PARTNERSHIPS
Newport Beach-based Protecht Inc., an event ticketing and insurance company, has announced a partnership with Spectra, a venue management and hospitality services firm based in Philadelphia.
Protecht will now offer ticket insurance for more than 3,000 events held annually at 32 Spectra venues where Irvine-based Paciolan is the ticketing provider. The venues span 21 states in the U.S., as well as Canada.
“One of our core goals is to provide protection for both the attendees and event platforms, and to ensure an efficient, streamlined process to maximize each event’s attendance,” said Bryan Derbyshire, Protecht founder and chief executive. “We’re able to offer this with our FanShield product, which event-goers can use to obtain insurance for a minimal amount when they purchase their event tickets.”
Protecht partnered with Paciolan earlier this year. Paciolan helps with ticket sales at more than 500 live entertainment organizations that sell over 120 million tickets per year, and recently moved into a new 40,000-square-foot corporate office at University Research Park.
Protecht launched in 2016, and raised an $8 million Series A round last year.
Irvine-based workforce management software developer Wurk Now LLC recently partnered with Suprema, a Korea-based biometrics and security company, to maximize the efficiency of its time and labor management product.
In conjunction with Suprema’s BioStar 2 offering, Wurk Now’s time and labor management software allows blue-collar workers to clock in and out using fingerprint biometric and RFID scanners.
Suprema’s technology is said to be among the fastest on the market; it allows workers to clock in and out within seconds, eliminating bottlenecks and improving productivity.
The partnership will also aid companies in reducing fraud, such as in buddy punching—workers clocking in and out for their co-workers. Another new addition to the technology is a 30-minute lunch lock out function which helps keep companies in compliance with the California Meal and Rest Break Law.
The bilingual—English and Spanish—app is built with the blue-collar staffing in mind with its consolidated timecards and automated alerts.
The company was founded in 2017 by Chief Executive Sammy Singh and Chief Technology Officer TJ Sehmi, and has received two rounds of seed funding from private investors.
NEW HIRES
Parham Javaherian recently joined Cie Digital Labs, an Irvine-based venture accelerator, as entrepreneur in residence and president of an as-yet-undisclosed health-related startup in Cie’s portfolio of ventures.
Prior to joining Cie, Javaherian was chief executive at Eyes4Lives, a health tech startup that is working to combat eye-related issues caused by excessive or improper usage of electronic devices. He also served as chief executive at Irvine-based Practice Builders, a healthcare marketing agency, where he managed a team of 80 people in three different countries.
Javaherian is also an innovation adviser at UCI Beall Applied Innovation.
“Cie identifies valuable ideas and excels at putting those great ideas into action. I’m excited about this particular startup, as well as the talent and great culture at Cie,” Javaherian said.
“This new technology we are developing will serve a growing and underserved population in the healthcare industry.”
UCI Beall Applied Innovation has brought on David Tiemeier as managing director for its Research Translation Group.
Tiemeier will play a key role in the commercialization of UCI intellectual property and portfolio inventions, and building relationships with industry partners.
Prior to joining Applied Innovation, Tiemeier served as president of Centripetal Force LLC, a technology developer designed to address and resolve scientific and societal issues.
He was also the senior director for innovation and new ventures at Northwestern University, and prior to that, the deputy director for the Office of Technology and Intellectual Property at the University of Chicago.
“I am excited to join the Applied Innovation team,” said Tiemeier. “Its broad taste in innovative ideas and aggressive commitment to their application precisely matches my professional passion … the development of transformative products and of the people who are committed to translating the ideas behind them.”
PRODUCTS
Seal Beach-based Industry Jump, a community platform where filmmakers can find and hire crew, recently released a new mentoring feature that allows users to pay for video chat sessions with professionals, who have more than 150 different areas of expertise.
Members can create a portfolio for free, post video projects, and garner reviews to gain exposure.
“With the costs of cameras significantly decreasing in the recent years, there are now more than 100 million creators entering the market and seeking work, but it’s challenging to find work when everyone has their own portfolio site. So, we’ve created a platform that acts as a quick access point for everyone in the industry,” said founder and Chief Executive JJ Englert.
Englert is a member of the Producers Guild of America, and he recently co-directed and produced the rom-com “Faith, Hope and Love,” which was filmed in the Orange County area.
He came up with the idea for Industry Jump after discovering how difficult it was to find local and qualified crew members.
Industry Jump has raised $225,000 in the first half of its pre-seed round. Investors include Tech Coast Angels and Pasadena Angels. Industry Jump is also part of the San Francisco-based incubator Next Cubed.
The company plans to release a community and networking feature next month. The platform is expected to launch out of beta next year.
Computer storage device maker NGD Systems Inc., has created a storage drive that it says is the first of its type to run Microsoft’s Azure IoT Edge service within the solid-state device itself.
This will allow companies using Azure in multiple locations to operate their storage platform more efficiently inside a storage device, rather than requiring larger platforms per location, according to the Irvine-based company.
It not only saves companies money, but it also makes the experience easier for its users. “Running the Azure IoT Edge service within our Newport CSD reduces the amount of power it takes to execute applications, and produces a better response time to get data analytics, according to Scott Shadley, vice president of marketing at NGD.
NGD has also doubled the storage capacity of its “Newport Platform” from 16 to 32 terabytes of data since its launch in March.
The company was founded in 2013 and has received $25 million in two rounds of funding. Investors include Taiwanese semiconductor company Alcor Micro Corp., Silicon Valley-based VC BGV, French venture capital firm Partech Ventures and Orange Digital Ventures, also from France.
NGD Systems also recently expanded its office space. The 40-person team had nearly 3,000 square feet in Irvine’s 355 Goddard last year, and as of February expanded to the Spectrum-area location with more than 9,000 square feet.
