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Engineer Goes All-In on Coding School Enterprise

Engineer-turned-entrepreneur Jim Shen is bringing an educational concept developed in Silicon Valley to Orange County.

Thecoderschool opened its doors in Yorba Linda last weekend to teach students coding languages in a small interactive setting more akin to a high-end shop than a traditional school.

“We made it look like an Apple store when you walk in,” said Shen, who opened a franchise last year in San Francisco, where he spends most of his time.

The 900-square-foot private business in Yorba Linda features stools, big-screen TVs, and couches to promote a collaborative, project-based curriculum where students outnumber “coaches” only by a 2:1 ratio, similar to piano lessons, Shen said.

“We want to teach coding language and problem solving skills for kids starting as young as 7 all the way up to high school,” said Shen, who left a lucrative career in the 3-D graphics industry to launch the venture.

He grew up in Cerritos and spends summers in OC with his two sons and wife, who’s also in the computer industry.

He discovered the learning concept while searching for a coder camp for his then 6 year old. The company was established in Palo Alto in 2014 by tech vets Hansel Lynn and Wayne Teng and has grown to 20 locations in eight states, teaching several coding languages, such as HTML, CSS, Python and Javascript.

Shen was previously a development manager at Advanced Micro Devices Inc. in Santa Clara.

The Yorba Linda location of Thecodingschool, which can accommodate 10 to 14 students per hour, costs about $260 per month, or $65 per one-hour session.

It’s open from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday and 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday.

Asia Hub

Irvine-based analytics software maker Alteryx Inc. has established an Asia-Pacific headquarters in Singapore in its latest international expansion.

Celine Siow was appointed regional president of APAC and Japan, where Alteryx has amassed hundreds of customers, including SoftBank, Singapore Airlines, Stratasys and Weave Services.

International business accounted for 23% of Alteryx’ $131.6 million in 2017 revenue, which was up 53% from 2016. International business was up from 19% in 2016 and 14% in 2015.

Alteryx customers pay a subscription fee for its analytics software to integrate data, monetize content, forecast sales, map retail expansion plans, and compare sales and product placement, among other features.

Gartner Inc. forecasts that sales and services in the analytics and business intelligence segment will grow 12.2% this year to $1.1 billion in mature APAC markets, and 15.5% to $462 million in emerging ones. 

Buy Closes

Costa Mesa-based TTM Technologies Inc. closed its $775 million buy of Anaren Inc. from affiliates of New York private equity firm Veritas Capital.

The acquisition bolsters product offerings in the aerospace, defense and networking communications sectors while providing growth opportunities in the industrial, medical and automotive markets.

The East Syracuse-based manufacturer specializes in radio frequency technologies, which are considered essential building blocks of sensors used in radar, space-based and jamming systems, electronic warfare, wireless infrastructure, and base station applications.

The companies’ combined revenue was $2.9 billion last year.

Anaren employs about 1,000. TTM, the country’s largest printed circuit board maker, has more than 29,000 workers in 25 facilities in North America and China. It operates two production plants in OC encompassing 180,000 square feet that specialize in quick turnarounds for a broad range of customers across the Western U.S., including in the defense and commercial sectors.

Roughly 70% of Anaren’s annual $219 million in revenue is generated from aerospace and defense work, while 30% comes from communications-related sectors, primarily in wireless infrastructure, markets primed for increased spending due to next-gen military systems and the ongoing ramp-up of 5G connectivity.

TTM said the acquisition will result in about $15 million in cost synergies within the first two years of the transaction’s closing.

The company is scheduled to release first-quarter financials on May 2.

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