The Huntington Beach operation of drone services provider Measure should get a lift from the company’s expansion into the arts and entertainment industry.
The local outfit serves as the design and development hub of the Washington, D.C.-based company.
“It’s really the center of drone engineering,” said Vice President Jon Ollwerther, who runs the media division from New York City. “That’s where all the hardware and equipment passes through, and tracked shipments in and out of before going to pilots operating on-site for customers.”
The engineering business was acquired in June on undisclosed financial terms.
Pilatus Unmanned, run by Chief Executive Josh Kornoff, was based in Santa Ana but moved to Huntington Beach after the sale. The 2,500-square-foot office houses seven employees.
Pilatus specialized in drone customization for commercial customers and was one of the first value-added resellers for Shenzhen, China-based DJI, the global leader in drone manufacturing.
Kornoff, an expert in designing and fabricating custom drones and payloads, runs the engineering hub and serves as Measure’s lead technical adviser, overseeing support programs for toolkit customers.
The company provides services and pilots for energy, media, telecommunications, and architecture, engineering and construction.
It supplies professional unmanned aerial filming services for broadcast and recorded sports, live concerts, television, film and commercials, and produces aerial visuals for brand marketing, 3-D mapping, inspection, analysis and virtual reality.
It’s raised more than $22.5 million since its 2014 establishment. Measure employs about 65, including about 20 pilots, two of whom handle work in Orange and Los Angeles counties.
Robert Wolf is co-founder and chairman. The former UBS senior executive is a big Democratic fundraiser and served three economic and homeland security appointments under President Barack Obama. Penny Pritzker, former U.S. Secretary of Commerce and Hyatt Hotels billionaire heiress, also serves on Measure’s board.
Paragon of PCs
Irvine-based Paragon Software Group Inc. has bolstered its partnership with Microsoft Corp.
Paragon launched a new universal file system driver compatible with Microsoft’s exFAT file system, which is billed as facilitating large files for audiovisual media and enabling seamless data transfer between desktop PCs and other electronic devices.
“We have now strengthened our position in the consumer market as a preferred partner, which will allow Paragon to promote its cross-platform technologies that support Microsoft exFAT and NTFS file systems and Windows operating system more effectively against open source products as well as alternatives that compete directly against Microsoft IP,” Paragon President Tom Fedro told me via email.
Under the agreement, the universal file system, which allows storage interoperability and access, will be branded under the Microsoft name, as well as Paragon’s exFAT, Windows drivers and NT file systems—the most common type for hard drives in the Windows operating system.
Hard drives store and transfer data on spinning disks.
Paragon first partnered with the Redmond, Wash.-based software giant more than a decade ago as a Gold Certified Partner, then licensed its system imaging software to the company. It’s also a preferred Microsoft exFAT supplier.
The designations carry influence and business leads, as well as Microsoft support, referrals, incentives and access to other programs.
“Since inception this partnership has led to tens of millions of Paragon licenses being deployed on all kinds of consumer and small to midsize business devices,” Fedro said.
Paragon was OC’s 41st largest software maker through August with 16 employees, according to Business Journal research. Its annual sales top $15 million.
Software Firm Buy
Irvine-based customer relationship management software maker Cirrus Insight has acquired Attach.io on undisclosed terms.
The San Francisco company develops real-time document tracking software. Its products allow users to track when attachments, such as PDFs, Word documents and other files, are opened by potential customers via email, as well as monitor clicked links within a document or accessed pages.
Cirrus’ subscription app and online portal, which takes pertinent customer information from salesforce.com and displays tidy summaries of Gmail and Outlook contacts, is used by more than 9,000 organizations and 125,000 users.
The company, which has been bootstrapped since its start in 2011, posted revenue of nearly $10 million last year. It employs about 65 in Irvine, Knoxville, Portland, Chattanooga, Atlanta, New York, Sweden and Canada.
