Search Results for: startup spotlight

Want to fill up your Volkswagen or Hummer on renewables, as California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger does? Biodiesel, a vegetable-oil-based variant on petroleum diesel, is your fuel. As we pointed out last week, the fuel doesn’t get as much attention as high-tech biofuels like cellulosic ethanol and “green” gasoline. However, substances called furanics may help bring biodiesel back into the spotlight. Furanics, while not actually identical to biodiesel, might as well be – they burn quite well in diesel engines. Two researchers at the University of California, Davis say that a process they developed to reduce plant matter to furanics...

CARY – Lt. Gov. Beverly Perdue and a mix of technology upstarts and established players stole the spotlight Thursday night at the North Carolina Technology Association’s annual “21 Awards.” Perdue, a tireless advocate for the tech sector and possibly the state’s next governor, flashed her characteristic bright smile as she received the “Outstanding Achievement Award.” “I thought they had talked to my doctor and found out I was terminal,” she said jokingly to the crowd of more than 500 people gathered at the Embassy Suites hotel. (The award cites lifetime achievement as one of its criteria.) “It ain’t over!”...

There was still some bad news last week …Cingular will be laying off 3,000 employees … but the regions’s high-tech community may be coming out of the doldrums. The flow of venture capital continued its flow into the region, slow but steady. TEAMM Pharmaceuticals signed a deal for $6.5 million, and Serenex received $15 million. KevSoft announced $1 million in first-round funding, while Wave7 Optics received a $15.5 million cash infusion. New business contracts and partnerships also were in the spotlight, as large corporations and small start-ups announced deals that will hopefully spur on growth in the high-tech sector....

Editor’s note: The “dot com” era, as brief as it was, brought many entrepreneurs into the public’s eye. As the bubble burst, many of those people thrust into the spotlight receded into the background. Local Tech Wire will be “in search of” these folks in the months ahead. Paul Mayer, the Fusion Ventures partner who hosted some of the best deck parties in the Triangle during the Internet heyday, is about to throw a yearlong luau for his family – well, sort of. Starting July 1, 15 months after Fusion Ventures officially ceased all employment and stopped seeking investments...

It seems quaint now. Four or five years ago, MindSpring Enterprises founder Charles Brewer was a trailblazer in Atlanta. He was the first local tech honcho to embrace what became standard culture at dot-coms and software houses. Brewer brought his three-legged dog to work, and put plastic patio furniture and funky art in his cramped office. Rank and file MindSpringers parked mountain bikes in the hallways outside. Hard on MindSpring’s heels came a couple other companies with charismatic leaders who built a singular corporate ethos. At WebMD, 20-something maverick Jeff Arnold ignored Atlanta’s buttoned-down tech finance cliques during an...

It seems quaint now. Four or five years ago, MindSpring Enterprises founder Charles Brewer was a trailblazer in Atlanta. He was the first local tech honcho to embrace what became standard culture at dot-coms and software houses. Brewer brought his three-legged dog to work, and put plastic patio furniture and funky art in his cramped office. Rank and file MindSpringers parked mountain bikes in the hallways outside. Hard on MindSpring’s heels came a couple other companies with charismatic leaders who built a singular corporate ethos. At WebMD, 20-something maverick Jeff Arnold ignored Atlanta’s buttoned-down tech finance cliques during an...