ACG Austin/San Antonio Salutes Our 2021 Growth Award Finalists & Winners!

Over $100 Million Category

AmeriVet

Winner - Over $100 million category

AmeriVet partners with experienced, established veterinarians looking to adapt and grow their practices and provides best-in-class operational resources to support their success.

When 2020 stopped the world in its tracks, AmeriVet continued to support its partner practices, grow its revenue, and broaden its portfolio – partnering with an additional 20 hospitals. In 2020 alone, AmeriVet and its partner practices generated $143 million in revenue, up $59 million from the previous year. AmeriVet credits its strong leadership and hardworking partner practices and team members for its continued growth and success.

Refusing to let COVID-19 disrupt its commitment to its mission, and to keep pace with rapid growth, AmeriVet expanded its corporate team by 70% and even expanded into a new, larger corporate office – featuring a dog friendly area and a relaxation room.

Over the past year, AmeriVet has been named the 2021 Business of the Year, Fast Track Award Winner, and a Best Place to Work by the San Antonio Business Journal.

Arrive Logistics

Finalist - Over $100 million category

Co-founded in July 2014 by Matt Pyatt and Eric Dunigan, Arrive Logistics is one of the fastest-growing freight brokerages in the nation, with exponential growth in both size and revenue yearly since its founding. Arrive’s team brings a unique sense of grit and determination to their work—focusing on the distinct needs of shippers and carriers, and working to exceed their expectations every day with unparalleled service, seamless tech capabilities, and custom solutions. With headquarters in Austin, TX, and an office in Chicago, IL Arrive has been recognized by Inc. as both a Best Workplace and an Inc. 5000 Fastest-Growing Private Company. 

Open Mortgage

Finalist - $10 - $25 million category

Headquartered in Austin, Open Mortgage is a national multi-channel mortgage company dedicated to empowering the dream of homeownership through a better mortgage experience. Offering loans for all types of home purchases, ranging from first-time buyers and investors to clients looking to refinance or explore reverse mortgage options, Open Mortgage is committed to providing unparalleled support, exceptional service, and communication and personal partnerships built on trust. The company, which was founded in 2003 by CEO Scott Gordon, has been marked with exceptional growth. In 2020, amidst record-low interest rates and surging homeowner loan adoption, Open Mortgage achieved total loan volume production of $1.68 billion and 7,543 units, more than double the volume and nearly double the units of 2018.

The business has been built on providing personalized attention, transparent communications, innovation, and investments in technology designed to enhance and personalize the mortgage experience for our clients across the country. As an accomplished lender of traditional loans and a top-10 reverse mortgage lender, Open Mortgage operates 68 retail branches, employs more than 400 employees, and utilizes a wide network of trusted third-party originators and vendor partners.

Winner - Spotlight Award for Community Impact & Assistance

Mobile Loaves & Fishes

Mobile Loaves & Fishes is a social outreach ministry that has been empowering communities into a lifestyle of service with the homeless for more than two decades. Founded in 1998, MLF began when founder and CEO Alan Graham and five friends boldly answered God’s call to “love your neighbor” by delivering meals from the back of a minivan to men and women living on the streets of Austin. Today, with the support of tens of thousands of volunteers, Mobile Loaves & Fishes is the largest prepared feeding program to the homeless in Central Texas and has spawned similar food truck programs in other cities across the country.

Complementing its truck ministry, Mobile Loaves & Fishes is also the visionary behind Austin’s innovative Community First Village—a 51-acre master planned development that provides affordable, permanent housing and a supportive community for the chronically homeless in Central Texas. Additionally, Mobile Loaves & Fishes’ Community Works program provides micro-enterprise opportunities that enable formerly homeless men and women to earn a dignified income, develop new skills and cultivate enduring relationships as they take part in a restorative journey home.

$25 to $100 Million Category

Dura Software

Winner -$25 to $100 Million Category

Private Equity firms have discovered the software space. These types of buyers buy, improve, and flip software assets every few years. This has been a great outcome for some sellers, but for an even greater number of companies, PE is not a fit.

Where can a seller find a buyer and operator to be a great long-term steward of their company, employees, and customers?

There wasn’t an answer until Dura Software.

If you’ve put your heart and soul into building a company, but are ready for a new chapter, Dura is a home for your business that ensures employees, customers, and partners to thrive after you’ve moved on.

They are a team of operational experts who’ve worked in big companies like Rackspace, Dell, BEA/WebLogic, & RSA, and in the real world, too. They are deep thinkers on business and think differently.

Epiphany Dermatology

Finalist - $25 - $100 million category

What began as a single location in the Heart of Texas in Waco has expanded to 64 locations across 11 states in just seven years.

Epiphany Dermatology, under the direction of CEO and co-founder Gheorghe Pusta , first expanded in Central Texas through both organic growth and acquisitions with the mission to provide access to the best dermatologic care for all patients nationwide, regardless of financial status, insurance type, or scheduling needs.

With financial backing in 2016 of private equity group, CI Capital, Epiphany moved their headquarters to Austin, TX and began expanding in earnest. From there, they added 25 new locations in just two years!

Without a strong effort of the seasoned administrative team, physicians from the finest dermatology training programs in the country, and the medical support staff, Epiphany’s growth story could not have been achieved.

Epiphany is a values-based organization that strongly believes in the core values of integrity and common sense, amongst others. They are determined to be the leading destination for exceptional dermatologists and to raise the standard of dermatology care by making clinical excellence accessible to all patients, promptly and in a warm and inviting environment.

Fluence Bioengineering

Finalist - $25 - $100 million category

Fluence by OSRAM creates powerful and energy-efficient LED lighting solutions for commercial crop production and research applications. Since the company’s earliest days, its mission has been to improve the interaction between light and life to yield a healthier and more sustainable world. Ask anyone at the company: Fluence offers more than just lights. Led by science, Fluence delivers state-of-the-art lighting solutions and growing best practices that maximize a grower’s results. The company’s team of horticulture specialists leverages its impressive pedigree of cultivation expertise to service the market with a customer-first passion. Since the company’s acquisition by OSRAM in 2018, Fluence has grown its employee base to more than 200 staff members globally, established its EMEA headquarters in Rotterdam, Netherlands, appointed key leaders in horticulture lighting and design, installed fixtures across approximately 3.4 million square feet of cannabis canopy, and enabled tens of millions of pounds of food production throughout the world. Whether serving customers like Bowery Farming—who grow fresh produce in areas that otherwise wouldn’t have access—or the hundreds of cannabis cultivators serving patients with a variety of ailments throughout the world, Fluence designs lighting solutions that help the world grow smarter. Fluence global headquarters are based in Austin, Texas.

Winner - Spotlight Award for Innovation

Homeward

Buying a home should be an exciting milestone. But all too often, it’s stressful, especially in a competitive market or when you’re buying and selling at the same time. So Homeward redesigned the homebuying experience. Homeward is a fast-paced real estate startup that empowers agents to help homebuyers buy with cash. They buy homes on behalf of their partners’ clients with Homeward’s cash, then the client buys the home back from Homeward. 

Founder and CEO Tim Heyl, a 10-year industry veteran and owner of one of the fastest-growing agent teams in the country, started Homeward in 2018. In fact, he bought their first customer’s home with his own life savings. Today Homeward offers two services — Buy with cash and Buy before you sell — in Texas, Colorado, and Georgia. 

Homeward raised more than $160MM in equity capital from top-tier venture investors, including Norwest, Blackstone Alternative Asset Management, Adams Street, Javelin, and LiveOak. Their leadership team includes experts from the real estate, mortgage, and technology industries.

$10 to $25 Million Category

SpyCloud

Winner - $10 - $25 million category

SpyCloud protects consumers, employees, suppliers, and citizens globally from the dangers of compromised identity. Its solutions make breached information actionable to prevent fraud, enabling a proactive, automated response that negates the value of stolen data before it can be used to cause harm. Its data, over 135 billion recovered breach assets, also powers many popular dark web monitoring and identity theft protection offerings. 

 

Founded in 2016, SpyCloud completed a $30 million Series C round in 2020. The Executive Team is comprised of: Co-Founders, Ted Ross, David Endler & Alen Puzic, CFO- Jennifer Parker-Snider and Chief Revenue Officer, Len Crosson. In the last 5 years the company has expanded its customer base to over 300 businesses that include four of the ten largest global enterprises, mid-size companies, and government agencies around the world. Headquartered in Austin, TX, SpyCloud is home to over 100 cybersecurity experts who aim to make the internet a safer place.

 

HHS Government Services

Finalist - $10 - $25 million category

HHS was founded in 1975 as a housekeeping support service provider for hospitals. Today, HHS serves more than 750 partner organizations while employing over 18,000 team members across the United States and internationally. As the organization has grown, it has diversified its service offerings and has extended its reach to the aviation, government, healthcare, resort, and senior living industries.  

In 2016, HHS began its government division, HHS Government Services, to provide support services to the United States government. The first two years of this new business endeavor focused on developing strategies, building relationships, and laying a foundation for the division. With the addition of key leaders, HHS Government Services obtained its first operations and maintenance contract in 2018 at Yokota Air Base in Japan. Shortly after, they expanded to Osan Air Base in South Korea.  

HHS Government Services has established itself as a leader within the government sector, winning key Multiple Award Task Order Contracts. These awards have allowed the organization to bid on several larger contracts at Defense Department hospitals, clinics, research laboratories, and other medical treatment facilities. Today, HHS Government Services provides housekeeping and operations and maintenance support services at 35 bases across three countries.  

From 2019 to 2020, HHS Government Services saw an 89% revenue increase. As the division continues to grow at a rapid pace, it is forecasted to earn 28.2 million dollars in revenue in 2021 — a 58.7% increase from the previous year.

woom bikes USA

Finalist - $10 - $25 million category

woom is a globally-acclaimed kids' bicycle company, originally founded in Austria in 2013, with its North American headquarters located in Austin, TX. The brand was brought to the United States by Mathias Ihlenfeld in 2014, one year after woom had been founded in a tiny garage in Vienna, Austria, by Mathias's brother Marcus and his business partner Christian Bezdeka. 

woom USA quickly established itself as a digitally native brand, developing direct-to-consumer expertise and serving its customers through a personal relationship with the brand. In 2020, woom USA was recognized for the second year in a row by Inc. 5000 as one of the fastest-growing privately held companies in the US, with a stunning three-year growth rate of 742%. woom has disrupted the kids' bike category in North America and is the largest and fastest-growing direct-to-consumer brand in the space.

Its award-winning bikes include options that are 40% lighter than conventional kids' bikes, making woom bikes the lightest series-production kids' bikes in the world. 90% of the components on woom bikes are specifically designed for kids and are manufactured with the highest quality materials.

Winner - Spotlight Award for Job Creation

Triumvira Immunologics

Triumvira Immunologics, Inc., is a clinical-stage therapeutics company developing next-generation immunotherapies to treat patients with cancer. These novel cancer therapies are based on a specific class of immune cells, called T cells, which – once empowered with the company’s proprietary T-cell Antigen Coupler (or TAC) technology – seek out and destroy tumor cells. The TAC technology is designed to activate these T cells naturally for maximal, controlled and safe anti-tumor responses. It has the potential to address a wide range of liquid and solid tumors. Triumvira’s lead product is currently being tested in an ongoing Phase I/II clinical cancer trial in patients overexpressing the HER2 oncogene.  There are several other therapies in development that are anticipated to reach the clinic in 2022 and after. 

Triumvira is led by Dr. Paul Lammers, CEO & President, and an experienced management team with operational, clinic, and product development expertise. Spanning the United States and Canada, the company is headquartered in Austin, Texas and has research facilities in Hamilton, Ontario. 

Since the beginning of Paul Lammers’ leadership in 2018, the company has grown from 4 to 46 employees with 32 of these added in 2020 and 2021. The majority of the new hires have been scientists, mostly with extensive biology or T cell manufacturing backgrounds. The company also extended its team with people in finance, accounting, and business development.

$5 to $10 Million Category

Atmosphere

Winner - $5 to $10 million category

Atmosphere is the world's first streaming TV service for businesses, offering over 50 audio-optional TV channels suitable for every business and mood. 

In a world dominated by linear cable TV designed for at-home viewing, Atmosphere fills a void by providing programming that doesn’t require audio to be enjoyed. Muted and closed-captioned talking heads, news and reality TV is no way to watch TV in businesses.

Atmosphere is powered by Apple TV and includes an easy-to-use digital signage manager, allowing business owners to advertise promotions & special offers, and to grow their relationship with their customers. 

Atmosphere has helped over 13,000 business owners increase their dwell time, reduce perceived wait time and save on their monthly cable costs.

Co-founded by brothers Leo and John Resig, Atmosphere was incubated under their company Chive Media Group and spun off in 2019. Since then, the company’s headcount has tripled year over year, with 175 employees as of July of 2021.

Tenfold

Finalist - $5 to $10 million category

Tenfold is the leading Integration Platform as a Service for the contact center. Tenfold is expanding its capabilities to provide a comprehensive iPaaS covering voice, messaging, digital channels, AI and Data Analytics. This expansion will help Tenfold grow its OEM partnerships across communications and business application vendors as well as its fortune-500 client base. These technologies enable enterprises to create a world class customer experience by putting the full array of interaction channels and data in front of the agent at the moment of interaction. We are already seeing the impact as our customers continue to reinvest in Tenfold generating market leading NDR over 110% and increasing average customer size and contract lengths by more than 2x. Our customers are doubling down on Tenfold to be the platform to make our contact center agents smarter by bringing together the most critical information at their fingertips.

Venturi Private Wealth

Finalist - $5 to $10 million category

Venturi Wealth Management is an independent, fee-only private wealth management firm founded in Austin. Russ Norwood and George Clark founded Venturi after successful careers with Merrill Lynch Private Banking and Investment Group in Austin. They manage the complexities of the entrepreneur’s financial life so that he or she can focus on the things that matter most.

The firm has become one of the fastest growing independent wealth management firms in the region. Doubling in size since 2017, Venturi has 27 full-time employees, manages nearly $2 billion and has a second office in Oklahoma City. Accolades include Financial Times “Top 300 Registered Investment Adviser” 2017-2020, Barron’s, “Top 1000 Investment Advisors in the United States,” 2009 – 2015 and Forbes Best In State Advisors.

Each of Venturi’s executive team had successful careers with Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs and Deloitte and bring unique perspectives and disciplines to the firm.  

The private investment arm utilizes a “farm to table” approach to investing, sourcing local and regional investment opportunities for clients in the middle markets.  

The firm is committed to giving back to the community.  Venturi has raised hundreds of thousands for Honor Flight Austin and continues to partner with UTs wealth management program.

Venturi Private Wealth - Guiding Your Present. Securing Your Future.

Winner - Spotlight Award for Diversity & Inclusion

data.world

data.world makes it easy for everyone—not just data experts—to get clear, accurate, and fast answers to any business question. Its data catalog maps your company’s data to familiar and consistent business concepts, creating a unified body of knowledge anyone can find, understand, and use. With customers including the Associated Press, WPP, Prologis, and Wunderman Thompson, the company’s mission is to create the most meaningful, collaborative, and abundant data resource in the world. data.world was founded in 2015 and launched in 2016. It is an Austin-based Certified B Corporation and public benefit corporation and home to the world’s largest collaborative open data community, which is free and open to the public. The free community is where people around the world discover interesting data, share their analysis, and team up on everything from COVID-19 statistic tracking to award-winning data journalism. data.world is committed to being a part of the drive for diversity in the technology space, and supports social equality through a variety of programs. data.world is the world’s largest collaborative data community and believes that their organization should represent the very diverse nature of the community they serve and the client  base they target.  data.world believes that a diverse and actively inclusive environment leads to the most creative discussions, ideas, and outcomes, and continues to be a voice in the diversity, equity, and inclusion conversation. data.world is currently 56% female and minority employees as a result of their efforts to build a highly diverse team.

Triumvira is led by Dr. Paul Lammers, CEO & President, and an experienced management team with operational, clinic, and product development expertise. Spanning the United States and Canada, the company is headquartered in Austin, Texas and has research facilities in Hamilton, Ontario. 

Since the beginning of Paul Lammers’ leadership in 2018, the company has grown from 4 to 46 employees with 32 of these added in 2020 and 2021. The majority of the new hires have been scientists, mostly with extensive biology or T cell manufacturing backgrounds. The company also extended its team with people in finance, accounting, and business development.