“CodeWorks” grad rolling out new package of services
By Tom Ballard, Chief Alliance Officer, PYA
“The accelerator was a huge difference for us,” Mik Bertolli, Chief Scientific Officer at Avrio Analytics, says of the recently concluded 12-week “CodeWorks” program for start-ups operated by the Knoxville Entrepreneur Center.
Now, just a few months since graduating with five other start-ups, the company has completed its initial Beta testing with plans to launch a second Beta and start selling services in the second quarter of 2016.
We sat down recently with Bertolli and Alicia Caputo, Avrio’s Chief Executive Officer. The former started in the program as the sole representative of the company that was initially named Sigmatec Analytics. Caputo, who knew Bertolli, joined midway through the accelerator.
“We have different skill sets plus having a partner reduces the individual workload and stress,” Bertolli says. “We started working together as a result of the accelerator.”
He earned his Doctorate in Physics from the University of Tennessee where the core idea rose out of his thesis.
“I had some sense that this could be used more broadly,” Bertolli says.
Caputo brings strong business skills to the team in addition to experience working with “large companies that are not afraid of data analytics,” she says. Those companies include Merrill Lynch, Smith Barney and Northwestern Mutual.
Today, they are building a company that delivers insightful value to other enterprises through predictive analytics. As Bertolli and Caputo describe Avrio Analytics, it is “taking control of your tomorrow by seeing the effects of your decisions before you take them.”
Their current thinking when they start offering services calls for two price options – $199 per month for the base package (100 MB per data set which is 500,000 data points) and $995 per month for the enterprise package (one GB per data set which is five million data points).
In addition to the two product offerings, the Avrio Analytics team will also be offering more customized services for clients.
As they developed and pilot-tested their Beta version, a key advisor has been Bob Bradley of Knoxville’s NewsBreak Media Networks and his partner, Brian Nelson.
“Their input has been most beneficial,” Caputo said.
The initial sector of focus for the Beta testing has been marketing firms.
“They have budget availability and they need the service,” Bertolli says, adding, “We will be translating results in a way that is more understandable for them.”
While the initial focus is marketing companies, other industry sectors are likely targets in the future.
“The platform is data agnostic,” Bertolli says.
The team is also planning a fundraising campaign with a target of $500,000.
