Meta to pay $1.4B settlement to Texas
Facebook parent company Meta Platforms will pay the state of Texas $1.4B to settle the state's 2022 lawsuit that accused the company of illegally collecting biometric data on Texans without their consent. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's office said the settlement stems from the first lawsuit ever brought under Texas's "Capture or Use of Biometric Identifier Act." It also said the settlement represents the largest privacy settlement an AG has ever obtained.
The case stemmed from Meta's "Tag Suggestions" feature that launched in 2011. It allowed people to easily tag other people in photographs. Paxton's office said the company used facial recognition software on "virtually every face contained in the photographs uploaded to Facebook."
The court order says that Meta must pay a first installment of $500M within 30 days. The payment schedule stretches out through 2028.
UT AI expert leading Sony's AI efforts
Peter Stone, the Truchard Foundation chair of computer science and director of Texas Robotics at the University of Texas, has been named chief scientist at Sony AI, the company announced today. He was also appointed as deputy president of Sony AI, a role he shares with Pete Wurman, who previously co-founded Kiva Systems, which was acquired by Amazon in 2012.
Stone, who previously co-founded Cogitai Inc., has worked with Sony as executive director of its Sony AI America branch since 2019. Before that, he was a senior researcher at AT&T Labs.
Auctane's new CMO
Austin-based shipping and logistics company Auctane Inc. said today that it has appointed Laura Goldberg as its CMO. She was most recently CMO at Constant Contact. Before that, she was chief revenue and marketing officer at American Express' Kabbage and CMO at LegalZoom. Auctane, which operates ShipStation, Stamps.com and several other brands, is based in Austin and has offices worldwide.
New exec at Imandra
Austin-based AI company Imandra Inc. said today it has named Zehra Akbar as its chief operating officer. She was previously chief strategy officer at Austin-based SkyGrid, which spun out of Austin-based SparkCongnition, where Akbar was previously VP of strategy. Before that, she was a senior consultant at Deloitte and a consulting specialist at Accenture.
Imandra, which was founded in London in 2014 by Grant Passmore and Denis Ignatovich, has developed an AI-powered platform that automates logical reasoning for financial and defense customers. The startup, which moved to Austin in 2019, has raised $12.6M, including a $5M round led by Austin's LiveOak Ventures in 2019.
New CEO at Uptempo
Marketing software company Uptempo, previously known as BrandMaker Inc., said today that it has named Scott Ernst as its CEO. The startup's co-founder and former CEO Mirko Holzer will stay with the company as a member of the board. Ernst was most recently CEO at buyer engagement company Drift, which was acquired by SalesLoft in February.
Uptempo is headquartered in Germany and it has an office in Austin near the Domain.
Austin blood testing company featured in Wall Street Journal
Austin-based blood testing startup Babson Diagnostics was featured in the Wall Street Journal today as one of the companies realizing the dream laid out by Theranos. Babson launched its simplified blood testing products, known as BetterWay, at pharmacies earlier this year. In the WSJ story, it was presented as one of two leading companies succeeding where Theranos failed.
While Theranos became a poster child for overpromising new medical technology, Babson has been careful to follow a more conservative path.
“This isn’t Theranos,” founder Eric Olson told the WSJ. “We’re not trying to minimize the lab. We’re decentralizing the collection and taking it back to the laboratory.”
Learn more about the company in our Texas Business Minds podcast.
