Friday, September 14, 2018

CMU Startup Pendo, Raises $50M Series D Funding

Pendo, creator of the leading product cloud for digital products and data-driven product teams founded by CMU alumnus Todd Olson, announced it has raised $50M in new venture capital investment, which will help fund the company’s expansion in Europe and Asia.
The funding was led by Sapphire Ventures.

Total funding to date for Pendo is $106M, the most venture capital raised by any software company in North Carolina’s Research Triangle region in nearly two decades. 

Read more at Pendo

Friday, August 31, 2018

CMU Credit Card Startup Raises $17M To Help Young People Build Their Credit

CMU alumnus Kalpesh Kapadia founded his credit card company, Deserve, to help young people without a credit history to establish credit or obtain a student loan. The company just raised $17M from Sallie Mae, Accel, Pelion, Aspect Ventures and Mission Holdings.

Read Business Insider›

Friday, August 31, 2018

CMU Startups Among Finalists in UpPrize Great Solutions Competition

AI-based, communication training company TalkMeUp, founded by CMU alumna, Swartz Fellow and NSF I-Corps program participant JJ (Jiaojiao) Xu, and Sign Track, an automatic sign language recognition system founded by alumnus and Innovation Fellow Brandon Taylor, are among five finalists in the upcoming UpPrize Great Solutions Competition. 

TalkMeUp has also launched its new Beta product, which supports the full experience of job interview and presentation training.

UpPrize finalists will receive a $10K grant and a chance to compete for additional grants totaling $300K.

Read BizJournals›

Friday, August 24, 2018

Grand Opening of the Swartz Center Space in the Tepper Quad in Conjunction with LaunchCMU, A Technology Startup and Research Showcase

Join us for the grand opening of the CMU Swartz Center space in the new Tepper Quad in conjunction with our annual Fall LaunchCMU event on Tuesday, October 2, 2018. Both events will take place in Pittsburgh at the new Tepper Quad.

Hear opening remarks from CMU leadership and Jim Swartz (Tepper ′66), founder and managing partner at Accel Partners. 

More information will be announced in upcoming Weekly Bulletin publications. 

Friday, August 24, 2018

Gecko Robotics Raises $7M

Gecko Robotics, co-founded by CMU alumnus and COO Troy Demmer,  aims to save human lives at our nation’s power plants with its wall-climbing robots. To continue doing so, the startup tells TechCrunch it has just secured $7M from a cadre of high-profile sources, including Founders Fund, Mark Cuban, The Westly Group, Justin Kan and Y Combinator. 

Read TechCrunch›

Friday, August 24, 2018

Tepper School Alumna Meredith Grelli Featured in the New York Times

In recent years Pittsburgh's Strip District has become a hub of innovation, including a research center where Ford is developing its next generation of driverless vehicles. But the ideas don’t stop at cars and computers. Nestled among the laboratories and start-ups is Wigle Whiskey, a craft distillery with a reputation for off-the-wall experimentation.

Meredith Meyer Grelli, co-founder and former Swartz Fellow, showed off its latest offering: three small flasks of rye whiskey, identical save for the words Saskatchewan, Minnesota or Pennsylvania—the sources of the grain used to make it.

Read more at the NYTimes›

Friday, August 17, 2018

SAVE THE DATE!
CMU Swartz Center Entrepreneurship Bootcamp

The CMU Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship will host its annual Entrepreneurship Bootcamp, a one-day glimpse into entrepreneurship at CMU and in Pittsburgh, on Saturday, September 8, 2018.

The event kicks off the CONNECTS seminar series, which will resume later in September.

Sponsored by: Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship and Graduate Entrepreneurship Club

Friday, August 10, 2018

Research By Illuminate Ventures Shows Networking is Key to Better Funding Outcomes for Female Entrepreneurs

Illuminate Ventures, a woman-led, early-stage venture firm founded by Tepper School of Business alumna Cindy Padnos, has produced some thought-provoking research around how women and male founders view entrepreneurship. Illuminate Ventures focuses on enterprise cloud and mobile computing startups. 

You can view a detailed summary of the research conducted by Illuminate Ventures.

Read TechCrunch›

Friday, August 10, 2018

Evolute Disrupts Cloud Industry with Launch of Enterprise Container and Migration Technology

The tech container industry is growing exponentially and there is a new kid on the block poised to disrupt the cloud. Evolute, Inc., founded by CMU alumnus Kristopher Francisco, enables Fortune 500 companies in the high tech, banking and energy industries to innovate in their cloud and edge environments.

Read PRWeb›

Friday, August 3, 2018

Visit the CMU Swartz Center at the New Tepper Quad!

The CMU Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship has officially moved into the new Tepper Quad. It is a massive space, designed especially to accommodate CMU students, faculty and alumni entrepreneurs.

Join us for the grand opening of the Swartz Center space during our annual LaunchCMU event, which will be held in Pittsburgh at the Tepper Quad on Tuesday, October 2, 2018.

If you are in the area, stop by and see us!

Thursday, August 2, 2018

NetBeez Selected as Emerging Vendor from CRN

Co-founded by CMU alumnus and CEO Stefano Gridelli, NetBeez has been selected for the second year as an Emerging Vendor by CRN, a magazine brand of the The Channel Company. As a channel catalyst, CRN connects and empowers technology suppliers, solution providers and end users.

NetBeez monitors LAN, WAN and WiFi networks from the user perspective, measuring and reporting KPI of service quality.

Read CRN›

Thursday, August 2, 2018

CMU Related Startup Maven Machines Among Tech Talent Being Nurtured by AlphaLab

Maven Machines, led by CMU alumnus, Innovation Scholar and VP of Engineering Daniel Gorziglia and CFO Jonah Paul, is among some 20 startups working from Pittsburgh hardware accelerator AlphaLab Gear. Maven is part of an ecosystem of emerging tech enterprises that is winning “Steel City” a new reputation as a top technology hub.  

Maven aims to save lives by developing a wireless headset that monitors truck drivers’ fatigue and concentration.

Read Financial Times›

Wednesday, August 1, 2018

Apeel Sciences Closes $70M Series C 

Apeel Sciences, a Santa Barbara, CA-based developer of food-based coatings to extend produce freshness, has raised $70M in Series C funding. Viking Global Investors led, and was joined by return backers Andreessen Horowitz, Upfront Ventures and S2G Ventures.

Apeel Sciences was founded by CMU Material Science and Engineering alumnus and CEO, James Rogers.

Read CNBC›

Wednesday, August 1, 2018

Arieca to Research use of Thubber in NASA Spacesuits  

While the properties of Arieca's Thubber—that it is thermally conductive rubber—don't involve flying per se, NASA's interest in its possible uses in space may yet take Thubber higher than Flubber, where no rubber has gone before.

A former NSF I-Corps Site team, Arieca is co-founded by Navid Kazem (Innovation Fellow), and Carmel Majidi. The two will begin research with NASA on implementing Thubber into spacesuits.