Attensity

Medidata Solutions recently appointed Steven Wilhite as their new Chief Marketing Officer. He had previously worked with companies like Apple, Jumpstart Automotive Group, Volkswagen, and Nissan. Wilhite will share with the team his over 25 years of experience in marketing and global brand building. There’s more about his appointment on this news link.

Cardinal Bank recently promoted Hilary J. Blackburn as their new Senior Vice President, Marketing Product Manager. She became part of the company back in 2010 as Vice President, Product Development and e-Commerce. Blackburn had previously worked with Capital One Bank, Chevy Chase Bank, Summit Bank and Crestar. There’s more about her appointment on this news link.

Shenick Network Systems recently designated Tim Jefferson as Senior Vice President of Global Sales for the company. He was previously part of Spirent Communications, where he was most recently general manager of the Enterprise Solutions Group. Jefferson was with Spirent for 12 years. There’s more about his appointment on this news link.

dreamGEAR® recently welcomed Bre Holley as Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing for the company. Prior to joining dreamGEAR, he was with Maxell as Vice President of Consumer Sales. Holley will share with the team over two decades worth of experience in sales leadership. There’s more about her appointment on this news link.

Sharp Imaging and Information Company of America (SIICA) recently named Laura Blackmer as their company’s Senior Vice President, Sales. She was formerly part of Intermec, Incorporated where she served as Senior Director of North America Channel Sales. Blackmer had also previously worked with Onforce, Incorporated. There’s more about her appointment on this news link.

Jennifer  Leitman was recently appointed as Great American Country’s senior vice president, marketing & creative services. He had previously handled Scripps’ Home category as vice president, marketing & creative services. Leitman became part of HGTV in 2004. There’s more about her appointment on this news link.

Eleven Wireless recently hired Cyndi Shepley as the company’s new Senior Vice President of Sales. Prior to joining Eleven Wireless, she was Vice President and General Manager for Hospitality Solutions International (HSI). Shepley had also previously worked with InfoGenesis. There’s more about her appointment on this news link.

401KDIRECT Inc.

I DRIVE SAFELY recently named Greg Hallinan as the company’s new Chief Marketing Officer. He was previously with Verve Mobile, where he served was co-founder and CMO. Hallinan had also worked with companies like Intel, Swell.com, and NTN Buzztime. There’s more about his appointment on this news link.

Revel Touch recently designated David Ricketts as senior vice president, sales. He was previously with Hybris where he was vice president of North American sales. Ricketts will share with the team two decades worth of experience in increasing revenue. There’s more about his appointment on this news link.

Infer Inc.

The company’s CEO, Mr. Vik Singh, shares more about this recent funding in this e-interview with Lead411:

Who are your competitors and how are you different from them?

We’re not seeing any companies doing quite what we do at Infer, which is embed sophisticated data science in easy-to-use business applications that help companies accurately predict and act on their highest potential customers.

We look at the landscape in a few different buckets – old-school BI, providing very general infrastructure that requires in-house statisticians; data vendors, providing useful information to companies but not able to offer predictive tools to help them leverage the data; and early stage companies that are generating leads lists. Unlike these companies, Infer is building on our background in data-driven consumer companies like Google to develop applications that optimize actual decision points in business’ customer processes in order to drive topline results.

What percentage of your marketing budget are spent on the following?

As a private company, we do not disclose these specific percentages.

What marketing tactic has given you the highest ROI? What percentage ROI do you get back on this?

Instead of spending money on traditional marketing tactics, we put all of our effort into making our customers successful.  This has really paid off since it turns out that sales and marketing professionals love to share new ideas and important innovations through their peer networks.  In this way, our happy customers have spread the word about Infer, which has allowed us to generate terrific growth largely through references.

What do you plan to spend your new funding on? Product development? Marketing?

We’ll use our Series A funding to grow our team of engineers and scientists, as well as to deliver and apply our solution to more companies and customer intelligence problems. We’re excited about that because it’s clear that now is the time for companies to move beyond automating marketing processes and start taking full advantage of the data they are collecting.  We’ve seen amazing initial success with our early customers, and we’re at the right juncture to expand our team and product so we can penetrate the market.

If this is your first round of financing and you’re the CEO, how many hours did you put into working on getting your financing? Was that taking up the most of your day?

We were fortunate that the sophistication of the technology we have developed combined with our customer success led to a lot of interest from funders.   So in the scope of things, securing the funding was not a big challenge.

If you are the CEO, what are your biggest challenges?

The value we have been able to provide our customers to this point has led to strong demand for what we offer.  As CEO, my job is to make sure that we scale up to meet the demand while maintaining our laser focus on customer success.

We also know that the approach we have pioneered – sophisticated statistical modeling over both customer data and data that we source and mine from the web, wrapped in simple to consume applications – has far reaching implications.  I need to guide us on a journey to realize those possibilities.

How many employees do you have?

We’re right around 10 employees now, and with our new Series A funding we expect to ramp up our engineering team quickly.

When were you founded?

Infer was founded in 2010, and after more than two years of extensive product development and customer testing, we just came out of stealth mode last month.

How much did you revenue increase (if any) this year over last year?

As a private company, we do not disclose revenue figures. That said, we became profitable just two months after we began selling our product last year and we’re excited about our current opportunity to invest more in key areas and grow the company.

Want to know more about their recent funding? You can read more about it on this news release here.

As part of the Lead411 teams daily tasks, they go through more than 600 pages of press releases, as well as venture capital funding news, business articles, and more. This particular list originated from a total of 389 organizations/companies, and has been minimized to the top 24.

In order to qualify as part of the list, a private company/organization must first be located in the DC area, and must also be part of the Software, Wireless, Internet, Hardware, or Media industries. A company must have also earned 100% increase in revenues over the past 2 years or have gained more than $1M in funding in the same timeframe.

Razorsight Corp., TRX Systems, Portal Solutions LLC all made it to the list of Hottest Companies in DC. Want to know who else did make it? You check the full list here.

HomeAway, Inc.

bebe stores, inc. recently named Keith Keegan as their new Senior Vice President of Marketing. He had most recently worked with Abercrombie and Fitch as well as Limited and Express. Keegan will share with the team more than two decades of experience in doing retail and marketing work, brand development, as well as visual merchandising. There’s more about his appointment on this news link.

Cambrios Technologies Corporation recently appointed Sriram Peruvemba as the company’s new Chief Marketing Officer. He will share with the team his 25 years of experience in the field of electronics. Peruvemba was most recently part of E Ink Holdings where he was CMO. There’s more about his appointment on this news link.

Network Merchants Inc. recently designated Richard J. Swiderski as the company’s new Vice President of Sales. He became part of the company back in 2004. Swiderski had worked with brands like Starbucks, Kohls, and Syms among others. There’s more about his appointment on this news link.

Voltari Corporation recently welcomed Brian Condron as the company’s new Regional Vice President of Sales. He will be handling the company’s Midwest and West Coast sales operations. Condron was formerly with quadrantONE where he had worked for five years. There’s more about his appointment on this news link.

Misonix, Inc. recently appointed Scott Ludecker as the company’s new Vice President of Global Sales and Marketing. He was formerly part of BioMimetic Therapeutics where he served as Vice President of Global Sales and Marketing. Ludecker will share with the team over two decades worth of work history in global medical devices. There’s more about his appointment on this news link.

John Driver was recently named as the new Chief Marketing Officer for PacketVideo. He will share with the team two decades of experience in the field of enterprise technology. Driver co-founded and was CEO of JoynIn. There’s more about his appointment on this news link.

eMag Solutions, LLC

Butch Reh was recently appointed as the new vice president of sales of ABBYY USA. He will share with the team his comprehensive experience in doing product marketing and sales, spanning over 25 years. Reh had also previously worked with companies like Daybreak ICS and EMC Captiva. There’s more about his appointment on this news link.

Simply Hired was recently joined by Kristy Stromberg as their new Senior Vice President of Marketing. She comes to the company from Intuit, and had also worked with companies like Yahoo! and Compaq. Stromberg will share with the team his two decades of experience in doing brand development, customer acquisition, and technology marketing. There’s more about his appointment on this news link.

Cervel Neurotech Inc.

The company’s CEO,  Mr. Eric Meier tells us more about this recent financing in this e-interview with Lead411:

Who are your competitors and how are you different from them?

The treatment of psychiatric disorders is typically managed through one of three ways:

Vixen Vodka

8×8, Inc. recently appointed Ben Taft as the new Vice President of Inside Sales for the company. He was most recently part of Brocade where he was Senior Director, Global Sales Strategy & Transformation. Taft had also previously worked with Foundry Networks. There’s more about his appointment on this news link.

Jeff Fitzhugh was recently designated as Sanuk’s Vice President of Sales for North America. He previously worked with DC Shoes, where he had worked as their Senior Vice President. Fitzhugh will contribute to the team his over twenty years worth of experience in dealing within the surf and footwear fields. There’s more about his appointment on this news link.

Pitney Bowes Inc. recently welcomed Abby F. Kohnstamm as their company’s new Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer. Prior to joining Pitney, she had recently worked with IBM Corporation as their Chief Marketing Officer. Kohnstamm also founded her own consulting firm back in 2006. There’s more about her appointment on this news link.

REACH Health Inc. was recently joined by Brad Lochman as the company’s new Vice President of Sales. Prior to joining REACH Health, he had worked with Allscripts as their Senior Enterprise Vice President. Lochman will share with the team hiss experience in doing over two decades of sales and management work. There’s more about his appointment on this news link.

Bigcommerce recently appointed Jeremy Hermanns as the new vice president of marketing demand generation for the company. He will share with the team his extensive history in doing online marketing work, spanning over a decade. Hermanns had previously worked with LegalZoom, and most recently with OneStop. There’s more about his appointment on this news link.

Tactus Technology, Inc. recently designated RK Parthasarathy as the new Vice President of Sales and Marketing. He had formerly worked with Synaptics®, where he served as their Product Line Director & Director of Strategic Marketing. Parthasarathy had also previously worked with Ubicom™. There’s more about his appointment on this news link.

XOJET, Inc.

VFA, Inc. recently named Neil Lieberman as the company’s new senior vice president and chief marketing officer. He will share with the team more than three decades of experience in doing product and business development as well as marketing work. Lieberman was previously the executive director and general manager for AT&T. There’s more about his appointment on this news link.

Fifth Third Bancorp recently welcomed Maria Veltre as the company’s new senior vice president and chief marketing officer. She was previously Citibank’s managing director as well as chief marketing officer for their Small Business department. Veltre will bring to the team his experience in the financial field spanning 27 years. There’s more about her appointment on this news link.

Paul M. Okimoto has recently joined Sports Authority as their new Chief Marketing Officer. He will share with the team his two decades of experience in doing general management as well as marketing work. Okimoto had formerly worked with RadioShack Corporation where he served as Vice President of Marketing. There’s more about his appointment on this news link.

Lee Oakley was recently appointed as the new sales director for Priorclave. He became part of the company back in 2005. Oakley will also now be responsible for product development as well as building on new target markets in Europe and Africa. There’s more about his appointment on this news link.

National Instruments recently  promoted Erik Starkloff to the position of senior vice president of marketing. He will be handling the company’s strategic planning, eBusiness platform creation, and product marketing among others. Starkloff became part of the company in 1997. There’s more about his appointment on this news link.

FutureLogic, Inc. recently named John Edmunds as the company’s new Chief Marketing Officer / Chief Sales Officer (CMO/CSO). He will be responsible for product management work, global sales and marketing work. Edmunds makes use of the customer-first approach. There’s more about his appointment on this news link.

Megan Turner was recently designated as the new head of marketing for Isotrak. She was most recently with Microlise. Turner will be of significant help in Isotrak’s expansion to the UK and the overseas markets. There’s more about her appointment on this news link.

Jane Box was recently appointed as the new Direct Sales & Marketing Manager for Penner-Ash Wine Cellars. She had previously worked as a Restaurant Manager for the San Francisco Mariott Hotel. Box had also founded Janie’s Kitchen LLC. There’s more about her appointment on this news link.

Every year, the team at Lead411 goes through an extensive selection of business articles, press releases, company launches, funding news, and much more to spot the most innovative tech companies in a certain region. This particular list was narrowed down to 31 from a selection of 435 dynamic organizations.

In order for a company to qualify, it must first be a privately-held organization in Austin Texas. It must also belong to any of these industries: Software, Wireless, Internet, Hardware, or Media.

Additional, equally significant requirements include having a 100% increase in revenues over the past 2 years or gaining over $1M in funding in the same timeframe.

Some of those who made it to the list of Hottest Companies in Austin include: Xplore Technologies, Famigo, Appconomy Inc., and Sparksight.

Want to know what other companies made it to the list? You can see the full list here.