Velocity Accelerator companies start ‘boot camp’ at Birmingham’s Innovation Depot
Seven high-growth companies are one week into a 13-week intense “boot camp” of development that organizers believe is key component to the tech-sector economic development efforts to drive Birmingham forward. Velocity Accelerator introduced its seven cohort companies to the public this week. This is the third class of cohorts to go through the program at Innovation Depot. The companies range from startups to a 14-year-old business. What all of them have in common is that they’re established with a product and revenues and a diversity that is seen as part of the secret sauce that makes Velocity Accelerator work. “We intentionally don’t focus on one industry sector,” said Devon Laney, CEO of Innovation Depot. “I think it’s part of the strength of the program to have diversity in the industries and the sectors and to be able to attract companies from outside of Alabama to Birmingham and hopefully stay when they get done.” The past two Velocity Accelerator classes taught organizers that having companies at the same stage in their development was also important. “We wanted companies that were all at a very similar place – companies that all had revenue, they all had products,” Laney said. “They were all at a very similar stage so that the curriculum of the Velocity program would be applicable throughout the program at the same time to all of the teams so that they could move through the program sort of together, really, in a lot of ways, and progress at the same pace throughout the program.” This year’s cohort companies are: Fanboard was founded in Atlanta by Morgan Drake, Josh Fisher and James Simpson and marries augmented reality with live events like sports and concerts S(w)ervice was formed in Birmingham by Thomas Walker and Warren Wills and offers an on-demand auto maintenance solution with appointment bookings and vehicle valet services. Babypalooza is a Birmingham company founded by Cecilia Pearson that is a parenting platform where live events intersect with technology to make it easy for new, expectant and hopeful parents to access the products, people and parenting information they need most. Uptime Dynamics was founded in Birmingham by Thomas Smillie, Tom Woodruff and Maggie Belshe to redefine what a computerized maintenance management system can do for manufacturers. Need2Say was started in Birmingham by Oscar Garcia with the mission of helping you communicate what you Need2Say in your second language so that you will realize your full potential in school, work and daily life. Milk the Moment was founded in Nashville by Courtney “Coko” Eason and uses the MILK App, which rewards you whenever you refrain from using your phone in places or situations where we all could be a little more present, intimate, focused and safe. Fledging was formed in Birmingham by Weida Tan and Steven Robbins and produces premium electronics like storage products, such as its flagship product, Feather SSD (Solid State Drive) for Mac devices. Over the next several days, Alabama NewsCenter will feature each of the companies in this year’s Velocity Accelerator program. Laney said companies from all over the world applied to be part of the new Velocity Accelerator cohort, bolstered by the successes of the previous two classes. The initial Velocity Accelerator in 2017 had nine companies, three of which had raised additional capital by the end of the program and two more have done so since. In 2018, there were seven companies, five of which raised follow-on capital and two of them from out of state relocated and stayed in Birmingham. “We’re looking at this as economic development,” Laney said. “We see this as a pipeline of growth companies that we can help support, attract to Birmingham and retain.” Laney said the first two Velocity Accelerator cohorts took the $1.5 million invested in them and have leveraged that seed investment to raise more than $8 million and create over 70 jobs in the past two years. “The return on the investment from the private sector, I think, is phenomenal,” Laney said. Several of this year’s cohorts were well aware of the past success and cited it as a reason for wanting to participate in the intense Velocity Accelerator program. “I’m proud of the history,” Laney said. “I’m glad that now we have something to build on and that other entrepreneurs and other startups can see the history and say, ‘Yes, I want to be in Birmingham. Yes, I want to go through Velocity because I understand the potential I have there to grow my business.’” The 2019 cohort kicked off Jan. 28 and concludes April 30 with Velocity Demo Day at Iron City, where each company will pitch to potential customers, investors and community supporters. Participants in the program receive $50,000 each from the Velocity Fund, which is supported by Alabama Power, Regions Bank, BBVA Compass, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Alabama, Protective Life, UAB, the Community Foundation of Greater Birmingham, Encompass Health, EBSCO, Brasfield & Gorrie, McWane, Altec and Hoar Construction. Laney said the support from the private sector is part of the buy-in that has been critical to the program’s success. “The program is great. The curriculum is great. We’ve done a good job with all of those things, I think,” Laney said. “The community support and the buy-in from the community is the reason that Velocity is successful.” Having the corporate community provide dollars and not just lip-service of support is a key to creating a sustainable innovation economy, Laney said. “It speaks volumes. It’s a difference-maker for us.” Republished with permission from Alabama NewsCenter
Target deal for Shipt showcases Birmingham’s dynamic tech sector
The vibrant entrepreneurial tech scene in Birmingham is once again in the national spotlight, as Target plans to buy local grocery delivery service Shipt for $550 million in a blockbuster deal. The retail giant, which announced the acquisition in December, said it will have a major impact on efforts to increase convenience for Target shoppers through affordable, same-day delivery across a variety of product categories. For Birmingham, the move is the latest win for the city’s burgeoning innovation sector, which has attracted millions of dollars in new investment for tech-based startups. “Birmingham is a center for innovation and this agreement highlights the type of cutting-edge industry that is emerging here,” said Jon Nugent, vice president for innovation and technology for the Birmingham Business Alliance. “Through the success of companies like Shipt, Birmingham continues to reinforce its presence as a destination for entrepreneurs looking for a smart, modern city where they can build and launch the next generation of technology companies.” Vibrant scene Shipt has grown rapidly since its founding in Birmingham in 2014. Members of the service use an app to connect to a network of more than 20,000 personal shoppers, who fulfill orders from various retailers and deliver within hours in more than 72 markets. Nugent credited Shipt’s leadership for recognizing what Birmingham has to offer startups. “Bill Smith and Jeff Smith are truly visionary business people who recognized the incredible value in Birmingham’s people, community and commitment to its entrepreneurs,” Nugent said. “Their investment in Shipt’s employees, their neighborhood and their corporate headquarters represents a standard of excellence that continues to be recognized across the United States and internationally. “They continue to be an integral part of this vibrant community that, through the twin discovery engines of UAB and Southern Research, are launching new and innovative companies at an incredible pace.” Opportunities Innovation Depot is a hub of much of the activity. The downtown Birmingham business incubator is home to more than 100 companies, which recorded $126 million in gross sales in 2016. The five-year economic impact of the facility is estimated at more than $1.4 billion. Meanwhile, other technology-based startups have turned heads among major investors, and shepherding more firms like them is a priority in Birmingham and across Alabama. Innovation Depot’s Velocity Accelerator is designed to accelerate development of idea-stage companies, while Alabama Launchpad, a program of the Economic Development Partnership of Alabama, has invested $4 million in companies that have created more than 500 jobs and go on to raise $50 million in follow-on funding. “It’s a great time to be an entrepreneur in Birmingham and Alabama, especially a technology-based entrepreneur,” said Greg Canfield, secretary of the Alabama Department of Commerce. “With a skilled and creative workforce, growing funding and mentorship opportunities, and a history of advanced research and developments, the city and the surrounding region have all of the ingredients to help startups thrive.” Ambitious goals As for Shipt, it will be a wholly owned Target subsidiary and will continue to run its business independently. Target will look to Shipt to help achieve ambitious goals set last year that focus on giving customers a number of convenient ways to shop, said John Mulligan, executive vice president and chief operating officer for the retailer. “With Shipt’s network of local shoppers and their current market penetration, we will move from days to hours, dramatically accelerating our ability to bring affordable same-day delivery to guests across the country,” he said. “By the 2018 holiday season, we will be servicing every major market across the country with same-day delivery, and Shipt’s service-oriented approach aligns well with Target’s commitment to delivering an exceptional shopping experience for our guests.” Shipt founder and CEO Bill Smith said the company is excited to partner with Target and is eyeing additional expansion. “Partnering with Target and the national scale they provide allows Shipt to further accelerate our growth, bringing our service to more people, in more markets across the country,” he said. “We’ll continue growing our marketplace and membership base, working with a variety of retailers to drive scale and efficiencies. We look forward to introducing Target guests to the convenience of our same-day delivery services, with the level of personal attention only Shipt can provide.” This story originally appeared on the Alabama Department of Commerce’s Made in Alabama website. Republished with permission from the Alabama NewsCenter.
Birmingham Velocity Accelerator company LikelyAI releases iPhone app
The company that traveled the farthest to be part of Birmingham’s inaugural Velocity Accelerator class has marked a major milestone with the release of its app for iPhone. LikelyAI came to Birmingham from Slovakia to be part of the program that helps promising startups develop business plans and earn financing as they make their companies more marketable. This week, LikelyAI released its iPhone app, which uses an algorithm to help users select the best photos to share on their social media accounts. “It’s fantastic,” Jozef Marko, co-founder of LikelyAI said of the launch. “We’ve been preparing for this moment for almost one year.” Marko interned at Facebook and Google, while LikelyAI co-founder Lukas Ruttkay founded successful companies in Slovakia. They hired a developer, Michal Korbela, in Slovakia and began looking around the world for an accelerator program to help get their idea for LikelyAI off the ground. When they saw the Birmingham Velocity Accelerator program was seeking applicants for its inaugural class at Innovation Depot, Marko and Ruttkay signed up thinking they would be willing to relocate to Birmingham, England. When they were approved for the program, they realized their relocation would take them much farther from home. “We came here without any kind of expectations,” Marko said. “We didn’t know what to expect.” Lukas Ruttkay and Jozef Marko are co-founders of Birmingham’s LikelyAI, which launched its iPhone app this week. (Michael Tomberlin / Alabama NewsCenter) Both Marko and Ruttkay said they have been overwhelmed by the Southern hospitality and the level of support they’ve received in Alabama. They were a crowd favorite at Demo Day, the culminating event for Velocity Accelerator participants. Marko said it has been so special that the LikelyAI team felt compelled to push themselves to be successful in response to that support. “It kind of pushed us to work harder,” he said. Marko said the team had another personal motivation to launch the app this week. “We are going back to Europe soon to visit our families and we really wanted to push this launch before so we can finally have something done,” he said. Ruttkay expects a nice reception when they return. “We shared a post on Facebook to let everyone know we have launched the app,” he said. “Everyone is excited for us.” It’s a major milestone for LikelyAI. “The most important part is the launch and how people will use the app,” he said. The app uses an algorithm powered by artificial intelligence that takes into account objects, shapes, color patches, lighting and positioning and uses them as data points to predict the popularity, success and engagement of the images will find on social media. Lukas Ruttkay and Jozef Marko are co-founders of Birmingham’s LikelyAI, which launched its iPhone app this week. (Michael Tomberlin / Alabama NewsCenter) Marko said through their participation in Velocity Accelerator, they learned it was easier to develop an algorithm for social media influencers and regular users on Instagram than for high-volume users such as a large corporate user looking to select the right images for a marketing campaign. “We are tweaking the algorithm all the time,” he said. “We’ve got a very good algorithm at last and we’re very proud of where it is.” Ruttkay said the plan is to give new users a two-week free trial, and select users will be eligible to analyze up to 100 free pictures per month afterward. LikelyAI said social media influencers can expect between 10 percent to 20 percent increase in engagement using the app. An enterprise or corporate version of the app will also be released in the future. For now, only the iPhone version is available, but within a couple of months, LikelyAI plans to release an Android version. As for Marko and Ruttkay and the company, they plan to remain in Birmingham. “We decided to stay here for a while,” Ruttkay said. “We like it. We like the environment and the people.” Republished with permission of Alabama NewsCenter.
Birmingham’s Velocity Accelerator inaugural class member: Glow
As a mother of three and a former corporate employee, Yazmin Cavale knew how inconvenient it was to try to schedule an appointment at a beauty salon and then try to make it there at the scheduled time. What she didn’t know until she left that job and started doing hair and makeup was just how much other women were wanting the same convenience. Cavale increased clients from 25 to 150 in the first year and then began to wonder how she could create a better way of bringing beauty. Glow is an app-based business that allows women seeking hair makeup or spray tans from “Glowpros” to schedule a time when the professionals can come to the client at the customer’s convenience. Glow has been called “the Uber of beauty” because of both its convenience and the fact that Glowpros can work for Glow while maintaining their regular job. Glow is the only female-owned startup in the inaugural Velocity Accelerator program at Innovation Depot. Velocity Accelerator is a 12-week program designed to give a select group of startups focused mentorship and guidance to speed their growth. The inaugural class of 10 companies was announced in December and started in January with $50,000 in seed capital. The program concludes with Demo Day on April 18. Cavale said Glow launched in November and already has 150 customers per month. Plans are to grow into new markets after Demo Day. Republished with permission of Alabama NewsCenter.
