The Big One

A breakdown of the day's biggest Inno story

Before the pandemic, South by Southwest was an experience that engaged all your senses — often overwhelming them, even.

But, like almost everything else, the massive and globally recognized conference and festival has had to make some major Covid pivots to navigate this new world safely.

For example, this year's festival will be entirely virtual. No in-person events. Instead, SXSW has inked a partnership with Boston-based video conferencing company Brightcove Inc. for this year's festival and on-going programming throughout 2021, Brightcove Field CTO Dave Bornstein said.

But that doesn't mean that SXSW will feel like a one long Zoom call March 16-20. Brightcove and SXSW envision a broadcast style that might feel more like a familiar TED Talk or even your favorite streaming service. With that in mind, the conference will be viewable on Apple TV, Roku, Fire TV, Android TV and Samsung TV, in addition to laptops and other devices.

"They don't want it to seem like a stuffy event," Bornstein said. "They want it to feel like you have an experience ... where you can tune in and flip back and forth. We really went for the Amazon Prime/Netflix type of experience. It's all about the content."

The conference will be broadcast across five channels, which will be called stages to fit with SXSW's vibe. It will feature both pre-recorded sessions and performances as well as live ones. From a laptop or smart device, attendees will also be able to network and chat in breakout rooms, which can be configured to different levels of moderation.

While it might not be the household name that Zoom has become, Brightcove has dozens of major virtual events on its resume, including big conferences for SAP, ServiceNow and the National Association of Broadcasters. It has also worked on concerts, including the Dropkick Murphys concert at Fenway Park, which had 9M viewers. And, last week, it announced it has received two Emmy Awards in the technology and engineering category.

Bornstein said Brightcove has worked on streaming projects with SXSW in the past. The company earlier this year was invited to bid on the SXSW production. Brightcove likely stood out because it offers a lot of monetization tools and customizations, including ads, vouchers, pay-per-view and other features that can leverage revenue.

But both Brightcove and SXSW have acknowledged there's currently no real way to replicate the in-person SXSW experience.

"It's not going to be the same," Bornstein said.

Making Moves

Quick hits on the local businesses, people and organizations making moves

Austin cloud company acquired

ThinQ, a cloud communications startup in Raleigh, has acquired Austin-based cloud voice tech company Commio for an undisclosed amount. The move will help thinQ offer customers an option to buy new phone numbers directly, as well as provide new tools to stop unwanted robocalls. Commio, led by President Sam Shiffman, was established in 2012, according to state records. It doesn't appear to have raised venture funding.

Scanning the Earth from above

Santa Barbara-based Earth observation startup Umbra raised $32M in new funding led by Passport Capital founder John Burbank, SpaceNews reported. The company, which has offices in Austin near Bee Cave, was founded in 2015, and it is poised to launch its first microsatellite to capture high-resolution images of the planet. The company, formerly called Umbra Labs, is also listed as a recipient of a small business innovation grant through the U.S. Air Force's innovation wing AFWERX.

New CEO at Kendra Scott

Tom Nolan has been named CEO of Kendra Scott LLC, replacing the company's eponymous founder, the ABJ reported. Kendra Scott will remain as executive chairwoman, majority owner and the leader of the company's design, customer experience and philanthropy efforts, according to today's announcement. Nolan joined the company's board in 2014 and was named chief revenue officer and marketing officer in 2016.

Nolan became president of the company in 2019, helping grow the company's retail footprint throughout the U.S., while increasing its wholesale operations.

Neural tech startup's new funding

Austin startup Paradromics, which is focused on brain-computer interfaces to address medical needs, reported raising $4.1M of a planned $10M funding round. It wasn't immediately clear who the investors were. The company, which last summer said it had logged the largest-ever electrical recording of cortical activity in a sheep cortex, was founded in 2015. It previously landed funding from DARPA's Neural Engineering System Design program and seed funding from Arkitekt Ventures and Synergy Ventures. The company is led by founder and CEO Matt Angle, and it is currently hiring an electrical test engineer and project manager for its Austin office, which is in North Austin off Braker Lane west of MoPac.

Keeping Austin Weird and Wired

A little something extra

Taking shots

Take a shot at Austin, and you're bound to hear back. That's been the case for Brett Alder, who wrote a post about the things he doesn't like about Austin. Well, now he has a few hearty rebuttals (in addition to the social media response).

Check out this one from ABJ Editor Colin Pope: "I beg to differ, Mr. California, Austin rocks"

Or this one, which suggests a nonresponse may be best, from Localeur co-founder Joah Spearman: "'Miss me with that': Austinite responds to California man's scathing review of the city"