Two L.A. startups recently took home a $100,000 prize each from the California Clean Tech Open for developing green technology.
Syncromatics, which topped the transportation category, builds bus tracking systems that allow transit operators to instantly monitor demand using infrared sensors that count passengers on buses.
NiLa Inc. produces LED studio lighting that can cut electricity bills in half. The company won the energy efficiency category.
Both companies are tiny.
Syncromatics has three employees. Josh Bigelow, the chief executive and only full-time person, runs the operation from his Hollywood home. Less than a year old, the company is already servicing UC San Diego’s campus transit system, which consists of 55 buses. The company is also doing a paid pilot study for the University of Miami.
The company uses GPS technology to determine the location and speed of the buses, and infrared sensors to detect passenger demand, then provides the real-time data to transit operators.
“The data answer the question of how many buses should run at what time of the day, where to take the service based upon passenger demand, and what time of the day to start and end service,” Bigelow said.
NiLa, based in Sherman Oaks, also has three employees. Its LED technology was developed in the shadow of Litepanels Inc., an L.A. company that harnesses light-emitting diodes for film and studio lighting.
While NiLa chief executive Jim Sanfilippo credits Litepanels for “paving the way for people to accept LED technology,” he says his company offers what the market leader doesn’t.
NiLa’s lights are three times brighter than Litepanels’ brightest units and can be controlled with a remote control, Sanfilippo said.
LED lights emit less heat than any other type of studio lighting and are long lasting. Lighting on the set of “CBS Evening News With Katie Couric” and the White House press room uses LED technology.
Fixed Expressions
Videos and blogs are the bread and butter of user-generated content on the Internet.
Fix8, a Sherman Oaks-based software developer, wants to make them spicier.
It develops free, downloadable software that digitizes human expressions, gestures and movements captured from a Web cam.
The software enables users to create a kind of caricature of themselves or their favorite character, and then integrate the avatar, or Internet character, for use on their blogs, social networking sites or any other Web platform. The company says the digital creation can also be integrated into television and cell phone content.
Users can download the software from the Fix8 Web site and use it on video-chats by creating a digital character by computer simulation or by simply putting on a red mustache or a purple wig from a digital wardrobe available through the program.
“Very simply, we are a real-time animation authoring tool,” said Dinesh Bhatia, the company’s vice president of sales. “If you’re interacting with anything that requires rich media, you can change your identity, just like you change clothes every day.”
So where does the money come from? Licensing fees.
The two-year-old company, which came out with the real-time animation tool in May, is in the process of partnering with comic publishing companies and Hollywood studios. Fix8 would license characters for its software and release them alongside new comic books and movies.
Fix8 is also trying to sell advertising on digital clothing and props. “There’s no better advertising than a user endorsing the product,” Bhatia said.
At least one Singapore private equity firm backs this idea. Vickers Financial Corp. just closed a $3 million funding for Fix8, which is in the process of raising $2 million more.
Australia Calling
L.A.-based Fonality has acquired an Australian customer relationship management company for an undisclosed price.
Fonality develops software for voice-over-Internet protocol technology, which routes conversation over an IP-based network. Its technology is used by 6,500 companies in 97 countries.
The company’s acquisition of Insightful Solutions Pty Ltd. is pivotal to the company’s plans to create a phone system that also provides customer relationship management for small- and medium-size businesses.
The company will immediately begin selling Insightful’s CRM service under the name FonalityCRM.
Personnel Change
Mercedes De Luca has been hired as chief information officer of online fashion retailer MyShape in Pasadena. Previously, De Luca was vice president of global information technology for Yahoo.
The site matches each member’s measurement, body shape and fashion preferences with clothes retailed online.
Staff reporter Booyeon Lee can be reached at (323) 549-5225, ext. 230, or at [email protected].
