DC Inno Beat 6/24: Speek Finally Acquired, Canvas' Power Move and Getaround's Ford Partnership

By Chris Bing

June 24, 2015, 02:02pm EDT

Busy news day, jumping in

...Lets Get Started

The Big One

Chris: After a long and arduous path littered by staff cuts and missed partnerships, Speek has been acquired by a Utah-based enterprise communications-focused software company called Jive Communications. If you’re a frequent reader of the Beat, then you know Speek has been prominently featured in our gossip (Goss) section regarding everything from acquisition rumors to executive shifts, over the past several months. The acquisition news, originally reported by WBJ, follows shortly after longtime CTO Matthew Turner left the company for a CTO position at a software company on the West Coast.

For the moment, it seems that the deal has yet to close and financial details were not provided — meaning that things could easily fall apart as they have in previous incidents. Because no one apparently has knowledge of how the deal is formatted or what it entails, it’s anyone’s guess as to how concrete it is. President Danny Boice recently founded a new startup by the name Trustify; take that for what it is. In addition, Speek sent out an odd email to some of its users yesterday. Whichever way this goes, best of luck to Danny, John and the whole Speek team. To see the email and get the full story, here’s our full article.

Eric: A huge win by the Speek team, one that makes their branching into the enterprise side of things last year a retrospectively brilliant move. I wonder what celebrity fan Edward Norton thinks of it?

Making Moves

Chris: Canvas, the Reston, Va.-based mobile organization and data analysis cloud software startup, has brought on Mark Walsh, a well known local venture capitalist and investor in the D.C. tech scene, to its board. Canvas’s last funding round came in December 2014 in the form of a $9M Series C/Bridge led by Camber Creek, Osage Venture Partners and River Cities Capital Funds. Walsh is currently a managing partner at Ruxton Ventures.

Eric: Bringing Walsh on board could be the prelude for more big news for Canvas. His background of joining the boards of successful companies might mean another big raise, an acquisition or even an IPO.

Chris: D.C. peer-to-peer car lending platform service, Getaround, has teamed up withFord to launch its own pilot program. The deal is part of Ford's larger Smart Mobility strategy. Per Eric, “The pilot program will include invitations to 14,000 people in the U.S. who have used Ford Credit to buy their cars. Putting their cars in the program replaces the monthly cost of their payments for the car, making it ultimately cheaper.”

Eric: While more options for car-sharing is great, and the chance to cut down on car payments will no doubt be appreciated by the owners, I can't help but think that this is another indicator of how we millennials live in a world where we only rent and borrow things because owning things is out of reach for so many of us.

Chris: WBJ reports, citing SEC filings, that Columbia Capital has raised $437M for its sixth fund. CC was originally founded by Virginia Sen. Mark Warner and was an early investor in XM Satellite Radio. CC’s local investments include Virtustream, Araxid, Endgame, Webs and Millennial Media. The VC firm's latest investment came in late April via a $35M investment in DC-based New Signature.

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Tonight we have a HUGE Startup Grind event: DC Inno Approved: Tech Events to Know About This Week (6/22-6/28)

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