NEW HIRE
Irvine-based accelerator and maker of digital products Cie Digital Labs has hired Micah Miller as its director of product development.
Prior to joining CDL, Miller was director of product at Los Angeles-based Thrive Market, a membership-based e-commerce retailer. He also served as vice president of product for Los Angeles-based ConsumerTrack Inc.
Miller also led the product team at Hollywood-based Whalerock Industries, which created five of the top 20 “entertainment” category apps in Apple’s App Store. At Whalerock, Miller led all native mobile and web properties for the Kardashian and Jenner brands.
“What’s most enticing about Cie Digital is that the exceptional team is committed to solving big problems across many different industries. They are recognized for entrepreneurship and digital innovation and the number of startups they’ve launched is impressive,” said Miller in a statement.
DIGITAL
Tech Coast Venture Network recently held its 2019 Speed Dating Event to allow startup entrepreneurs five minutes to pitch their companies to angel investors.
Nearly 120 entrepreneurs pitched to 40 investors during the event held at the University of California-Irvine’s Beall Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Shawn Dougherty, chief executive of smartphone accessory startup Mophie also shared her entrepreneurship success story with attendees.
Investors scored entrepreneurs on their idea and presentations during the pitch competition. OC-based indoor map startup InMapz won first place, second place went to Mission Viejo-based tennis club program management software company TrackMyTennis and third place went to Dana Point-based biopharmaceutical company Neurolixis Inc.
Each of the winners won in-kind prizes ranging from $10,000 to $2,000 in legal, consulting and accounting services, as well as other prizes.
PARTNERSHIPS
Artificial intelligence semiconductor company Aon Devices has joined the EvoNexus startup incubator in Irvine.
Launched in 2018, the company makes speech and audio technology that can recognize commands in noisy environments.
The technology will be used in devices such as smartphones and wireless headsets.
Chief Executive Mouna Elkhatib describes herself as an “expert in chip design for voice and audio.” She was previously a principal audio engineer at San Diego-based telecommunications giant Qualcomm Inc. and before that, spent nearly 13 years at Newport Beach-based semiconductor company Conexant as an engineer and eventually, a design director.
Elkhatib said she wanted to join EvoNexus because of the infrastructure they provide to early-stage startups including office space, mentors and exposure to investors, as well as to help build partnerships with vendors.
The company is operating out of EvoNexus’ Irvine office, but also has space in the San Diego EvoNexus location, because of Elkhatib’s network of contacts in the area. Elkhatib said Aon has been bootstrapped so far, and is pre-Series A.
Irvine-based healthcare product startup Tahmo has been accepted into New York-based medical company accelerator StartUp Health’s academy program.
Tahmo produces low-profile, wireless continuous body temperature monitoring systems. The company’s main product to date is Tempi, a consumer-focused wearable temperature monitoring product last year. It’s now working on a medical grade device that can be used by home caregivers, as well as a clinical grade device that will be released later this year.
Chief Executive Arif Quronfleh has a medical device background and has worked at San Diego-based Integra NeuroCare and San Juan Capistrano-based Quest Diagnostics. He said Tahmo’s technology is critical for small children and cancer or post-operative patients, because body temperature can be an indicator of infection.
Quronfleh said StartUp Health, a digital portfolio of companies working to further healthcare innovation, will help Tahmo with its marketing materials and pitch deck, and introduce the company to its network of healthcare entrepreneurs and investors.
Tahmo was founded two years ago and has been self-funded.
PRODUCTS
Laguna Niguel-based caregiver staffing platform Crooru Corp. has launched its pilot program with several homecare companies in Orange County, including Newport Beach-based 1Heart Caregiver Services.
Crooru’s software allows homecare companies to recruit and schedule caregivers and nurses. The platform matches caregivers based on location, and schedule availability, and helps streamline the process for employers and caregivers.
Company co-founders Wilson and Francesca Encarnacion previously owned a homecare company and said Crooru was born out of frustration.
Wilson said roughly 50% of a homecare company’s time is spent on recruiting, onboarding and scheduling caregivers, which has traditionally been done via texts, email and phone calls.
The company has been mostly bootstrapped, with a small amount of friends and family investment. It’s hiring for sales and marketing positions.
Laguna Hills-based SaaS inventory management company Locate Inventory and Ohio-based agricultural scale company Scale-Tec are working together on Point, a new wireless, Bluetooth-enabled scale and cloud-based app product.
Point allows Scale-Tec’s customers to collect size and weight data for things like agricultural produce, and Locate’s technology allows them to change data points or units of measure to customize the experience for their own specific needs. It also allows for incorporation of other data.
For example, a cow could be weighed on the scale, that information could be sent to a smartphone, and identification data for the animal could also be pulled from another data source to aggregate record-keeping.
Locate Chief Executive George Keliher said Point is “just the tip of the iceberg.”
“The cloud opens up limitless possibilities for our clients in many industries, including farming and agriculture,” he said.
