After establishing a new headquarters within a data center near the Albuquerque International Sunport that promised growth for Albuquerque-based high-performance computing startup Hoonify Technologies Inc., the startup said Thursday it raised its first chunk of venture capital, led by a Montana-based venture firm.
Bozeman, Montana-based Next Frontier Capital led Hoonify's $3.75 million seed round, the Albuquerque startup announced May 30. Individual investors — including Paul Schwake, a movie producer and entertainment executive based in Los Angeles with credits on productions like "True Grit" and "World War Z" — joined the round.
It's the first venture capital investment raised by Hoonify, the startup's President and CEO, Andrew Clark, said. The new investment dollars will be used to finance enhancements to its flagship high-performance computing software product, called TurbOS, and extend that software product into new markets.
That software is built to run on any Intel central processing unit or Nvidia graphics processing unit. It allows supercomputing-level performance through "parallel computing," according to a news release from Hoonify.
Customers can use the supercomputing software on their own hardware, or use a desktop hardware unit developed by Hoonify, called the "Cub," the release notes.
"The world of technology is changing in front of us, and we envision a world where everything will need a supercomputer to operate," Clark said in a statement.
Hoonify, Clark added in the statement, is "building that platform so everyone can solve problems that matter to their future."
One software enhancement Hoonify plans to develop using the new funding is a supercomputing dashboard called "Hoonify Dash," which Clark said would provide users visibility into how the startup's high-performance computing software functions.
The startup plans to hire three to four new employees this year to help build that dashboard. Positions include user interface and user experience designers, high-performance computing engineers and development and operations engineers.
Hoonify recently received $131,447 in Job Training Incentive Program funding to train four employees with an average wage of $55.80. Clark said the startup wants to continue to grow and hire local talent in Albuquerque.
Part of the investment dollars will also help expand the startup's software product into new markets. While Hoonify has primarily served U.S. government and aerospace and defense customers, Clark said the startup sees opportunities in the biotechnology and entertainment industries.
He and Co-founder and Chief Operating Officer John Zivnuska said in January the startup had more than a dozen additional customers "in the pipeline."
Clark and Zivnuska are joined by Victor Kuhns, chief technology officer, Connor Brown, vice president of software development, and Blake Kinnan, vice president of hardware development, as Hoonify's other co-founders. The startup was founded in November 2021, and all five co-founders are former Sandia National Laboratories employees.
"The team behind Hoonify's supercomputing platform, with its collective 40-plus years of demonstrating its ability to deliver supercomputing to our nation's top laboratories, is what compelled me as an investor," Paul Schwake, the Los Angeles movie producer, said in a statement. "Transitioning to the private sector affords them the opportunity to deliver access to supercomputing performance to commercial markets and contributes to keeping the U.S. in the lead as a technology innovator."
Next Frontier Capital, which led the Albuquerque startup's seed round, is an early-stage venture firm founded in 2015, managing $140 million in assets, according to venture website PitchBook. It has a 50-company portfolio, with a majority of investments going into startups' seed or Series A investment rounds.
Clark said Hoonify started raising its seed round in January of this year, closing the deal in just a few months. Finding a partner like Next Frontier Capital, he said, changed the Albuquerque startup's outlook on raising venture capital.
Will Price, founder and general partner with Next Frontier Capital, said in a statement the firm is "proud to partner with Hoonify as the company expands and continues to deliver best-in-class high performance computing capabilities to the commercial sector."
Hoonify announced a partnership with ADACEN Inc., an advanced data center company, in August 2023, allowing customers to use the startup's TurbOS software on ADACEN's hardware infrastructure. Hoonify, a 2023 Startup to Watch, has its headquarters within ADACEN's Albuquerque data center at 3500 Access Road C SE.
