Great Falls-Based Servhawk Lands $200,000 Investment from CIT

Great Falls, Va. — Servhawk, a Northern Virginia-based provider of server energy analytics solutions has raised a a $200,000 of seed funding from the Commonwealth Energy Fund (CEF) department of Center for Innovative Technology (CIT).

Energy usage in the data centers or servers is growing high and Servhawk provides solutions that are non-disruptive and easy to deploy which leads to better server energy analytics and provides lower operating costs as well.  The CEF or Commonwealth Energy Fund which was announced last spring was also created to provide a source of investment funding for companies and startup with energy saving centric and are based in Virginia.

Denis Yaro, Servhawk CEO, said, “We are proud to be one of a small handful of companies (out of over 200 applicants) being funded under the CEF program.  We look forward to the CIT relationship helping us expand our marketing efforts and reach our target customers.”

Dennis Yaro also added that the funding will be used to expand  the company’s marketing efforts and reach their target customers. Yaro also added, “IT organizations never used to be concerned with energy issues.  That’s changed dramatically in recent years.”

To know more about ServHawk’s services, visit their official website:

http://www.servhawk.com/

Herndon-Based Razor’s Edge Ventures Lands $50 Million for First Fund

Herndon, Va. — Razor’s Edge Ventures, a venture capital firm based in Herndon and founded by a team of established angel investors and executives from the national security industry has secured a $50 million series A funding. Razor’s Edge Ventures which specializes in technology investments to advance U.S. national security plans to invest the funding to small and promising startups based in the DC area but the company is also open to those outside DC area.

Razor’s Edge Ventures also expressed that they are planning to be actively involved in the tech industry of the DC area. According to one of the firm’s partners, they will be entering in the “net-centric warfare, information superiority, and dealing with and confronting asymmetric threats, where a little actor can cause a big problem”.

“We think there are very few funds focused on this sector and one of our advantages is that our partners have years of experience starting, growing and running tech companies in this sector,” said Mark Spoto, the managing director of the firm.

Razor’s Edge will be focusing on funding firms related to the fields of cybersecurity, mobile communications, visualization and situational awareness, high speed/large dataset search and analysis and C4ISR.

Visit Razor’s Edge Official Website for further details.

http://www.razorsvc.com/

LivingSocial to Showcase Local Deals on Clear Channel Radio Stations

Washington, DC — LivingSocial, the leading daily deals provider in the U.S. has signed an exclusive agreement with Clear Channel Radio which will allow LivingSocial to broadcast its daily offerings on more than 500 radio stations in 90 U.S. cities. The agreement will put LivingSocial in a great advantage for it can reach up to 80 million listeners each week in showcasing its daily deals. Clear Channel is also America’s leading media company having wider reach han any radio or television stations.

According to John Hogan, the CEO of Clear Channel, their station is dedicated in serving their listeners in local communities around the country and the deal with LivingSocial is another way of bringing them great values in their own backyard. He also added that LivingSocial’s variety of entertaining deals combined with Clear Channel’s impressive reach will help listeners find great local values all across the country.

Tim O’Shaughnessy, the Co-Founder and CEO of LivingSocial also expressed that they are delighted to be working with Clear Channel and their deep, well established network of radio stations and millions of listeners across the country. He also noted that Radio stations are a primary means for people to find entertainment and learn what’s going on in their communities. This matches perfectly with LivingSocial’s mission to help people find great deals and values around them.

Local station personalities of Clear Channel Radio will feature and describe a LivingSocial offering everyday and  encourage its listeners to purchase. Aside from the daily deal announcements, the radio station will feature LivingSocial other services such as LivingSocial Escapes and Adventure Packages.  Clear Channel will recieve a commission for selling LivingSocial deals through its stations’ websites.

Clear Channel owns more than 40 stations in Maryland, Virginia and DC.

Umba Box of DC Launches Membership Site for Handmade Goods

Washington, DC  - Umba Box, a new membership startup from DC which offers an online store for handmade products which may includes jewelries, accessories, bath products, custom organic bags and clothing has been making a buzz in the tech scene of DC area after its launching last month.

The company was a brainchild of Lauren Thorp (CEO), the wife of Justin Thorp, the marketing manager at HelloWallet and was launched last month as a self-funded startup and no venture capital firms backing.

Umba Box promises to provide its subscribers the freshest and best hand made products every month for the montthly fee of $26. Umba Box partners with creative artists and designers to create new non-size products such as bath soaps, jewelries and accessories and will be shipped to the subscribers without them knowing what’s inside the box. Aside from the handmade goods, the shipment will also contain the stories of the artisans and their inspiration of the products. The monthly subscription fee of $26 is considered to be inexpensive compared to the goods inside the box.

Umba Box starts accepting subscribers from their website and the first shipment will be this coming November. Those interested has to subscribe before the middle of October to receive the November’s surprise box.

Umba Box was derived from the Swahili word which means “to create”. Although Umba Box is targeted for the women’s market, Umba Box services is perfect for men who wanted to surprise their girl friends, moms, or wives with handmade gifts.

Visit Umba Box to Subscribe and know more:

http://www.umbabox.com

Potomac-Based Rankpad Launches Social Ranking Site

Potomac, Maryland – Rankpad, a new startup from DC-based tech entrepreneur Andre Averbug has launched a new social ranking site called Rankpad which provides socially interactive and entertaining ranking platform. Rankpad is currently in beta testing mode and will be adding new features and more voting functionality.

Rankpad aims to provide a user-generated platform where everyone can create forums and polls and votes from a wide varieties of topics and categories from tech news such as Steve Jobs’ death and the legacy he left and the pop culture like the latest seasons of Supernatural and new TV shows.

Another “like”able feature of Rankpad is its integration with social networking sites like Facebook and twitters which makes its market reach diversified and localized and will allow users to create local rankings such as “what’s the best coffee shop in downtown L.A.” or age and crowd specific category like “X Factor U.S. or the Voice U.S.”.

“We believe people are naturally fascinated by rankings and the web was missing a user-generated ranking site that delivered a truly engaging experience,” said Andre Averbug, CEO and founder of Rankpad. “Rankings are not only fun and addictive, but also influence purchase decisions, such as the best cameras to buy or music to download. Users learn about friends’ preferences and businesses learn more about their customers.”

Basically, Rankpad is a forum where people can share the same interests and vote for it. However, it differs because of its ranking system which is integrated socially to the top social media sites. Everyone is invited to try its beta version out now and in the coming months a final  live version will be released with enhanced features.

Visit Rankpad for more information:

http://rankpad.com

Virginia is No. 1 in U.S. Tech Jobs

Washington, DC – TechAmerica Foundation, a non-profit organization in the U.S. which educates industry executives, policymakers, and opinion leaders on the promise of technological innovation to advance prosperity, security, and the general welfare has released its 14th annual Cyberstates report which states that Virginia leads the nation with the most private-sector technology workers having 9.8% of its private sector workforce in the tech industry.

The research study entitled Cyberstates 2011: The Definitive State-by-State Analysis of the U.S. High-Tech Industry provides thorough study regarding trends in high-tech employment, wages, and other key economic factors and it covers all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico.

Even though Virginia loses 2,800 tech jobs last year, it still has 277,600 high-tech workers employed in the field of computer science and engineering and other related I.T. fields. According to Olga Grkavac, the executive vice president of public sector at TechAmerica. “More than 75% of the tech industry is concentrated in software and engineering and tech services — the sectors driving growth of the technology industry, and least affected by the recession.”

Olga also added that “Despite the onset of the recession, Virginia’s tech industry still managed to add jobs in 2008, marking its sixth consecutive year of growth.”

Virginia’S leading percentage of the tech workers belongs to the computer systems design and related services which employs 138,800 workers. The cyber state did well in the R&D and testing labs sector which boosts additional 1,600 jobs this year.

Despite the recession and losing 115,800 jobs in 2010, The U.S. Tech industry is showing an improving trend and sustained a 5.75 million workers.

Read more about the report at Tech America’s Official Website:

http://www.techamericafoundation.org/

McLean-Based Clearspring Hires Former Yahoo Exec as New CEO

McLean, VA – Clearspring, the leader in social ad targeting company and developer of the AddThis widget has announced on monday that it has named former Yahoo! executive Ramsey McGrory as the company’s new Chief Executive Officer. McGrory who left the giant media corp. Yahoo! a few weeks ago has welcomed a new giant company in social media sharing to his portfolio.

Ramsay McGrory replaces Hooman Radfar as the new CEO as Radfar moves toward the Executive Chairman position. The previous Chairman Ted Leonsis will still be keeping his board of directors position. According to Radfar, Clearspring is in its “inflection point” and the company needs the expertise of McGrory who has led the Yahoo! U.S. data business and Right Media, pioneer of the digital advertising exchange.

“Our advertising revenue is more than tripling this year, and the trajectory for next year is incredible. Ramsey’s operational expertise… is just what we need to take our rapidly growing company to the next level.” Last May, the company made $20 million for their 4th round of funding which was led by Institutional Venture Partners.

“In our industry, data and social are where incredible innovation is happening. I’m thrilled to be joining Clearspring,” said McGrory.

Clearspring through its embeddable widget AddThis collects and shares data to 1 billion unique Internet users per month and has been used on 9 million domains and has been helping advertisers deliver data to target and specific audiences.

Visit Clearspring’s official website:

http://www.clearspring.com/

Pixelligent of Baltimore Raises $5.1 M of Funding and On High Demand

Baltimore, Maryland – Pixelligent, a nanotechnology company and developer of the unique and patented nanocrystals semiconductor has raised $5.1 million of new funding  2 days ago (Sept. 27, 2011). The funding came from new investors Abell Foundation, WISE and an undisclosed angel investors from the Baltimore area. The Baltimore Development Corp. (BDC) and the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development (DBED) also joined the backing of the funding with $200,000 and $100,000 of equity funding. According to reports, the funding was over subscribed by investors which prompted the company’s board to raise the amount of funding to accommodate more rooms for investors.

The on-demand nanotech company started at College park, inside University of Maryland and has moved on to a 10,500-square-foot manufacturing facility in Baltimore to meet Pixelligent’s increased production rates and at the same time offers huge rooms for growth and expansion. Currently, the company has been searching for additional senior level positions in the fields of technology, marketing, sales and finance.

One of Pixelligent’s best milestones is being the first company to supply commercial nanocrystals for electronics, industrial and military markets with high quality of Zirconium and Hafnium which were used for mission critical applications.

According to the Pixelligent’s press release, the new funds will be used for purchasing production equipment, installing new systems and hiring employees. “The closing of this round marks a major turning point for Pixelligent as these funds will enable us to significantly increase our manufacturing capacity to both meet current customer demand and accelerate the introduction of our NanoAdditives to a broader market,” said CEO Craig Bandies. With the new funding, Pixelligent has raised $9 million in venture capital rounds and received backing and government grans of more than $9 million for over 3 years now.

Visit Pixelligent’s website for more info.

http://pixelligent.com/

Disruptathon’s Upcoming Social Media Event Lineup is Finally Set

Washington, DC – Disruptathon, a provider of series of events that are innovative, interactive and features the most disruptive future thinkers across all industries is gearing up again another out of the box event called Social Media Event and has released its final set of speakers and presenters. The lineup were thoroughly sifted  based on their contributions  in the social media community, their innovative brands and products and their strategies and marketing styles which brought them success.

The chosen innovative companies to present are AakinaTek, Angel, awesomize.me, Curia, Invensys Labs, Inc., LifeKraze, LocalResponse, MediaFriends, Mobile Dev Partners, LLC, MyTalk, Inc., Picdish, Pixable, ProConIt, Share With 911, Spinnakr, Sponto, TrendSpottr, Uppidy and Votizen.

“I’m excited that Disruptathon gets to introduce our attendees and supporters to so many creative new companies and products that are changing how we use social media,” said Pete Erickson, founder, Disruptathon. “The event is a testament to the brain power we’re seeing in social media. It’s going to be a great day at The Washington Post along with our host partners Washington Post Labs.”

The social Media Event is a partnership by Disruptathon and The Washington Post Company and aims to gather a diverse set of disruptive social media companies and to influence and inspire participants of the event.

The Social Media Event will be held at The Washington Post Company, 
1150 15th Street, NW 
Washington this coming September 27, 2011, 2 p.m.

You can Register here:

http://disruptathonsocial.eventbrite.com/

Or Visit Disruptathon’s Official Website:

http://www.disruptathon.com

KikScore From DC Partners with Shopify

Washington, DC – KikScore, a trust and reliability seal provider for small merchants announced this week (Sept. 22, 2011) that it made partnership with Shopify, one of the simplest and affordable online retail platform and for  e-commerce solutions.  As part of the deal, Kikscore’s trust seal and assurance application badge will be used by Shopify’s more than 16,000 online merchant stores.

A trust badge in online stores influences customers to purchase and it also increases conversion rates due to the presence of trust and dependability while the lack of an online trust seal of an online store proves to cause loss of online sales and a high rate of customers quitting in their shopping carts.

According to Travis Valentine, the company’s co-founder and CTO,  Over 75% of all potential online purchases are abandoned, so online merchants are looking at every way that they can demonstrate to shoppers that their website is credible, reliable and trustworthy. KikScore provides apps to  on-line small business that boosts its  trust and dependability with a Assurance Badgeand with its collaboration to Shopify, one of the industry’s prestigious, user-friendly and efficient on-line retail platforms will provide a more confident, reliable and improved shopping experience for customers and retailing experience for merchants as well.

“We’ve seen online shops just like Shopify merchant’s shops boost their conversion rates Twenty percent when they added the KikScore Assurance Badge on their internet site. The transparency revolution that we’re driving assists little businesses be more clear to their internet site guests, which in turn causes more success and more sales,” said Valentine.

Visit Shopify’s website:

http://www.shopify.com/