Technology
$4 million helps sensor firm come to market
Atlanta Business Chronicle - by Justin Rubner
A startup that has spent the past four years in research and development is ready to enter the marketplace, thanks to a $4 million investment from a group of former Microsoft Corp. executives.
The startup, Alpharetta-based TeraHop Networks Inc., has been developing wireless sensor networks that executives believe will change the way emergency personnel respond to accidents.
TeraHop, which has filed for 33 patents, will start selling a device called KeyZone in mid-September that allows auto dealers to track remotely which cars are being tested. CEO Tom Berger, a former operating partner with Boston-based Bessemer Venture Partners, hopes the first breakthrough for the company will come from first responders. TeraHop's sensors would allow emergency personnel, who would wear the three-inch devices, to see in real time who is where. The devices send radio signals that bounce off of each responder to gateways that would in turn send the data to someone overseeing the operation.
Eventually, Berger plans to license the technology to wireless carriers or cell phone makers. He says the company has to prove the technology works first, though. A key to the technology is the fact that the devices have extremely long battery lives -- up to seven years -- because they turn themselves off when they aren't in use.
Berger projects the company will post $7 million in revenue in 2007.
Serving as chief technology officer is Bob Twitchell, a former Nokia Corp. executive who helped launch the first "clamshell" cell phone. Berger also has experience at Nokia.
Investing in the company is Seattle-based The Spangler Group, whose partners, said CEO Mark Spangler, are mostly unnamed former Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) executives.
Macquarium finds new leader
Web development firm Macquarium Inc. has hired a replacement for former President Kevin Foster, who died in June of a heart attack.
Taking his position of head executive is Art Hopkins, who served as managing director of Chicago-based information technology consultancy Blackwell Consulting Services. Hopkins plans on using his contacts to expand Macquarium's geographic reach through natural growth, strategic partnerships and acquisitions, the company says.
Macquarium is in an "aggressive" hiring mode, says Macquarium founder and Chairman Marc Adler, and has hired several high-level executives in recent months.
Foster, 47, was responsible for the company's day-to-day operations.
Where are all the Yahoos?
Investor Sunil Dhaliwal of Boston-based Battery Ventures, speaking at PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP's quarterly MoneyTree event on Aug. 24, said Atlanta's tech scene is in no way short of good ideas, and that his firm would continue looking here for future investments. But he did say the biggest city in the Southeast was short on two very important things -- a lot of local money and a rich hiring pool.
Two things need to happen if Atlanta is ever to be on par with Silicon Valley and Boston. First, Dhaliwal said, there simply needs to be more sources of money here, particularly sources willing to invest in unproven concepts.
"People are not as willing to take risks here," Dhaliwal said.
Next, he said, Atlanta needs a big Yahoo!-like company to be created from scratch if the city is to have a deep hiring pool.
Dhaliwal is optimistic those two things will happen.
"It's just a function of time," he said.
That from-scratch superstar so far looks way down the road, though. In recent months, several high-profile tech companies have been gobbled up, including BellSouth Corp., Internet Security Systems Inc., Scientific Atlanta Inc., CipherTrust Inc., JBoss Inc. and Movaz Networks Inc.
$ from Symantec
Georgia Tech and Symantec Corp. are looking for a few security studs.
The network security giant (Nasdaq: SYMC) plans to give $50,000 and some in-depth mentoring to the winner of a Georgia Tech entrepreneurial competition this semester. The competition's purpose is to foster research in creating secure networks that are useful to everyday computer users.
Panelists will select a team of winners at the end of the semester. For more information, go to www.cc.gatech.edu/program/tiger-teams.
If you have news for Technology, contact Justin Rubner at (404) 249-1078; fax, (404) 249-1058; or at jrubner@bizjournals.com.
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