIR’s technology used in the 2018 film Rampage | Credit: Courtesy
With appearances in Sicario, Ozark, Silicon Valley, The Haunting of Hill House, Transformers: The Last Knight, Speechless, and Extinct or Alive, among others, FLIR is more than familiar with the on-screen close-up.
Of course, sometimes opportunity just knocks. “The crazy, last-minute ones are the ones that we seem to get the biggest lift out of,” said Arabian, referring to the 2017 VMA performance of 30 Seconds to Mars, in which actor/musician Jared Leto wanted to do the thing with thermal cameras. “We had maybe a week-and-a-half notice for that one. Trying to realize what they were trying to do and find the best way to do that was terrifying, but then the end result was amazing.”
FLIR cameras were also used on the two Sicario movies. “In the tunnel, when it’s in thermal vision, we worked with Roger Deakins to have him use the FLIR science camera, and he couldn’t have told that story without it,” said Stacy Jones, CEO and founder of Hollywood Branded, the marketing agency that works with FLIR. “They were in a pitch-black tunnel, and he was trying to actually show what it is like for the military and for those people who were running from across the border.”
In the movie Rampage, FLIR provided a pilot and its plane, fully kitted out with all the FLIR technology, usually reserved for large-scale demonstrations of their product line to military or government buyers. “There was a fictional big quarry scene,” said Jones. “It existed, but they made it look way bigger than it was through movie magic. And they had the plane sweeping over it, filming in thermal and feeding a livestream down to the director at the same time, so they could get the vision and the day scenes and the night scenes and the thermal all captured while the big ravaging beast that they put in later on was able to storm in with special effects.”
Product placement works best on-screen when it’s helping to tell the story, said Jones, who founded her agency in 2007, with BlackBerry as her first client. “Technology is something that is a great storyteller when it’s contributing to who the character is, to driving a story element, and contributing to making that scene more real,” she explained.
Communication Is Key for WELL Health
Guillaume de Zwirek Moved Patient-Provider Platform Company from Silicon Valley to Santa Barbara
Communication Is Key for WELL Health
Guillaume de Zwirek Moved Patient-Provider Platform Company from Silicon Valley to Santa Barbara
By Leslie Dinaberg
Credit: Caitlin Fitch
WELL Health’s CEO Guillaume de Zwirek first discovered health-care tech as a patient. During an Ironman triathlon, he landed in the back of an ambulance, suffering from acute heatstroke. In the months after his hospital discharge, he navigated a complex medical system full of antiquated communication practices. Seeing an opportunity, de Zwirek created WELL to solve those challenges.
“WELL enables health systems, private practices, and vendors to conduct seamless conversations with patients across multiple channels, including texting, email, telephone, and live chat,” said Pamela Ellgen, WELL’s health editor. Through WELL, patients receive all of their healthcare communication from one trusted source — their provider — and service providers can converse with patients in real time.
The first WELL office opened in 2015 in Redwood City, the heart of Silicon Valley. “I quickly realized that wasn’t the right thing for the company, or for our team,” said de Zwirek. “The Bay Area was overcrowded with way too many people willing to make crazy commutes. Even though our office was right on the train route, some of our team still had to travel more than an hour and a half just to get to work. And the cost of living was out of control. In addition, turnover is a way of life in Silicon Valley. It wasn’t what I wanted for WELL. I want to build a community of people who are happy to be here and excited to help build this company.”
WELL relocated its headquarters to Santa Barbara in 2017 and now operates on Chapala Street in Invoca’s former headquarters. Listed as number 170 on the Inc. 500 list of the fastest-growing privately held companies in the U.S., WELL employs 102 people, with 62 of them in Santa Barbara.
In March 2020, WELL unveiled its Rapid Release Program, which allows health systems to manage urgent COVID-19 patient communications at scale. A technology that seems tailor-made for our time, it can be deployed by users in just 48 hours, which is far quicker than a typical implementation. Seeking to address the pandemic as effectively as possible, WELL offered the program
The Cutting Edge of Robotic Surgery in Santa Barbara
Cottage Hospital and the Orthopedic Institute Perform Many Surgeries Every Week
The Cutting Edge of Robotic Surgery in Santa Barbara
Cottage Hospital and the Orthopedic Institute Perform Many Surgeries Every Week
By Leslie Dinaberg
Credit: Caitlin Fitch
Robots are no longer a futuristic notion. In fact, they’re becoming more and more common in nearby operating rooms. Robotic surgery is an advanced form of minimally invasive surgery that makes use of computer-controlled robots to do what humans can’t — and also to do what surgeons can, only better.
Think about how bulky human hands are when compared to a robot’s. “The robotic instruments are articulated at the end of the instrument where the working end is, so the working end can move like a hand would, as if it had a wrist,” explained Dr. Anne Rodriguez, a gynecologic oncologist and breast surgeon who heads up the Cottage Health Robotic Surgery team. “That gives you the ability to maneuver much more than you would with a straight instrument. And that ability can get you into small spaces, can get you into difficult spaces, and can allow you to do a lot finer technique, so to speak.”
In 2019, the Cottage Robotic Surgery Center performed 574 robotic surgery procedures with the da Vinci XI manufactured by Intuitive. The most common surgery was hysterectomy, with 117 of them performed last year, said Maria Zate, the hospital’s public relations manager, followed by prostatectomy and hernia.
Dr. William Gallivan of the Orthopedic Institute of Santa Barbara is a big proponent of the technology. “In 2005, I started using computer navigation,” said Gallivan. “It was new technology back then, and I haven’t gone back.” He’s performed robotic surgeries on knees since 2014, tallying 350 surgeries as of August 2020, using the NAVIO Surgical System and recently the MAKO Robotic-Arm System.
The precision advantages of robotics for knee surgeries are critical. “When we use robotics, we can actually do a better preservation of bone,” he said. “For young people who want to be active, they will be able to have a very high level of activity. We’ve got this technology that allows better preservation and maintenance of bone and other soft tissues and is very effective.”
Rodriguez also pointed out the advantages of the robots for surgeons themselves. “You’re basically sitting at a console to control the instrument rather than controlling the instrument at the bedside,” she said. “So ergonomically, it’s easier on the surgeon and that gives advantages both short-term and long-term in terms of your ability to continue to do surgery.”
Other advantages include shorter hospital stays and faster recoveries, in part because there is less need for narcotic pain medicine. “About 95 percent of my patients are wide awake with a spinal anesthetic,” said Gallivan. “It’s the safest way to do it, and the patients have more fun being awake.” Patients can listen to music (“unless it’s something bad,” he laughed) and watch 3-D models and cartoon versions of the operation.
Virtually scar-less, single-site surgeries can also be handled by robots, such as single-incision hysterectomies. Rather than making several incisions, the robotic process makes just one incision through the belly button, which decreases blood loss and shortens recovery time.
“Robots have obviously been used for a long time by the aviation, automotive, and military [sectors], and then health care,” said Gallivan. “But the robotic technology has never diminished or exited from an industry that’s adopted it. It’s not going anywhere. I’m a firm believer that this technology we’re using is here to stay.”
Virtual Healthcare: Right Here at Home
After Acquiring Goleta’s InTouch Health, Teladoc’s Joe DeVivo Discusses the Market
Virtual Healthcare: Right Here at Home
After Acquiring Goleta’s InTouch Health, Teladoc’s Joe DeVivo Discusses the Market
By Leslie Dinaberg
Credit: Caitlin Fitch
After the July 2020 acquisition of Goleta-based InTouch Health — for approximately $150 million in cash and 4.6 million shares of stock — Teladoc Health is well positioned in the global telehealth market and also a large employer here, with about 230 positions in Santa Barbara County. Joe DeVivo, Teladoc’s president of hospitals and health systems, discussed the technology, ever more important during COVID.
The mission of Teladoc Health is to transform how people access and experience healthcare around the world. With virtual care, we are enabling patients to access care on their terms — from general medical issues like cold and flu to chronic conditions, including mental health, and complicated medical issues.
Teladoc Health was established for what has come to be known as virtual urgent care: providing access to board-certified physicians via phone, app, or website for acute health needs like cold, flu, upper respiratory issues, pinkeye, and more. Through multiple acquisitions, the company not only expanded globally, now operating in 175 countries, but also added clinical capabilities, covering more health conditions across the spectrum of care, including dermatology, mental health, expert medical services, and more.
COVID-19 has exponentially increased the number of hospitals and health systems utilizing virtual-care platforms as well as expanded the use cases for those who had already deployed a virtual-care platform. While we knew in January that the InTouch transaction would play a key role in our growth, we couldn’t have predicted the level of need it’s enabling us to meet for hospital systems now motivated to create comprehensive virtual-care strategies. Our pipeline with hospitals and health systems remains strong for the rest of 2020 and 2021, set to grow over 35 percent in 2020. Teladoc Health is now partnering with more than 60 of the top 100 hospitals.
In his capacity as fellow with Teladoc Health, Yulun Wang will now focus on the importance of growing virtual healthcare opportunities for underserved populations around the globe with the World Telehealth Initiative. We will continue to foster the Teladoc Health relationship with UCSB, and we also see expanding opportunities for students to participate in Yulun’s work with the World Telehealth Initiative.
Preparation Meets Opportunity in UCSB’s Technology Management Program
2,400 Students Went Through Program Last Year Alone
Preparation Meets Opportunity in UCSB’s Technology Management Program
2,400 Students Went Through Real-World Training and Certificate Program Last Year Alone
By Leslie Dinaberg
Students in UCSB’s Technology Management Program listen to a recent presentation on Nectir, a new system for connecting classrooms. | Credit: Courtesy
Preparation meets opportunity in UCSB’s Technology Management Program (TMP), which trained 2,400 undergraduate students last year alone. The certificate program covers subjects such as business strategy, entrepreneurship, marketing, management, finance, and startup business models as well as current issues in technology, business, and society.
“Because UCSB doesn’t have a business school, students aren’t really exposed to the basics about what it’s like to work in an organization,” explained Kyle Lewis, TMP’s chair. “So we have courses that the students would otherwise not get.”
TMP is technically part of the College of Engineering, but it’s open to all students, and 80 percent who enroll are not engineers. “Often, these are very motivated students, and they’re taking our courses because they believe it will help them get jobs, and in fact it does,” she explained. “So we have a lot of students who have gone through the certificate who have been very, very successful on the job market with majors that could have made it more challenging for them to get good jobs.”
Lewis said that a primary goal is to keep students of all backgrounds aware of how technology is changing our world. “What we’re able to bring to the classroom is research that we’ve been doing for a long time that’s now very, very relevant,” she said. “How does tech influence human behavior and decision making? And how do humans affect technology?”
The COVID pandemic is making this sort of training all the more relevant. “Change equals opportunities in this type of environment,” said Dave Adornetto, the executive director of TMP’s entrepreneurship program. “So there’s just going to be all sorts of new problems to solve with technology.” He sees that revolutions are particularly underway for healthcare and education. “The challenges, of course, are around engagement,” he explained, “how to keep people engaged when they are remote.”
Michael Curtis, who completed his Masters of Technology Management degree in June, is seeing these changes firsthand in his new job as an associate project manager at Apeel Sciences, which itself was launched after winning TMP’s New Venture Competition in 2012.
He was hired in April, right as everyone went into full lockdown. “We had a virtual online orientation, and it went a lot better than I was anticipating,” Curtis said. “I’ve been very pleasantly surprised with how much of a relationship I’ve been able to build with a lot of my coworkers. I thought that being online would be a little weird, but I do feel like I’ve been absorbed into the community and culture of Apeel.”
This kind of training and connection is becoming the new social norm. “With so much change happening in the world right now,” said Adornetto, “I’m excited to see what’s going to come out in terms of student creativity and ideas, because I think natural applications will emerge from their experiences with these technologies.”
Though TMP has long been associated with startups, that’s not the program’s only application. “A lot of the students are thinking about joining established firms, and they’re joining in positions where innovation is required,” said Lewis. “The skills and the learning are absolutely portable to all kinds of organizations where innovation has to occur constantly, and they are learning how to do that.”
UCSB’s TMP Startups
A List of More Than 30 Companies Whose Founders Participated in TMP
UCSB Technology Management Program’s Startups
A List of More Than 30 Companies Whose Founders Participated in the Certificate Program
By Leslie Dinaberg
Credit: UCSB/Courtesy
This is a select list of startups that were formed by UCSB alumni who went through the school’s Technology Management Program at UCSB. Unless otherwise specified, these companies are still located on the Central Coast.
58phases (affiliate marketing coupon websites): Houston, TX; 58phases.com
Active Life Scientific (bone density measurement without radiation): activelifescientific.com
Apeel Sciences (plant-based edible coating to preserve fruits and vegetables longer): https://www.apeel.com/
AppScale (open source cloud computing platform): https://www.appscale.com/
Aptitude (medical diagnostics — aptamers): becauseofhope.org
Because of Hope (BOH) (handmade jewelry site supporting widows and orphans in Uganda):bioiq.com
BioIQ (health measurement technology): primary location in Atlanta, GA; tmp.ucsb.edu
Compandent (telecommunications and secure voice software and hardware): Los Altos Hills, CA;compandent.com
DejaLearn (app to help students with memorization tasks): http://www.dejalearn.com/#4
Emergency Medical Technologies (medical alert “WriskWatch”): North Miami Beach, FL; http://emergencymedtech.com/index.cfm
Endotronix (wireless heart health monitoring): Lisle, IL, and Dublin, Ireland; endotronix.com
EVmatch (peer-to-peer electric-vehicle charging network):evmatch.com
Fluency Lighting Technologies (laser diode lighting):fluencylighting.com
Groundswell Technologies (software for natural resource management): groundswelltech.com
iCracked (iPhone and iPad repairs and buybacks), acquired by SquareTrade:squaretrade.com
Infanttech (baby monitor for cars): Montebello, CA; infanttech.com
Inogen (portable oxygen therapy):inogen.com
Life Cube (portable instant shelters):lifecubeinc.com
Milo Sensors (wearable alcohol-sensor technologies): www.milosensor.com
NEXT (organic photovoltaics): nextenergytech.com
Nitride Solutions (manufacturing materials that enable solutions to critical problems in electronics): Wichita, KS;nitridesolutions.com
PeraHealth (healthcare efficiency software): Charlotte, NC;perahealth.com
Polar Pro (accessories for GoPro Cameras): Costa Mesa, CA; polarprofilters.com
Sirigen (High Sensitivity Fluorescence): La Jolla, CA; sirigen.com
StudySoup (peer-to-peer learning marketplace): San Francisco, CA; studysoup.com
SyncIn (mobile time tracking): Van Nuys, CA;syncinnow.com
Tamarisc (early-stage venture investment): Boston, MA; tamarisc.com
TrackR (Bluetooth tracker): thetrackr.com
Ubersense (sports analysis tool):hudl.com
Vanguard Computer Technology Labs (VCT) (engineering services):vctlabs.com
Research Meets the Road in UCSB’s Office of Technology & Industry Alliances
Turning Inventions and Ideas into Profitable Technologies
Research Meets the Road in UCSB’s Office of Technology & Industry Alliances
Turning Inventions and Ideas into Marketable, Scalable, and Profitable Technologies
By Leslie Dinaberg
Sherylle Mills Englander | Credit: Daniel Dreifuss
From filament LED lighting and cloud computing to medical diagnostics, virtual reality, and everything in between, researchers at UCSB have played a key role in developing technologies that improve our lives. Tasked with building relationships between UCSB and industry is the Office of Technology & Industry Alliances (TIA), which was established in 2005 with Sherylle Mills Englander as director. She answered some questions about the office’s role.
A lot of our discoveries are what’s called curiosity-based research, aimed at getting a fundamental understanding. The more we understand fundamentally how things work, the more innovation we can place on top of that. A lot of the research we do is extremely important and not necessarily ready for a commercial partnership.
Let’s say we have a new way of sorting cells for diagnostics where we can really quickly separate out cancer cells from any other cell and we can do it very rapidly and very effectively, so that’s got a definite benefit. If our researchers publish in scientific journals to let others learn about it and build upon it, that’s great; we’ve given a whole new process to the world.
But if absolutely anybody can use it commercially, that can be a disincentive for a company to develop it. We need a company partner to invest in making that initial discovery something that can be used in every doctor’s office.
It’s a very different question. How do you sort cells quickly and rapidly without hurting them? Or how do you build a machine for it that is going to be affordable, reimbursable, and easy enough to use to be in everybody’s office?
If we simply publish, would a company invest the millions of dollars it takes to create a product only to have the fundamental discovery of that product be able to be used by competitors? Most likely not.
So to encourage it to be translated into actual commercial products, we apply for a patent on that original idea and then we go to a company who has a strong passion and expertise for it. If they commit to developing something that will benefit the public, we will give you the exclusive access to that patent.
What we’re basically doing is using the intellectual-property scheme of patents and copyrights to encourage and facilitate companies to create products and services based on our discoveries.
What we do is called a license, effectively giving permission for a company to use it. There are some standard deal structures. Obviously, we require royalties. Essentially, we want to assure that if they do succeed with the technology, the University of California shares in that success in a reasonable way. We are looking to make sure our innovation and our contribution to their company is fairly compensated, but it’s structured in a way that allows them to spend the money to develop a product and to get it out there.
Most of our innovations have students named as an inventor or author because they are so active in our research. The university will give the inventors 35 percent of our net revenue, and they share it equally. Just because you are a faculty member doesn’t mean you get more. If there are three inventors, they each get a third of that net revenue.
Their job is to teach and to discover science, and it takes an enormous amount of help to make that innovation happen. So that 35 percent back is a recognition of the effort of the effort that they are doing to take this invention out.
This is not a scenario where tons of money is coming in. The university has over 12,000 active inventions. The top 25 patents earn anywhere from 70 to 80 percent of our income in a given year.
We want our contribution to be respected, and we want the California taxpayers to get a return on that investment. Every bit of money we get in royalties is reinvested to support future research at UCSB, and we want to keep that going.
The reason we are doing this fundamentally is we want our innovations to turn into products that actually help people.
UCSB’s Technology and Research Startups
A List of More Than 40 Companies That Began on the Santa Barbara Campus
UCSB’s Technology and Research Startups
A List of More Than 40 Companies That Began on the Santa Barbara Campus
By Leslie Dinaberg
Credit: Courtesy
Here’s a select list of startups that have been formed around technology and research developed at UCSB. Unless otherwise specified, these companies are all located on the Central Coast.
Acatechol (underwater adhesive, priming, and coating technologies): acatechol.com
Acelot (a development-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on therapies for Alzheimer’s disease and central nervous system disorders): acelot.com
Active Life Scientific (bone-density measurement without radiation): activelifescientific.com
Aerius Photonics, LLC (photonic components), acquired by FLIR: flir.com
Agility (tunable lasers), acquired by JDS Uniphase, now Viavi Solutions: San Jose, CA;viavisolutions.com/en-us
Alveo Technologies (cloud-based diagnostics): Alameda, CA; alveotechnologies.com/a>
Amicrobe (anti-microbials to prevent and treat infections): Carlsbad, CA; amicrobe.com
AppScale (open-source cloud computing platform): appscale.com
Aptitude (medical diagnostics — aptamers): aptitudemedical.com
Asylum Research (atomic force microscopes), acquired by Oxford Instruments: afm.oxinst.com
Aurrion (silicon photonic integrated circuits), acquired by Juniper Networks: juniper.net/us/en
Caugnate (augmented reality), acquired by Parametric Technology: ptc.com
Cayuga Biotech (therapeutics): cayugabiotech.com
Convoy Therapeutics (peptide platform technology), acquired by CTX Technology Inc.
Cue (self-tracking health devices), formerly known as Ruubix: San Diego, CA;cuehealth.com
CytomX Therapeutics (therapeutics): San Francisco, CA; cytomx.com
Diagnostic Biochips (biosensors): Glen Burnie, MD; diagnosticbiochips.com
Digital Instruments (atomic force microscopes), acquired by Veecoveeco.com
Diopter Corp. (contact lenses that deliver drugs to treat ocular diseases)
Dragonfly Technologies (reagents)
Eccrine Systems, Inc. (medication monitoring): Cincinnati, OH;eccrinesystems.com
Ecorithm (analytics platform): ecorithm.com
Eucalyptus (cloud computing), acquired by HP:www8.hp.com
Fluency Lighting Technologies (laser diode lighting): fluencylighting.com
Groundswell Technologies (software for natural resource management):groundswelltech.com
iFluidics (micro-plate assay): ifluidics.com
InfoCoding Labs (wireless headphone technology): infocodinglabs.com
Innobright (3-D rendering computer graphics): Albuquerque, NM; innobright.com
Lastline (malware detection/protection), acquired by VMware: lastline.com
Laxmi Therapeutic Devices (medical devices): cnsi.ucsb.edu/resources/incubator
LungLife AI, formerly known as Cynvenio Biosystems (cancer-cell sorting): Thousand Oaks, CA; lunglifeai.com
Mentium Technologies (analog computation): mentium.tech
NEXT (organic photovoltaics): nextenergytech.com
Reaction35 (methane conversion): reaction35.com
Regenerative Patch Technologies (regenerative medicine products): Portola Valley, CA; regenerativepatch.com
SBA Materials (“technology to lessen the garbage”): sbamaterials.com
Sebacia (acne treatment): sebacia.com
Serimmune (therapeutics for autoimmune diseases, including applying its platform to the development of COVID-19 diagnostics, vaccines, and therapeutics): serimmune.com
ShadowMaps (mobile geolocation), acquired by Uber:uber.com
Sirigen (diagnostics and highly florescent polymers), acquired by Becton Dickinson: bd.com/en-us
SixPoint Materials (semi-conductor/LED materials): spmaterials.com
Skincential Sciences (skincare treatment): San Francisco, CA; clearista.com
SLD Laser (laser lights): sldlaser.com
Soraa (LED lighting): Fremont, CA; soraa.com
Spectradyne (nanoparticle analysis): Torrance, CAnanoparticleanalyzer.com
Timems (engineering services): buzzfile.com/business/Timems-323-206-1506
Transphorm (hydrogen power generation): transphormusa.com
Twister Biotech (gene therapies for rare cancers and autoimmune diseases): Houston, TX; twisterbiotech.com
Uniax (polymer products), acquired by DuPont Displays: dupont.com
WorldViz (virtual reality): worldviz.com
Studying the Behavior of Customers’ Customers
Invoca Applies AI and Analytics to Phone Calls
Studying the Behavior of Customers’ Customers
Invoca Applies AI and Analytics to Phone Calls
By Leslie Dinaberg
Nathan Ziv | Credit: Courtesy
As a SaaS (or “software as a service”) company that connects the dots between branding campaigns and customer phone calls through AI and analytics, Invocais experiencing massive changes to its business during the pandemic.
“We have really had to remain agile for the last few months since March and COVID,” said Nathan Ziv, the company’s VP of product management. “And not just learning internal ways to adapt, but consumer buying behaviors have shifted a ton.”
With a client list that includes big-name brands such as Samsung, Mayo Clinic, LendingTree, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, and Open Table, Invoca specializes in studying the behaviors of their “customers’ customers.” For obvious reasons, they’re seeing a lot more online and phone-call buying now.
“We’re seeing that the volume of calls from consumers calling into these brands has never been higher,” explained Ziv. “We know those conversations are more important than ever. Luckily, we’re in a good place to help brands do that.” Some sectors, though, like the travel industry, are hurting despite Invoca’s help.
Invoca’s team, which includes about 200 people headquartered in Santa Barbara with offices in Denver and San Francisco, is very used to meeting with customers in person, whether in quarterly meet-and-greets or taking clients out to dinner to review their portfolios. With the pandemic restrictions, said Ziv, “We’ve had to learn to do all of that over Zoom and find different ways to keep engaged with them.”
Invoca has ramped up webinars as one tool to engage their customers. “We’ve helped a lot of our clients understand that they have a lot of customers calling and talking about the pandemic,” said Ziv, explaining that healthcare clients are receiving insights into the confusion over elective surgeries.
“What’s great about our software is, we can be agile and be adapting to all of that,” he explained. “All we’re trying to do is keep adapting so our customers can maintain healthy business with their consumers and that we can all get over this weird time.”
Insight from HG Insights’ Elizabeth Cholawsky
CEO of the Santa Barbara Tech Intelligence Company Talks Up the Central Coast Lifestyle
Insight from HG Insights’ Elizabeth Cholawsky
CEO of the Santa Barbara Tech Intelligence Company Talks Up the Central Coast Lifestyle
By Leslie Dinaberg
Elizabeth Chowalsky CEO of HG Insights | Credit: Daniel Dreifuss
A global leader in technology intelligence, HG Insights (formerly HG Data) recently hit a benchmark that CEO Elizabeth Cholawsky is justifiably excited about.
“We just topped 100 employees, which is fantastic,” she said. “We were half that about when I got here two and a half years ago, and about three-quarters of those employees are in Santa Barbara.”
The former CEO of Support.com and a VP at Citrix Online, Cholawsky jumped at the opportunity in 2018 to work at HG, which is known as a “data as a service,” or DaaS, company. “It was way too good to pass up, because the company is just a growing blockbuster,” she said. “It’s really been fun.”
One of her first moves was purchasing Pivotal iQ, a London-based partner that’s now home to much of her sales team.
“When we could travel, one of the things that I did was make sure there was a lot of back and forth, so that we could cross-pollinate,” Cholawsky explained. “People from Santa Barbara were thrilled to go spend a week or two in London. And for the London team, we keep one of the apartments at El Escorial, so we can house people coming over. We really encourage that to keep the bicoastal thing going. I do encourage my executive team to get out of what I call the four walls of Santa Barbara and make sure you get that influence from other things going on.”
She’s never felt “too disadvantaged” as a woman in the traditionally male-dominated tech industry, and she has seen increasing opportunities open for women to progress within organizations. “But I don’t think Santa Barbara is immune from the problems, or from the progress that we’re making,” she said.
She’s a fan of basing companies on the Central Coast, where the culture centers on enjoying the outdoors and natural beauty. “I’m not talking about taking time off to go surfing,” she said. “You have more time here. You don’t have the congestion and the traffic problems. And for your life, you just have more hours. That impacts the culture of companies because the stress level goes down and people have both more time to invest in themselves as well as in the company.”
You must be logged in to post a comment.