SimCraft, an ATDC member company since mid-2006, was born in the late 1990s out of the work of William MacDonald, a retired engineer from Eastman Kodak who wanted an affordable flight simulator. At the time the best simulators available were based on an expensive six-legged platform that uses hydraulics to move a cockpit like the bulky, enclosed $20-a-ride simulators you sometimes see at shopping malls and amusement parks. MacDonald used off the shelf components to build the SimCraft flight simulator, which is less expensive and requires much less force to operate than the older simulators.
In late 2007 SimCraft was selected alongside Ford to develop driving simulators for the US Army SAVE Program. SAVE is dedicated to preventing soldier vehicle accidents, which are the leading cause of accidental death within the military. The program has continued for over three years and has helped SimCraft advance their simulation software by leaps and bounds.
The ever improving SimCraft driving simulator has since been endorsed by NASCAR, GrandAm, and Indy drivers as the most realistic simulator on the market because of its instantaneous response to input as well as its realistic motion. Having super accurate laser scanned copies of professional race tracks means that drivers can experience a track without as many expensive test runs on the track itself.
By January 2009 SimCraft had introduced the APEX full motion racing simulator to the gaming and consumer industries. The SimCraft motion simulators interface with dozens of commercially available PC based racing and flight games. There is even a simulator system called STAR that customers can self-assemble.
Stephen Fleming, Vice President of the Enterprise Innovation Institute, trying out the APEX simulator from SimCraft
APEX had truly made its mark on the consumer market by August of 2010 when PC Gamer enthusiastically reviewed SimCraft’s APEX sc830 calling it a “nifty contraption [that] can turn your favorite racing sim into a full-on roller coaster ride.”
The price limits the number of gaming customers, but with a price at an order of magnitude lower than the old platform models, the number of professional customers has taken off. Today, the Skip Barber Racing School classroom at Road Atlanta and Sam Schmidt Motorsports of Indianapolis sport APEX simulators and many professional drivers rely on the APEX to prepare for races.
SimCraft has spent a over a decade perfecting motion simulation and proving that roll, pitch, and yaw are all you need to feel like a real race car driver.
The nearly straight-line configuration of three celestial bodies such as when the sun, moon, and earth align during a solar or lunar eclipse is known as a syzygy. Interestingly, there is another meaning of the word. Syzygy is also a form of alliteration, where one consonant is used repeatedly throughout a passage, but not necessarily at the beginning of each word.
A Georgia Tech Ti:GER team created a third meaning for the word syzygy when the team began commercializing a platform technology based on a shape memory polymer. This form of plastic can be molecularly designed to adjust to fit into complex shapes at specific temperatures. The team chose the name Syzygy for the company because the technology relies on the combined properties of different repeating units of material. Simply put, some parts of the shape memory polymer get “squishy” above a certain temperature, allowing the material to deform to the shape of whatever is holding it. Once the temperature is lowered again, the parts get “unsquishy” and magically return to their original shape.
Syzygy is perfecting both the ability to dial in properties of the shape memory material and the manufacturing process used to make it. Shape memory plastic has been around for some time, but the ability to manufacture the material on any reasonable scale is new. With $500,000 SBIR Phase II funding, Syzygy is developing mass manufacturing techniques that make production of this super material much more tenable. The company is currently focusing on making earplugs for industrial use, but the manufacturing process being developed will lay a foundation to use shape memory polymers in many applications in consumer products, healthcare, and industry.
The company started in 2007 and has won a string of awards including winning the 2008 Georgia Tech Business Plan Competition Most Fundable Award, Phase I and II SBIR grants, as a Venture Lab company $150,000 in funding from Georgia Research Alliance, and private investments.
Syzygy’s rise from a great idea in the lab to a successful growing company is, in a word, astronomically poetic.
SoloHealth announced this week that Redbox owner Coinstar has invested an undisclosed amount in the ATDC company. Coinstar operates nearly 50,000 money-changing and DVD rental kiosks in retail spaces, and the company’s existing relationships with retailers could boost the retail presence of SoloHealth health screening and information kiosks.
SoloHealth VP of Marketing Tony Sommer commented, “Besides the financial commitment from Coinstar, we also value their insights from being a leader in the kiosk space. Their track record and lessons learned will aid us as we scale nationally.” CEO & Founder Bart Foster touted the investment as “a significant milestone for the business [that] will help accelerate our growth.”
Concurrently, SoloHealth is attending Health2.0 in San Diego this week to announce a next-generation SoloHealth Station that will screen vision, blood pressure, weight, and body mass index, and provide an overall health assessment free of charge. This new kiosk follows an earlier EyeSite® vision kiosk, located in many retail outlets including Atlanta Krogers. The company also offers free health screening kiosks developed in part with a $1.2 million grant from the National Institutes of Health awarded in mid-2010.
About once a week I carry my keyboard and mouse into the ATDC lunch room, plop them into the sink, pour on some Ivory soap, and turn on the water. Every time I do this, some innocent bystander can’t help but flash a confused look and exclaim, “Can you do that!?!” This startled reaction is an endless source of amusement. Not only can I wash my keyboard and mouse in the sink, I can stick them in the dishwasher! How much do such marvelous devices cost? Exactly the same as the keyboard and mouse I destroyed a year ago with a poorly placed glass of water and an unwieldy elbow.
WETKEYS is the ATDC company that makes my day every week when I wash my keyboard. WETKEYS mice and keyboards are completely sealed and washable and come in wireless and flexible roll-up versions too. The company even offers washable cell phones and smart card readers. WETKEYS.com also serves as a retail site for other manufacturers of waterproof data entry devices.
The company started out designing and manufacturing easy-to-sanitize devices targeted to medical facilities and food processing plants to help stop the spread of disease. Founders David Malo, Chief Operating Officer, and Paul Lawrence, Director of Design and Marketing, have extensive experience in technology deployment and product design. The duo launched the first WETKEYS products in early 2008 and their wireless keyboard and mouse made CNBC’s Top 10 Tech Gifts list the same year.
Today, WETKEYS has expanded to retail to an impressive list of customers including AstraZeneca, Coca Cola, Dannon Yogurt, Harvard Medical School, several hospital systems, the U.S. Navy, and many other well-known names in health, government, and business. Quarterly introductions of new products keep the company at the leading edge of the industry. Since joining the ATDC in October of 2009, the company has added four employees and more than doubled sales. With superbugs and run of the mill germs on every surface in sight, it seems more and more people and businesses are taking the plunge and giving their hardware a bath!
ATDC is proud to announce the new Angel Readiness program. Angel Readiness is an annual five week program to help company founders develop a realistic funding strategy and prepare for angel funding. It utilizes coaching and peer groups to provide personalized learning.
Coaches for the program are successful entrepreneurs and angel investors. Several members of Atlanta Technology Angels (ATA) have kindly volunteered to serve as coaches. Every ATDC company that participates in the program will have the opportunity to work with and receive feedback from an ATA angel investor.
Companies that qualify for Angel Readiness have a product in beta, or soon to enter beta. They have engaged with customers and have at least one team member working full time in the company. Submission of an Executive Summary is required to register for the program.
Through participation in this program, companies will:
• Sharpen their business model and value proposition
• Assess their company’s readiness for angel funding
• Determine if angel funding is appropriate for their company
• Develop a plan of milestones and deliverables to build their business.
Registration Process
Angel Readiness is now open for applications. The price of the program is $299. Companies that meet the qualifications are invited to preregister now for consideration of admission into the program.
Angel Readiness meetings will be held from 4:45 to 7:00pm on April 5, April 19, and May 5th in the Community Room at ATDC. On alternate weeks, companies will schedule 30 minute phone calls with their coach.
Simit Shah, former Director of Web Operations and Development at CNN.com, has joined ATDC Company eRollover as Vice President of Web Content. Simit will be responsible for developing the voice for all aspects the company’s online presence.
Simit’s experiences at CNN will be a huge asset to eRollover. At CNN.com he oversaw daily production and web development and served as one of the primary conduits between the editorial, design, business, marketing, and technology departments. Simit joined Turner in 1999 as a Webmaster at CNN.com and played a key role in the growth of the site over the last decade.
Simit earned a BS in Computer Engineering from Georgia Tech, with a specialization in Systems and Architecture. He is Board Chair for Vox Teen Communication, a non-profit serving youth in Atlanta, and is also a published college sports writer.
Congratulations for this exciting development and the ongoing growth and success at eRollover!
An executive from a cable company told me how he brought home the message of Internet television to his fellow executives. He sat the leadership team in a room with a laptop connected and said “Name a show or movie you would want to watch.” The people in the room named show after show and one after another he found the content on the Internet, no cable required.
As that cable executive so deftly demonstrated, legacy television service providers must adapt to compete with streaming services such as Netflix, Amazon Instant Video, and AppleTV. With Wi-Fi capable televisions breaking onto the market, Internet TV will become even more prominent.
ATDC company Clearleap is rescuing traditional service providers from the same fate as rabbit-eared antennas with a web-based content management system and a platform for streaming video delivery from the Internet to set-top boxes, gaming consoles, and many other networked devices and televisions.
Clearleap was founded in 2007 by Braxton Jarratt and John Vecchio who sold their interactive television distribution and management company, N2Broadband, to Tandberg Television for $120 million in 2005. Clearleap has raised over $16 million since inception and has won an impressive list of customers including Verizon and Bresnan.
The business model for television delivery is rapidly moving away from traditional linear channels delivered over cable, satellite, and the airways. On demand content delivered over the Internet is the way of the present and the future. Clearleap is the savior of service providers trying to turn the ship and adjust to the disruption of a decades old market.
earleap’s Stream On Demand solution enables television service providers to compete with third party streaming services by streaming content directly to connected set-tops, devices, and TVs. Plus, the solution intelligently manages bandwidth on your network, enabling you to access larger libraries of content while delivering video with improved quality all over the high speed data path.
The two day Error Correction Window for NIH, AHRQ and NIOSH grant applications has been eliminated as of January 25, 2011. Your SBIR/STTR applications must be submitted and error free by 5PM your local time on April 5th and for all future deadlines. Applicants still will be able to view their application and reject and submit a corrected application prior to the submission deadline. Submit early!
The Error Correction Window was originally implemented in late 2005 to facilitate transition from paper to electronic submission of grant applications. All late applications will now be subject to the NIH late policy and may not be accepted for review. Any post-submission application materials will be subject to the new policy detailed in the NIH Guide Notice NOT-OD-10-115. NIH will continue to make accommodations for Federal system issues that threaten or prevent on-time submission of an individual application, if appropriately documented and verified by NIH support staff.
See the full notice at the NIH website.
ATDC is pleased to announce office hours hosted by ATDC corporate sponsors. These sponsors support ATDC’s mission of building successful technology businesses in Georgia and will provide free advice and counsel to ATDC companies during regularly scheduled office hours. Sponsors include law firms, accounting firms, banks, investment firms, individual investors, and human resources firms.
Beginning on March 8th, one firm per week will be available for consultation in office #200B, which is adjacent to the reception area on the 2nd floor of the ATDC Centergy building.
– March 8, Nelson Mullins
Law firm Nelson Mullins will have office hours on Tuesday, March 8, from from 10am to 4pm with a lunch break from 12 to 1p. Make an appointment today before the spaces fill up! Sessions are for 30 minutes each.
Partner Doug Spear will be available for consultation. Doug represents clients in M&A transactions, private placements, and various forms of debt financings and advises in entity formation, corporate governance, capitalization issues, equity compensation strategies, employment matters, capital-raising considerations, customer contracts, and securities law compliance.
– March 15, Arnall Golden & Gregory
Law firm Arnall Golden & Gregory will have office hours Tuesday, March 15, from 10am to 4pm with a lunch break from 12 to 1p. Make an appointment today! Sessions are for 30 minutes each.
Two AGG Partners will be available for consultation with ATDC companies. Steve Coursey specializes in intellectual property matters involving foreign and domestic patents, trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets and domain names. Lynn Scott concentrates in corporate and securities law, with an emphasis on emerging growth companies in the technology, pharmaceutical and biotechnology and telecommunications fields; public and private equity offerings; mergers and acquisitions; corporate governance issues; and licensing, joint development and strategic alliance transactions.
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Details about future firms will be announced.
Congratulations! to all the ATDC members who rocked the Tabernacle at Startup Riot 2011!
Startup Riot is an exclusive opportunity, yet more than a third of the companies accepted to pitch this year were ATDC members, and the top three Startup Riot 2011 pitchers- Telineage, Nexpense, and TripLingo- are all ATDC member companies.
Telineage
Telineage is creating a robust Caller-ID alternative to secure telephony based transactions.
Nexpense
Nexpense is a simple, paperless online receipt management and expense tracking solution for solopreneurs, road warriors, and small to mid-sized businesses.
TripLingo
TripLingo provides customized language training available on mobile devices and the web.
In addition to helping members prepare for Startup Riot, ATDC startup catalysts introduced companies to potential customers and investors during the event. Making connections and giving pitch advice are a few of the many ways the ATDC is helping technology startups in Georgia succeed.
