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Jeffrey Sprecher – Journey From Being A Power Plant Developer To Foundation Of Intercontinental Exchange.

Jeffrey Sprecher, an American businessman, founded Intercontinental Exchange in 2000. It is a Fortune 500 company and has offices worldwide, including in the United States, Canada, London, Amsterdam, Tel Aviv, Rome, Singapore, India, and many other countries. Intercontinental Exchange is famous across the globe as ICE and it mainly operates global exchanges, and clearinghouses, offering mortgages, and many other financial services. ICE currently operates 12 regulated exchanges and marketplaces, including CE Clear U.S., ICE Clear Europe, ICE Clear Singapore, ICE Clear Credit, ICE Clear Netherlands, and ICE NGX. ICE has approximately 8,800 employees and the company’s founder is ruling as the present CEO and Chairman.

Foundation of ICE

Before founding ICE, Jeffrey was in the natural gas business as a power plant developer. While doing business, he realized that there is a need for a seamless and transparent market where market prices are easily accessible by anyone from any part of the world. So, he wanted to build an internet-based platform to distribute these prices for OTC energy commodity trading. With this objective in mind, Jeffrey acquired Continental Power Exchange, Inc. in the late 1990s. Following the acquisition, Jeffrey along with a small group of technologists shaped the structure of the company in the interest of all buyers and sellers of energy.

The main groundwork behind building the company took place between 1997 to 2000. During this time, Jefferey had eight colleagues who focused on the original version of the ICE trading platform. On the other hand, Jeffrey along with Chuck Vice (former COO of ICE) got on the field and started talking to potential customers. Since the company’s main target was the energy sector, it approached more than 100 companies in the power, oil, and natural gas business. During this time, electronic trading was not the trend but at the same time, these companies were looking for transparency in a trading model. So, ICE developed its technology by focusing on the workflow of its customers and successfully launched the company in May 2000. Today more than 70 companies are successfully transacting in ICE’s markets.

Expansion

When the Intercontinental Exchange was founded in 2000, it was backed by some prominent banks like Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. Though the company was established to primarily focus on the energy sector, eventually it also expanded its focus into soft commodities like sugar, cotton, and coffee, and also in foreign exchange. In June 2001, ICE acquired International Petroleum Exchange (IPE) which was then a regional exchange offering oil future contracts. ICE entered into futures trading through this acquisition. In 2007, the company went public and was also added to the Russell 1000 Index. After it became a publicly-traded company, it started expanding rapidly. In the same year, ICE acquired the New York Board of Trade, ChemConnect, and the 120-year-old Winnipeg Commodity Exchange.

As the financial crisis hit the US in 2008, the company formed ICE US Trust (now known as ICE Clear Credit LLC) for serving as a limited-purpose bank, and also as a clearing house for credit default swaps. The company also worked closely with Federal Reserve such that it gets to serve as its over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives clearing house. Later that year, the company partnered with Canada’s TSX Group’s Natural Gas Exchange and also acquired Creditex Group Inc. In the upcoming years, ICE acquired many more companies including Climate Exchange PLC for $622 million, NYSE Euronext for $8.2 billion, SuperDerivatives Inc for $350 million, Interactive Data Corporation (IDC) for $5.2 billion, and the list could go on. Recently, the company acquired Black Knight Inc, a software and data analytics company.

About the Founder

Jeffrey Sprecher, famous as the founder and CEO of ICE is also the Chairman of the New York Stock Exchange. He studied Chemical Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison followed by acquiring an MBA from Pepperdine University. Jefferey started his career at Trane Technologies where he was offered a job at Western Power Group. He started the biggest venture of his life when he decided to buy Continental Power Exchange in 1996 from MidAmerican Energy Holdings Company.

Annasha

Annasha Dey is an NIT student, who apart from studying engineering is also a content writer. She has a great interest in photography, writing, reading novels, and travelling as well. She is a foodie who loves socializing and hanging out with her friends. She is also a trained Kathak dancer and a big fashion enthusiast. Dey also loves watching TV series, which includes F.R.I.E.N.D.S. and Big Bang Theory. To be a better writer she prefers to read more

Geoff Rhoads got the idea for founding Digimarc while he was working to remove noise from digital photos.

In 1995, Geoff Rhoads founded Digimarc, a publicly-traded company that offers digital identifiers including QR codes and digital watermarks. The company is based in Oregon, United States. The company mainly offers these products and services to prevent counterfeiting, increase accuracy, product authenticity, and many more. The solutions of Digimarc are used in multiple industries from health and beauty to automotive and manufacturing sectors. With the digitized products of Digimarc, companies can witness better brand integrity and full supply chain traceability. Currently, the company has around 300 employees who are working under the leadership of Riley McCormack.

Founding Story

Entrepreneur and astronomer, Geoff Rhoads, worked at Tektronix before founding Digimarc. While he working with the electronics manufacturer, he began his research on space imagery and content protection. This thorough research work took place in the early 1990s and in 1994 Rhoads founded a company called Signet. This venture was exclusively focusing on the concept of digital watermarking. He got the idea for founding Signet while he was working to remove noise from digital photos of deep space imaging. In 1995, Digimarc was founded as a part of Signet and was spun off in the same year. The company was founded in Portland, Oregon with only three employees. In 1996, after the initial funding round, Digimarc released its first product for image copyright communication. The product was basically a digital watermarking plug-in bundled with software like Adobe Photoshop.

In the first round of funding, Digimarc raised $4.5 million which was the highest compared to other new startups in Oregon. Adobe acquired 10% of the company and became one of the major investors. In 1997, Bruce Davis became the new CEO of the company and in the same year, the company was awarded the first digital watermarking patent. Today, the company has nearly 1,100 patents in its portfolio. After a couple of years, the company aimed for developing a global system for deterring the creation and usage of unauthorized banknotes (digital copies). So, it signed a multi-year deal with several banks for preventing digital counterfeiting. In the same year, the company filed its IPO where it raised more than $90 million. By the end of the decade, the company launched MediaBridge for shifting readers from printed media to web content.

Expansion

In 2000, Wired launched its first digitally-enhanced magazine and featured Digimarc technology. The next year, Digimarc acquired a business division of Polaroid Corporation and the assets of the company were used to establish Digimarc ID Systems. This ID system was launched to enhance driver’s licenses in 37 states. But, in 2008 the company sold this business unit for $315 million and shifted its focus toward content protection and digital media engagement. In 2002, Bruce Davis became the Chairman of the Board of Directors, and in 2003 Michigan issued its first driving license using Digimarc technology. In 2004, Digimarc was featured in Forbes magazine for being one of the top 25 fastest-growing companies.

For advanced image identification and a rigorous search system, Digimarc launched Digimarc ImageBridge in 2005. In 2007, the company partnered with Nielsen such that the latter can use the watermarking technology for video content. Digimarc was also recognized by IEEE for having one of the most valuable patent portfolios among software companies. In 2012, the company acquired Attributor Corporation (specializing in content protection services). In 2014, Digimarc ranked four in the 100 Best Companies to Work for in Oregon, and in the next year received Emmy Award for Technology & Engineering.

After its huge contribution to the entertainment industry, the company’s next focus was the retail sector. In 2016, the company partnered with leading retail scanner vendors like NCR, Zebra, and Honeywell. New Seasons Market, an Oregon-based grocery supply chain also adopted the Digimarc barcode in the same year. In 2017, the company opened new offices in Germany and Japan. In April 2021, Bruce Davis retired as the CEO of the company and he was replaced by Riley McCormack. To expand its product base, Digimarc completed the acquisition of EVRYTHNG, an IoT software company in 2022.

About Riley McCormack

Riley joined Digimarc recently and before that he was the CEO and PM of Tracer Capital Management. He is also the founder of this New York-based hedge fund. Riley also worked as a research analyst at Morgan Stanley and also founded TCM Strategic, a fund that has recently made an investment in Digimarc.

Annasha

Genius Sports – A Young Startup That Has Become The Current Talk Of The Sports Data Industry.

Leave a Comment / Story, Tech Story / By Annasha

Being the messiah in the world of sports data and technology, Genius Sports is known for organizing, optimizing, and creating unique sports experiences. The company was founded in 2016 as a result of a merger between two companies. Currently, the headquarters of the company is based in London, UK. Genius Sports is mainly responsible for offering software to various sports leagues and federations. Various services like data management, video streaming, and integrated services are also provided by the company. Various sports allow the company (giving rights) to commercialize their data and video content with authorities like media companies and casinos.

About Genius Sports

Being founded only five years ago, Genius Sports is currently one of the fastest-growing sports technology companies across the globe. The company now employs more than 1,800 people around the world with major offices in New York City, Tallinn, Los Angeles, Medellin, and many more. The company is catering toward building a more sustainable sports ecosystem with a fair share of engagement, commercial benefits, and competitiveness. To date, the company has covered around 240,000 sports events and established more than 600 long-term partnerships. In April 2021, the company got listed on the New York Stock Exchange through a special purpose acquisition company, dMY Technology Group.

A Merger Between Two Companies

In 2016, Mark Locke decided to merge his company, Betgenius and SportingPulse International. The newly formed company was called Genius Sports which became a perfect blend of sports technology, data supplier, and the betting industry. One year after the merger, Sports Genius started acquiring several other companies starting with Data Project, a volleyball technology provider. In the same year, the PGA Tour launched a new integrity program for mainly preventing betting-related corruption. The company was selected to support this integrity program through close monitoring and educational services.

In 2018, a new statistics initiative was announced by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) for all its members alongside Genius Sports. In the same year, Apax Partners acquired Genius Sports but even after the acquisition, Locke continued as the CEO of the company. Later in 2018, Football Data Co. came into an agreement along with Genius Sports and Perform Group to protect the football leagues in England and Scotland against match-fixing. This was for the first time that two technology companies combined for the mentioned reason.

Expansion

As the company was eventually landing deals with various types of sports leagues, in 2019 it struck a deal with NASCAR stock-car racing association. Genius Sports chose to strike a deal with this organization to become the exclusive provider of NASCAR data to licensed sportsbooks across the world. In the same year, it made a deal with Football DataCo for being the official supplier of live data. The company also partnered with the German Football Association and Superliga Argentina to help prevent match-fixing and unhealthy sports betting. In October 2020, the company acquired Oppia Performance, a video production, and streaming company. In 2021, Company partnered with the National Football League, WynnBET, Canadian Football League, and many other famous and influential organizations in the sports industry.

Mark Locke – CEO of Genius Sports

Mark Locke is not only the CEO of Genius Sports but also its co-founder. Locke has more than fifteen years of experience in both the sports technology and media industry. His entrepreneurial journey started when he launched Betgenius in 2001 and currently it is a part of the Genius Sports Group. Locke, in 2015, recognized the huge potential hidden between the intersection of sports and the betting industry. This is the reason why he decided to merge Betgenius and SportingPulse International. Locke also has a history in telecommunications and ventures for property management.

Annasha

MapmyIndia – India’s First Internet Mapping Digital Portal.

Leave a Comment / Story, Tech Story / By Yashica Vashishtha

The times have gone when people used to buy paper maps and roam around the world. Technology has also impacted how maps are made and designed today. Several online map services have been launched, which have replaced the physical map due to the convenience these offer to their users. People are now actively using services such as Google Map, Apple Map, Bing Map, etc., which are available at users’ fingertips. One such revolutionary service is the MapmyIndia, which has a similar concept but is limited to only Indian territory and for the purpose of marketing and logistics operations. The map not only offers digital map data, but also provides telematics services, GIS AI technologies, and location-based SaaS services. The company is about 27 years old and has made its name among the leading digital map service providers.

About the Company

A couple from India, Rakesh and Rashmi Verma founded MapmyIndia in 1995. The company headquarters is based in New Delhi, India. MapmyIndia is a publicly-traded company, trading on NSE as MAPMYINDIA. The company majors in services like IoT, Navigation, Maps, and GIS Services in the Indian subcontinent only. CE Info Systems Ltd. is the parent company of MapmyIndia, and over 700 people are currently working for it. Apart from New Delhi, the company has established its offices in Mumbai and Bengaluru. The company has also opened offices overseas in countries like USA and Japan. Since the beginning, MapmyIndia has been offering services to various big tech, corporates, automotive, and government authorities. The major clients of the company include Amazon Alexa, Apple, ISRO, Uber, Facebook, Mercedes-Benz, Mahindra, PhonePe, HDFC, TVS, Airtel, etc.

The Founding

Rakesh and Rashmi Verma, an Indian couple, started CE Info Systems in 1995 in New Delhi. The founders started to develop a web mapping technology under the name of CE Info-Systems. The very technology was to provide marketing and logistics services to the client organizations. As soon as the company was successful in developing the technology, it bagged its first contracts from companies like Coca-Cola and Cellular One.

In 2004, MapmyIndia launched India’s first internet mapping digital portal. The portal provided location-based services on mobile as well as the web. The portal was also adopted by India’s MagicBricks. In 2007, MapmyIndia came with a pan-India GPS system, and in 2010, the company launched Road Pilot, a GPS navigation service, followed by the launch of another IoT, a GPS-based telematics platform in 2011.

MapmyIndia also partnered with ISRO as the latter integrated MapmyIndia’s online maps into its satellite imagery. In 2015, the company released a map and location API for the developers, and by the next year, it started to build transportation, logistics, and workforce automation platforms. MapmyIndia also integrated AI technology into its maps such that to offer 4D HD digital maps. It also brought the digital address and location system for pan-India in 2017.

In the following years, MapmyIndia released a geospatial analytics platform (2019), N-Case mobility suite for digital vehicle transformation (2019), location-powered Enterprise Digital Transformation suite (2020), as well as real-time maps of Covid vaccine centers on CoWIN (2021), etc.

In 2021, MapmyIndia went public on the Indian Stock Exchange. Since the inception of MapmyIndia, the company has raised over $34 million in venture capital through various rounds of funding.

The CEO at MapmyIndia

Rohan Verma is the current CEO at MapmyIndia. He has got a Bachelor’s Science degree in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University and a Master’s of Business Administration from London Business. While studying at Stanford (2004-2007), Verma worked at MapmyIndia and helped in creating India’s first interactive map portal. For the rest of the years, Verma remained on the boards of MapmyIndia.

Apart from MapmyIndia, Verma worked as a design technology intern at Intel and as a summer business analyst at McKinsey & Company. He has also worked at Microsoft and Visit for a few years. In 2018, Verma founded Infidreams and joined Cholamandalam Investment and Finance Company as its board member. In April 2019, Verma became the CEO of MapmyIndia.

Yashica Vashishtha

Yashica is a Software Engineer turned Content Writer, who loves to write on social causes and expertise in writing technical stuff. She loves to watch movies and explore new places. She believes that you need to live once before you die. So experimenting with her life and career choices, she is trying to live her life to the fullest.

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Meta – A Company That Has Got Half The Population Scrolling Down Their Mobile Phones.

Leave a Comment / Story, Tech Story / By Annasha

Meta is most commonly known as Facebook Inc as it hasn’t been a year since the company was rebranded. It is one of the world’s largest technology companies apart from Google, Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft. By the end of 2021, Mark Zuckerberg announced the change of the name to Meta as it also reflects the focus of the company to building the metaverse. Facebook Inc (now Meta) was founded in 2004, and it is the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp, and many other subsidiaries. So, the company is mostly dominating the entire social media industry in most parts of the globe apart from countries where it is blocked.

About Meta

The brains behind founding Meta are Mark Zuckerberg, Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes. Meta’s headquarters are located in Menlo Park, California, US and there are more than 70,000 employees working for the company from various parts of the world. Apart from billions of active users of social media, Meta earns a good portion of its revenue from advertisement postings. One of the early and largest acquisitions by Meta was in 2012 when it bought Instagram. Meta has also acquired companies like Giphy, Mapillary, Oculus, and owns a 9.99% stake in Jio Platforms.

History of Facebook

Facebook was launched during a time when the internet eventually became famous and it was coming closer to common people in terms of availability. A social media platform for chatting, posting pictures, etc sounded very new and thus exciting, especially for the younger population. In 2012, when Mark Zuckerberg decided to file an IPO, the Facebook platform was already receiving billions of likes and comments. After Facebook becomes public, Zuckerberg was to retain 22% ownership of the company and 57% of the voting shares. So, when Facebook became a public company it was valued at $104 billion. The IPO raised for Facebook was one of the largest in the history of the US economy.

But, a massive company like Facebook that had to increase the number of shares offered due to high public demand, caught everyone’s attention. So, the regulators from Wall Street decided to investigate if there has been any leaking of information to selected clients rather than the general public. There were several accusations leading to the filing of several lawsuits some retail investors losing millions over this fury. Facebook became a part of the S&P 500 index in 2013. In 2014, the company decided to change its motto to “Move fast with stable infrastructure” from “Move fast and break things.”

Acquisitions

Facebook has acquired several companies which the company calls “talent acquisitions”. After acquiring Instagram which was one of the first acquisitions of the company, it acquired Onavo, an Israeli company in 2013. In 2014, Facebook showed its interest in buying Whatsapp for $19 billion and later that year also acquired Oculus VR for $2.3 billion. Facebook wanted to create its own stable coin cryptocurrency hence it founded Libra Networks in 2019. Meta has also mentioned that Libra is backed up by companies like Visa, PayPal, Uber, and Mastercard. In 2019, Meta acquired the game developer Beat Games and then next year announced about the 10 percent (approximate) stake acquisition of Jio Platforms, digital media of Reliance Industries. In 2020, Meta also announced the acquisition of Giphy for $400 million.

About Mark Zuckerberg

Mark Zuckerberg is one of the most famous tech entrepreneurs across the globe. He started writing software from an early age (when he was in middle school) and his dad also taught him basic programming. Zuckerberg went to Harvard and he was already famous as a programming prodigy. He started writing the code for a website early in 2004 and after one month he launched the website, “Thefacebook.” Eventually, he dropped out of college to carry on with his project. In 2017, he received an honorary degree from Harvard. Zuckerberg is currently the CEO of Meta Platforms.

Annasha

Convera Corporation – Result Of A Merger That Took Place Between Two Companies.

Leave a Comment / Story, Tech Story / By Yashica Vashishtha

We are already familiar with the famous Google and Bing search engines, and we know how amazingly those search engines have changed our lives. From finding out a good institution for studies to finding a chocolate cake recipe in seconds, everything is so easy because of them. Apart from Google and Bing, there are many more that have been consumers’ favourites for a long time, whether it is Baidu, Yahoo, or DuckDuckGo. But there are some other search engines as well that have been designed to serve a particular purpose. There are companies like Convera Corporation, making such dedicated software products for their clients. Convera Corporation is mainly known for its flagship product, RetrievalWar, which is widely used by Microsoft even after its retirement in 2007.

About Convera Corporation

Convera is a twenty years old technology company, mainly known for its corporate search engine development. The company though is today a part of Firstlight ERA and operates as NTENT today, it has made its name solely through its flagship product RetrievalWare, which the company launched as Convera.
Convera was founded in 2000, with its headquarters established in Vienna, VA, United States. The company was already a result of the merger of Intel’s Interactive Services division and Excalibur Technologies Corporation, and later, it again merged with Firstlight ERA in 2010 to form NTENT. As Convera, the company’s annual revenue for FY2009 was estimated to be 1.3 million USD, and as NTENT, the company is doing equally well.

Founding the Company

Convera Corporation was the result of a merger that took place between Intel’s Interactive Services division and Excalibur Technologies Corporation in the year 2000. The latter has been in the search engine industry for a longer time, and this experience was put to good use for Convera Corporation. On the other hand, Intel’s Interactive division’s expertise was also a boon for the company. Convera bagged Intel’s contract with the National Baseball Association for the distribution of the NBA content in the first year of its inception.
In the year 2002, Convera acquired Semantix Inc. that specialized in cross-lingual processing as well as computational linguistics technology, helping the company add more features to its products. The company had started to offer SaasS vertical search services, and its RetrievalWare became the favourite of governments of the UK, the US, Canada, and a few more countries. In fact, Microsoft still uses the same software to date.
Also, Convera’s vertical search service had attracted customers like John Wiley & Sons., Centaur Media, Incisive Media, etc. In February 2010, Convera merged with Firstlight ERA and formed NTENT, a company that still offers the web-scale semantic search for vertical applications, as Convera Corporation did as an independent company. NTENT’s headquarters is based in New York City, New York, United States, and Pat Condo is the CEO of the company, who also led Excalibur Technologies (one of the merging companies to form Convera) and Convera as the CEO.

The CEO at Convera Corporation

Patrick C. Condo was the CEO and President of Convera Corporation. In the 80s, Condo served Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), a company that distributed Excalibur Technologies’ products. Excalibur was one the companies that merged to form Convera. In the early 90s, Condo joined Excalibur, and in five years, he became the CEO and President of Excalibur. While developing a SaaS search platform in partnership with Intel, in 2000, Excalibur and Intel’s interactive media division had a merger and Condo became the CEO of the newly formed Convera Corporation. After ten years in the business, Convera then merged with NTENT, and Condo held the CEO position at NTENT as well.

Yashica Vashishtha

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