Austin's tech scene is booming, even during a pandemic. And as local startups expand and businesses continue to relocate their headquarters here, top talent continues to move through the city.
Below, we've put together a list of the the most interesting hires of April 2021.
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Here we go …
New hires
A stealthy startup once called Didactic, which was founded by altMBA co-founder Wes Kao and Udemy co-founder Gagan Biyani, reemerged with a new name: Maven. It's described as a platform for cohort-based courses, and they added Shreyans Bhansali, who co-founded Socratic, which was acquired by Google, as a co-founder. The startup is a fully remote team, although Biyani's LinkedIn page shows he's based in Austin. Others with the company are in Toronto and San Francisco. Maven plans to launch new courses over the next couple months, including classes on influencer marketing.
Austin-based customer engagement software company Khoros named April Downing as its CFO and Sejal Amin as its new CTO. Downing was co-founder and COO at Austin startup Supply Drop prior to this, and her resume includes roles as CFO at WP Engine and COO at Civitas Learning. Amin was most recently CTO in the tax and accounting business at Thomson Reuters, and she is also a member of the Forbes Technology Council.
Austin health care privacy startup ClearDATA added Sanjay Cherian as chief strategy officer. Cherian was previously VP of strategy and digital health at TELUS Health. ClearDATA, founded in 2011, has raised about $80M in funding, including a $26M series E round in 2018, according to Crunchbase.
Austin-based emergency response software platform RapidDeploy hired Tim Melton as a senior VP of sales. He most recently led a sales team at OpenGov, and prior to that he was a county commissioner in Oakland County, Mich., and a state representative in Michigan.
Colorcast, an Austin startup that makes a social audio app for sporting events, added Chicago-based rapper Vic Mensa as a part-owner, advisory board member and brand ambassador. Mensa has already been active on the app during Chicago Bears games and a recent Jake Paul fight. The addition follows a big start to the year for the company. It landed first place in SXSW Pitch in the one-minute pitch category. Colorcast, led by co-founder and CEO Evan Kirkham, was founded in December 2019 in Dallas, according to Crunchbase, before moving to Austin.
Austin-based IoT company Silicon Labs has named a new CTO. It's Daniel Cooley, who was previously chief strategy officer and has been with the company since 2005. Alessandro Piovaccari, the company's CTO since 2015, will transition to Silicon Labs' Technical Advisory Board.
Triumvira Immunologics, an Austin-based biotech company engineering T cells to fight cancer, appointed Teresa McRoberts as CFO. She was previously portfolio manager and senior VP at Alger Management. Triumvira also promoted Andreas Bader to chief scientific officer and Jon Irvin to senior VP of finance. The company, founded in 2015 by Jonathan Bramson, has its corporate offices in Austin; its research facilities are in Ontario. The management changes follow a $55M series A funding round last August that was co-led by Leaps by Bayer, the impact investment unit of Bayer AG, and Northpond Ventures.
Former Ultimate Software CEO Adam Rogers joined Austin's Next Coast Ventures as a partner. The VC firm said that Rogers' experience scaling Ultimate Software and his deep engineering and product development background will help portfolio companies accelerate. Rogers was previously a member of Next Coast's entrepreneurs council.
Hologram, a Chicago company with a cellular platform for IoT, hired Mike Georgoff as its first chief product officer. He was most recently at Austin's Main Street Hub (acquired by GoDaddy), and his career has spanned Redbox, RetailMeNot and H-E-B Digital. The company is currently hiring for more than a dozen remote positions.
Nick White, former VP of marketing for Austin-based Osano, has been added as VP of growth at Makara, a Seattle-based crypto advisor startup, GeekWire reported.
