Open Coffee growing

Adam Kalsey — Wed, 14 May 2008 09:12:35 -0700

Yesterday's Open Coffee was the best yet. About a dozen people stopped by, including a number of new faces. Sargent's looks like it's going to stick for a while as a location. Nice central spot, plenty of nearby parking, and a great staff all contributed to the success.

If you aren't stopping by Tuesday mornings for coffee, you're missing out.

Open Coffee Moving

Adam Kalsey — Mon, 05 May 2008 10:46:13 -0700

We're heading downtown, folks.

The coffee and staff are great at Habit, but the wifi is getting worse by the week. that's no environment to work in. So we're on the move.

For the next few weeks, let's try True Love Coffee on K St in downtown Sacramento.

Update: Well that was a bust. True Love doesn't open until later in the morning. Carson suggested we try Sargent's on Alhambra. So starting next week, that's where we'll be.

May Dinner at Dos Coyotes

Scott Hildebrand — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 09:27:28 -0700

SacStarts dinners are informal get-togethers where the best and brightest technologists and entrepreneurs connect. Grab a seat and some food and meet other locals involved in Sacramento’s technology community.

Cost: Just pay for your own dinner and drinks.

Scott Hildebrand is moving to the Bay Area and this will be your last chance to have a SacStarts dinner with him as a Sacramento resident. He'll be back for more dinners so no need to panic.

Keep track of your time, automatically

Adam Kalsey — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 09:54:33 -0700

Local startup Time Tracking Buddy provides a tool that tracks what documents you work on to provide professionals with detailed reports on their billable time.

Time Tracking Buddy screen Using Time Tracking Buddy’s Windows software, you can associate files or folders with one of your billable clients. When you’re working on a document that you’ve added as a client file, the software keeps track of how long you’re actively using the file. You can then run reports tracking how much time was spent, helping you fill out invoices and timesheets.

The company has launched a private beta of their software. To join the beta, send an email to beta@timetrackingbuddy.com or visit their beta page.

I’ve been using the Mac software from competitor Rescue Time for several weeks. Rescue Time can track URLs that you visit and allows you to use tags to classify URLs and programs, sorting your usage by tag. After using it for a week, I found myself surprised by what I was really doing with my time each day. Rescue Time, however, is not able to distinguish individual documents. Any time spent in Microsoft Word is simply reported as “Microsoft Word” with no details about which document you’re using.

Time Tracking Buddy is able to report on which documents you’ve been working with, making it worth looking into for professionals who bill by the hour or for individuals working on multiple projects who would like to see where their time is really going.

Borders Live classes

Adam Kalsey — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 21:11:35 -0800

Borders book stores are piloting a new project that has local stores offering free adult education classes on everything from parenting to dating to getting yourself a spot on a TV game show. The classes, which started this week, are taught by local professionals and are being held inside three local Borders stores.

The program includes several classes that might interest startups and those thinking of starting a business…

The full course calendar is here.

February Dinner at Panera Bread

Scott Hildebrand — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 21:26:27 -0800

Cost: Just pay for your own dinner and drinks.

American River Ventures adds CFO

Adam Kalsey — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 14:39:18 -0800

American River Ventures has added F. Ray Nunez to their executive team as CFO. In addition to the typical duties of a CFO, Nunez will work with ARV’s portfolio companies to help them create sound financial plans at the earliest stages.

Prior to joining ARV, Nunez served as Director of Finance law firm McDonough Holland & Allen PC. Prior to joining McDonough, he spent 16 years in various financial and management roles at HP.

American River Ventures is located in Roseville and manages a $100 million fund. They invest primarily in energy efficiency technologies from early stage companies, although they’ve made a number of investments in other areas, including communications and security. Portfolio companies include Agoura Technologies, Synapsense, and KeyEye Communications.

Velocity Venture raises $15 million fund

Adam Kalsey — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 11:31:40 -0800

Folsom’s Velocity Venture Capital has raised a second fund of $15 million to invest in early stage Sacramento-area companies. Velocity’s current investments include Revionics, KeyEye Communications, and their latest investment, Freepath.

VentureBeat reports that this fund will be used to make regional investments ranging from $100,000 to $3.5 million.

Freepath lands $1.5 million from Velocity, others.

Adam Kalsey — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 11:11:16 -0800

Folsom startup Freepath has closed a $1.5 million Series A round led by Folsom’s Velocity Venture Capital. Local investors Strategis Early Ventures, Sacramento Angels, and Sierra Angels also participated in the round.

Freepath creates presentation software designed to make it easier to incorporate multimedia, web content, and local documents into presentations. The technology grew out of software that allows churches to present rich media, sermon notes, and song lyrics to their audiences.

Freepath is led by CEO John Stone, a co-founder of Powerschool who remained at Apple as a Vice President after Apple’s acquisition of Powerschool. He joined Freepath after the founders pitched him as a prospective angel investor. “[I] became so excited about the technology and market opportunity that I joined the team,” he says.

Engine Yard secures $3.5 million from Benchmark Capital

Adam Kalsey — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 11:07:58 -0800

Sacramento born Engine Yard has raised $3.5 million in venture funding from Benchmark Capital. The company, now located in San Francisco, still has data centers and several employees in Sacramento.

Engine Yard didn’t start out looking for funding. They are already profitable and didn’t see their Rails hosting and support business as lucrative enough to get the large payouts venture companies often require.

Benchmark Capital came calling after they continued to get pitched by startups that were using Rails as their technology. Benchmark saw that Engine Yard’s technologies might allow then to grow a software business to provide technology to Ruby on Rails startups. Engine Yard is one of the chief supporters of Rubinius, a high performance virtual machine for Ruby, and Merb a Rails-compatible framework that promises higher performance.

Much of the money will be used to accelerate development of these projects. Last month, Engine Yard hired the Rubinius core developers after hiring project lead Evan Phoenix last May. Engine Yard co-founder Ezra Zygmuntowicz is the lead developer of Merb.

This is Engine Yard’s first round of equity financing. They previously closed $2.5 million in lease financing to help build out more data centers.