Local employee engagement software firm raises $15M in capital
The most recent round of funding was led by New Jersey-based growth equity investor Edison Partners. Prior investors also participated in the round.
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Facebook CEO to appear before Congress on currency plan
The focus will be on Facebook’s plan to create a digital currency and its role in housing. The company agreed in a legal settlement in March to overhaul its ad-targeting systems to prevent discrimination in housing, credit and employment ads.
Goodbye to iTunes: Once-revolutionary app gone in Mac update
Sidelining the all-in-one iTunes in favor of separate apps for music, video and other services will let Apple build features for specific types of media and better promote its TV-streaming and music services to help offset slowing sales of iPhones.
Small businesses increasingly a target for cybercriminals
While businesses of all sizes are victims of cyberattacks, the smaller the companies, the more vulnerable they can be.
Q&A: Tech worker drinks it in with podcast
Indianapolis resident Fabian Rodriguez started the fast-growing Drink Culture podcast with Jared Byczko as an escape from his boring job selling cars.
TechPoint’s ‘red carpet’ event aims to match non-Hoosiers with jobs in central Indiana
Twenty-eight potential Hoosiers—some with Indiana connections and others with none—are scouting Indianapolis as part of a TechPoint “red carpet experience” to see if the city is a place they’d like to call home.
Local software startup lands $10M in seed funding, moves HQ to California
Edify Labs Inc., a contact-center software firm founded in Carmel a year ago, announced Tuesday that it has raised $10 million in seed funding in one of the largest funding rounds of its type this year.
Cleveland-based firm buys Indy fiber network, plans $38M expansion
Cleveland-based Everstream Solutions LLC announced Tuesday that it has agreed to buy a 200-plus-mile Indianapolis-based fiber network from Dallas-based DataBank Ltd. and quadruple the network’s size. The service area will expand to cover Indianapolis and parts of Hamilton County.
Private equity firm to buy Carmel-based Orchard Software, fund growth
Founded in 1993, Orchard has grown to become the seventh-largest software development firm in the Indianapolis area, with 275 employees and $40 million in revenue for 2018.
Auto-auction giant KAR rebrands to reflect global scope
The rebranding of the company coincides with the debut of its new, $80 million headquarters in Carmel.
Kenzie Academy raises $7.8M in venture capital
The tech apprenticeship and coding school said it plans to use the cash infusion to help it expand its tech-focused educational offerings and grow its enrollment nationally and in Indianapolis.
Voting machine firms may throw doors open to ethical hackers
But some ethical hackers worry the industry, which has historically prioritized making their machines easier for election administrators to use rather than making them as secure as possible, isn’t ready to make big changes. They fear the companies won’t work quickly enough to fix the bugs they discover and could use non-disclosure agreements to enforce silence about dangerous bugs that could compromise an election.
Many firms probably won’t prevent a ransomware attack. But here’s how to mitigate the impact.
While major corporations and large government agencies have taken detailed, elaborate steps to guard against the problem, smaller municipalities, companies and organizations are in something of a bind. Protecting such small groups against ransomware (or at least improving their chances of recovering from an attack) can be time-consuming and costly.
IU-developed software detects bot-driven Twitter traffic
BotSlayer—a free software tool that is open to the public—scans social media looking for evidence that what appears to be grassroots political activity is actually being generated automated accounts.
Elevate Ventures launches ‘pre-accelerator’
Elevate Origins will offer online classes and on-site gatherings to help entrepreneurs prepare to seek investments or participate in pitch competitions.
Indy-based AI firm raises $700,000
The round was led by Johnson City, Tennessee-based The Angel Roundtable and included participation from Elevate Ventures and four other investors, who were all involved in previous rounds.
Tech exec sees ‘newbie’ status as political asset
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Josh Owens, the 34-year-old CEO of tech firm SupplyKick, has never held elected office. But he doesn’t consider that a bad thing.
Auction giant KAR sees industry’s transformation as opportunity
CEO Jim Hallett predicts that 2019 will be the peak year for brick-and-mortar auto auction volumes, but company officials aren’t sitting around wringing their hands and wishing for the past.
Tech firm’s device helps fetch Fido
As a former police officer, Jordan Hetlund knows the value of keeping track of police dogs that can represent a five-figure investment for cities and towns. As a dog-lover, the native Hoosier knows how precious pet dogs and cats are to their owners. So in 2017, he founded Indianapolis-based Furtrieve LLC and spent a year developing a device that helps track the whereabouts of domestic animals.
DoorDash data breach affects 4.9 million users
Food-delivery service DoorDash said Thursday that the personal data of 4.9 million customers, workers and merchants was compromised earlier this year through an unnamed third-party service provider.