Los Angeles, October 28, 2014 — uSamp, the technology leader in providing targeted audiences for global consumer and business insights, today announced the promotion of Scott Stein to vice president, research solutions. Stein will manage the North American sales team and is responsible for growing the Company’s sample business, including automation and mobile solutions within key accounts in the market research space. He will report directly to Ted Bouzakis, executive vice president and head of North American sales.

The Company today also announced the appointment of Alan Mavretish, senior director, research solutions and the return of Scott Jones as senior director, retail solutions.

“With the growing market demand for uSamp’s quality sample and services, we are thrilled to promote Scott Stein,” said Bouzakis. “We’re also excited to further expand our sales team with the return of Scott Jones and the arrival of Alan Mavretish. These highly skilled market research executives each possess a strong track record selling online technologies and quantitative data collection solutions.”

Stein was appointed area vice president, survey solutions upon joining uSamp in 2012, and spearheaded the rapid growth of the Midwest territory while managing the central region team. Stein started in the industry nearly ten years ago with Greenfield Online, and has held various roles, including senior director, global accounts and area vice president, client development. Stein is a graduate of Michigan State University where he earned two Bachelor of Arts degrees in advertising and studio arts.

Alan Mavretish joins uSamp from M3 Global Research, where he served as vice president, market research sales. Prior to M3, he was vice president of client development at itracks, a global data collection supplier and pioneer in online qualitative platforms. Mavretish earned his Bachelor of Science in business administration from Duquesne University. He is a member of the MRA, PMRG and American Marketing Association, formerly serving two terms as vice president of membership for the Pittsburgh chapter.

Scott Jones returns to uSamp as senior director of retail solutions, responsible for managing the Company’s existing wholesale partnerships, as well as growing and expanding its wholesale footprint. Jones initially joined the Company as one of the first uSamp employees in 2008 focusing on wholesale accounts as account executive and then as director of wholesale solutions. He previously served as account executive with Greenfield Online, where he worked with major retail accounts as well as outside sample suppliers.

About uSamp

uSamp is the technology leader in market research providing automation, mobile and global sample and insight solutions for marketers. Based in Los Angeles, with five offices in the United States, Europe and Asia, uSamp has been recognized in Inc.’s 500|5000 exclusive ranking of the nation’s fastest-growing private companies. For more information visit www.usamp.com.

Welcome to the 2014 Talkin’ Cloud 100 ranking the world’s top cloud service providers, aggregators, brokers and more. You’ll see some familiar names on this year’s list, including some that have been on the list before and some that are making their debut in 2014’s list. One thing they all have in common: They’ve been successful in the business of cloud computing.

This is your home page to access all things important about the 2014 list. You will see links to the rankings below. If you click on the company names on the list you will be taken to a page with more information about that particular company including, if applicable, links to all the company’s social media feeds, plus a list of all the coverage we’ve done of that particular company over the years at Talkin’ Cloud.

Talkin’ Cloud 100 – Top 76 to 100 companies

Talkin’ Cloud 100 – Top 51 to 75 companies

Talkin’ Cloud 100 – Top 26 to 50 companies

Talkin’ Cloud 100 – Top 1 to 25 companies

Companies on the Talkin’ Cloud 100 are ranked based on an internal formula that puts a heavy weighting on recurring cloud revenues. Information about metrics used to calculate these results came from surveys of cloud companies and research on the cloud revenues of publicly held companies both from public documents and other methods.

A full copy of the PDF report, which includes trends for the year, vertical market information and more can be downloaded from here (free site registration required).

SwiftStack, the leader in software-defined storage for the cloud, today announced that it closed $16 million in funding from both new and existing investors to rapidly scale its efforts to enable massive storage scalability for the enterprise simply and affordably. The Series B round was led with a substantial investment from OpenView Venture Partners as well as existing investors Mayfield Fund, Storm Ventures and UMC Capital. The new resources will be used to expand go-to-market and customer engagement efforts. With this $16 million investment, SwiftStack has now raised a total of $23.6 million.

IRVINE, CA – October 1st, 2014 – Kareo Inc., the leading provider of cloud-based medical office software and services for small medical practices, announced today that the Orange County Business Journal has named it one of the fastest-growing midsize private companies in the region. Kareo ranked 16th out of 73 overall and was identified as the No.1 fastest growing software company among large and mid-sized companies.

“We are pleased to be recognized alongside so many dynamic companies in the tech hub of Orange County,” says Dan Rodrigues, CEO and founder of Kareo. “Our year-over-year growth is a testament to the heightened need for technology tailored to the needs of small practices, and as we head into 2015, Kareo is committed to further innovating our software and services to aid physicians in delivering outstanding care.”

Over the past two years, Kareo has realized a 157.5 percent increase in revenue and has added more than 100 employees to its Orange County office to support the increased demand for its solutions and services. The company expects to continue expanding its employee base within its offices across the U.S. to further its role as a trusted advisor for small medical practices nationwide. Kareo serves more than 25,000 healthcare providers with its integrated EHR, practice management and billing services platform, and is adding more than 500 new provider customers each month.

The Orange County Business Journal’s “Fastest-Growing Private Companies” list is featured in the journal’s September 22 issue. To qualify for recognition on this list, companies had to be privately-owned and have experienced minimum sales of $300,000 from June 2012 to June 2014.

About Kareo

Kareo is the only cloud-based medical office software and services platform purpose-built for small practices. At Kareo, we believe that, with the right tools and support, small practices can do big things. We offer an integrated solution of products and services designed to help physicians get paid faster, run their business smarter, and provide better care. Our practice management software, billing services, and free, award-winning fully certified EHR help more than 25,000 medical providers more efficiently manage the business and clinical sides of their practice. Kareo has received extensive industry recognition, including the Deloitte Technology Fast 500, Inc. 500/5000, Forbes Top 100 Most Promising Companies, and Black Book #1 Integrated EHR, Practice Management and Billing Vendor. Headquartered in Irvine, California, the Kareo mission is to help providers spend their time focused on patients, not paperwork. For more information, visit www.kareo.com.

Two years ago, Pete Gombert decided that the Boise marketing firm he founded in 2004, Balihoo, was absorbing too much of his life. He’d logged long hours building his startup into a 75-employee firm with national clients such as Wendy’s and New Balance. Revenues were growing by more than 20 percent per year.

Gombert notified his board that he was phasing himself out as CEO. That gradual process was made public with Gombert’s Sept. 10 post on his LinkedIn account, “Why I left the job it took me 10 years to create.”

Gombert wrote that the company had grown larger than he’d dreamed in 2004. He said he’d intended to sell Balihoo several years after its founding, but plans changed and he rededicated himself to keeping the company afloat during the Great Recession at the expense of his wife and two children, who are now 14 and 12.

“Balihoo got the best of me, and my family got what was left over,” he wrote. “… I will have the chance to build another great company, but I will never again have a chance to raise my kids and be fully present while doing so.”

Gombert started the company in 2004 with $200,000 of his own money. At that time, the company’s product was a search engine allowing businesses to find advertising venues. After receiving $1.5 million in venture capital in 2007 and another $4 million in early 2008, the recession hit, and many of Balihoo’s clients went belly-up.

In response, Gombert cut staff from 75 to 40 and decided to abandon the search engine – the fruit of the company’s first four years – and refocus on writing the kind of ad automation software that has returned the company to growth.

The company raised another $5 million in funding in 2012. Gombert started looking to expand his company’s presence east of Boise.

Too many balls were in the air for Gombert to leave. The company was launching a new platform that expanded the company’s marketing from traditional outlets into the digital realm, allowing national clients to launch campaigns in each of their local markets. The company’s post-search engine software allows clients such as Aflac, which has 60,000 insurance agents spread across the country, to perform marketing specific to each agent in a local market using cloud-based tools that automate local email and direct-mailing campaigns and buying banner ads viewed by Web users nearby.

The company was also preparing to create a home for some Chicago-based employees by opening an office. It opened last month.

The biggest piece of the transition was replacing Gombert. Balihoo found its new CEO in Dave Oliveira. Oliveira had been at Mediaocean, a 750-employee company based in New York City that he says is the largest provider of software solutions for advertising agencies. Oliveira oversaw 50 employees in a division called mbuy.com, which worked with selling media to ad agencies.

Previously, Oliveira worked for five years at Yahoo!, where he sold online ads.

Oliveira said he took the Balihoo CEO job because he was intrigued by the company’s direction.

“A software platform to allow local automation was interesting to me,” he says. “Pete and I were looking at a partnership, and that’s how we got to know each other.”

The Chicago office will place Balihoo closer to many of its clients and to Starcom MediaVest Group, a new partner and the largest media buyer in the country, Oliveira says. Up to a dozen employees will work in the Chicago office. Oliveira, who was living in Chicago, said he’ll split time but spend most of his time in Boise.

“The Chicago office is a natural progression, but we’re focused on Boise,” Oliveira says. “The majority of our employees live in Boise, and that will continue to be the case. We have five or six positions open in Boise. Boise is still really important.”

Gombert remains involved in the business as board chairman. He’s on a year-long trip around the world with his family and was recently in a small English town near Oxford.

You can follow his adventures at takingalap.com/ourjourney.

 

IRVINE, CA – October 22, 2014 – Kareo Inc., the leading provider of cloud-based medical office software and services for small medical practices, announced today that it has been named as a top 50 EHR software vendor by Medical Economics. In an exclusive complete and ambulatory EHR solution as well as current revenue estimates.

“It’s gratifying to be recognized as a top 50 EHR vendor by Medical Economics,” said Dan Rodrigues, CEO and founder of Kareo. “Today more private practice providers and managers recognize that technology and technology-enabled services are the key to long-term practice viability and quality care delivery. With our integrated EHR, practice management and billing services platform, we are well positioned to service their needs today and as their requirements evolve in the future.”

Today’s announcement follows another top ranking for Kareo EHR earlier this year. In May, Brown-Wilson’s Black Book Rankings Survey ranked Kareo as the top integrated electronic health records (EHR), practice management (PM), and revenue cycle management (RCM) software vendor. Black Book found that private practices are increasingly looking to integrate an EHR with a practice management or outsourced billing service with the same vendor. In the Black Book survey, Kareo was the only company to receive a top 4 ranking in every one of the 18 evaluation criteria measured, achieving the top spot in 12 of 18. As a free, complete, and fully certified EHR, Kareo is well positioned to support the needs of the independent practice. Both later adopters of technology and physicians planning to switch EHR vendors describe Kareo’s functionality and mobile-friendly interface as ideal for their needs.

The Medical Economics EHR project started in spring 2014 and concluded on August 28, 2014. Companies offering complete, ambulatory EHR systems were given the opportunity to report company data by filling out a Medical Economics survey. Editors evaluated companies based on survey responses and other criteria. The Top 50 is listed in alphabetical order.

About Kareo

Kareo is the only cloud-based medical office software and services platform purpose-built for small practices. At Kareo, we believe that, with the right tools and support, small practices can do big things. We offer an integrated solution of products and services designed to help physicians get paid faster, run their business smarter, and provide better care. Our practice management software, billing services, and free, award-winning fully certified EHR help more than 25,000 medical providers more efficiently manage the business and clinical sides of their practice. Kareo has received extensive industry recognition, including the Deloitte Technology Fast 500, Inc. 500/5000, Forbes Top 100 Most Promising Companies, and Black Book #1 Integrated EHR, Practice Management and Billing Vendor. Headquartered in Irvine, California, the Kareo mission is to help providers spend their time focused on patients, not paperwork. For more information, visit www.kareo.com.

Los Angeles, October 21, 2014 – uSamp, the technology leader in providing targeted audiences for global consumer and business insights, today announced the promotion of marketing veteran Andy Jolls to the post of chief marketing officer. Jolls will oversee the marketing efforts for the Company’s brands, including uSamp, Instant.ly and iPoll, and functions including corporate marketing, demand generation and communications.

“Andy is constantly pushing to create breakthrough marketing and engage with our clients in new ways,” Alan Gould, CEO, uSamp said. “Andy led our team in repositioning our core business around guaranteed quality and technology leadership. He has also been instrumental in the launch and continuing expansion of the Instant.ly platform, which currently includes Instant.ly Concept Test™ and Instant.ly Survey Tool™,” Gould said.

Jolls, 48, was appointed senior vice president of global marketing communications upon joining the Company in 2013. He held the same role at Cooking.com in 2011. Jolls, who has spent 25 years in marketing, business, and general management roles, previously served as general manager, vice president at FICO. Earlier in his career, he worked at Move.com, Hewlett Packard and Apple Computer, Inc. Jolls earned an MBA at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and a BA in Economics from the University of Michigan.

About Instant.ly

Instant.ly™ is the world’s first on-demand consumer insights platform, providing brands with instant on-demand access to targetable consumers. The Instant.ly portfolio is comprised of Instant.ly Survey Tool™ for survey authoring and fielding, and Instant.ly Concept Test™ for early-stage concept screening. With Instant.ly, brand managers can collect quantifiable customer feedback from the web, mobile devices and social networks. Powerful enough to be used by Fortune 500 companies, and intuitive enough to be used by tens of thousands of small businesses, Instant.ly gives companies of all sizes a single platform — to build, promote and analyze the voice of the customer — when, where and how they need it. For more information visit www.instant.ly/.

About uSamp

uSamp is the technology leader in market research providing automation, mobile and global sample and insight solutions for marketers. Based in Los Angeles, with five offices in the United States, Europe and Asia, uSamp has been recognized in Inc.’s 500|5000 exclusive ranking of the nation’s fastest-growing private companies. For more information visit www.usamp.com.

Chelmsford, Mass. (PRWEB) October 21, 2014

Intronis, Inc., a provider of world-class backup and data protection solutions for the IT channel, today announced that Jasmine Lombardi, Vice President, Partner Success, has been named a finalist in the “Female Executive of the Year” category in the 11th annual Stevie® Awards for Women in Business. Lombardi was selected from over 1,200 entries submitted by organizations and individuals around the world.

As Vice President of Partner Success at Intronis, Lombardi manages all partner-facing functions for the company, leading the new “Partner Success” team. Among her day-to-day responsibilities are guiding Intronis’ efforts around partner support and working to provide new tools and services designed to increase channel partners’ success. Lombardi is also responsible for supporting and developing the Intronis channel infrastructure in China. Her efforts have directly resulted in improving the company’s Net Promoter Score among its partners, increasing channel satisfaction, and nurturing a more loyal and active partner community. Under her leadership, the team has consistently surpassed customer satisfaction goals.

“We are very proud of Jasmine’s accomplishments and delighted that she has been recognized for her leadership and professional success,” said Intronis CEO Rick Faulk. “She has worked hard to be where she is today and continues to serve as a role model to her team, our channel partners, and young women around the globe. Jasmine is always working to empower others to be more successful, and we are truly fortunate to have her on our executive team.”

The Stevie Awards for Women in Business honor women executives, entrepreneurs, employees and the companies they run worldwide. The Stevie Awards have been hailed as the world’s premier business awards.

Gold, Silver and Bronze Stevie Award winners will be announced during a gala event at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York on Friday, November 14. Nominated women executives and entrepreneurs from the U.S.A. and several other countries are expected to attend. The event will be broadcast live on radio in the U.S.A. (and simulcast worldwide) by Biz Talk Radio and taped for a later television broadcast.

Finalists were chosen by more than 100 business professionals worldwide during preliminary judging. Members of five final judging committees will determine the Gold, Silver and Bronze Stevie Award placements from among the Finalists during final judging October 20-29.

“Every year we receive the most amazing and inspiring stories of achievement from women-owned and –run organizations around the world,” said Michael Gallagher, founder and president of the Stevie Awards. “The first-round judges have told us how delighted they are with this year’s field of Finalists. We’re looking forward to recognizing them in New York on November 14.”

Details about the Stevie Awards for Women in Business and the list of Finalists in all categories are available at http://www.StevieAwards.com/Women.

About Intronis

Intronis offers world-class data protection solutions to the IT channel. The Intronis ECHOplatform securely protects physical and virtual data with native support for physical imaging, VMware, Hyper-V, Exchange, and SQL, all through a re-brandable central management console that integrates with major RMM and PSA tools. Offered with a simple fixed storage price for “Unlimited Cloud, Unlimited Local storage,” IT service providers are able to rapidly grow revenue and scale profit. In 2014, the company was recognized as a “Best Channel Vendor” by Business Solutions Magazine and one of the “Top 100 Cloud Computing Vendors” and “Top 20 Coolest Cloud Storage Vendors” by CRN Magazine. Learn more at http://www.intronis.com.

About The Stevie Awards

Stevie Awards are conferred in six programs: the Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards, the German Stevie Awards, the American Business Awards, the International Business Awards, the Stevie Awards for Women in Business, and the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service. Honoring organizations of all types and sizes and the people behind them, the Stevies recognize outstanding performances in the workplace worldwide. Learn more about the Stevie Awards at http://www.StevieAwards.com.