Elemental’s Growth Recognized by the Oregon Entrepreneurial Community

Submitted by Lisa on September 22, 2011 - 16:18

Elemental was proud and humbled to bring home two Tom Holce Entrepreneurship Awards from the OEN award ceremony held last night at the Portland Hilton. We were honored first as the winner in the Working Capital Stage Company category and again when Elemental’s CEO, Sam Blackman, was recognized in the Individual Achievement category for his leadership in guiding the remarkable growth and success of the company he co-founded five years ago. 

Sam Blackman

In Sam's words, “we are proud of the growth our company has achieved over the past year and of the positive contribution we’ve made to our state’s economic development. At the same time, we believe our progress thus far is just the foundation and the real work of building a great firm is just beginning. We are more excited than ever by the opportunities we anticipate in the coming months and years, and it’s an honor to garner such strong support from the Oregon entrepreneurial community.”   

Meet Kevin O’Hara: Elemental’s Newest Board Member

Submitted by Whitney on January 24, 2011 - 18:01

Kevin O'HaraAs media multiplies, so does the Elemental leadership team. Today, Elemental welcomes Kevin O’Hara to its board of directors. Kevin is a serial entrepreneur and seasoned executive with more than twenty years of leadership experience, ten of which came during his time as co-founder and president of Level 3 Communications, a leading provider of fiber-based communication services and one of the world's largest content delivery networks.

During his tenure with Level 3, Kevin set the company on the fast track to success by investing heavily in its infrastructure. As a result, Level 3 is now one of the most sophisticated communications companies in the world. Kevin’s leadership resulted in many successful investments to give Level 3 the momentum it needed to grow. Under Kevin’s watch, Level 3 solidified its position as one of the largest IP transit networks in North America and Europe.

Kevin brings phenomenal operating experience to the Elemental board with specific expertise in networking and IP video delivery. He was one of the first employees at Metropolitan Fiber Systems (MFS), which was acquired by Worldcom in 1996 for $14.5 billion. 

When he’s is not growing startups into billion dollar enterprises, Kevin spends much of his time outdoors: skiing, hiking, and biking in the mountains of Colorado and beyond. Elemental is pleased to have an individual with Kevin's experience taking a seat on our board. 

Joining Fellow Innovators at the GPU Technology Conference

Submitted by Whitney on September 21, 2010 - 10:29

GPU TEchnology Conference LogoPioneering companies from around the world are attending NVIDIA’s annual GPU Technology Conference to showcase cutting-edge technologies designed around graphics processing units (GPUs). The event kicks off today and Sam Blackman, Elemental’s CEO, will participate in the Emerging Companies Summit as a CEO on Stage speaker, discussing Elemental’s rapid expansion and taking questions from conference attendees.

Elemental stays in-step with GPU technology advancements in order to provide the best video processing solutions available. Coincident with the GPU Technology Conference in San Jose, California, Elemental today announced support for the latest generation of GPUs from NVIDIA, based on NVIDIA Fermi architecture. Fermi is the most advanced GPU computing platform NVIDIA has developed to date; its massively parallel architecture enables Elemental to process and deliver more video to more screens, better and faster than ever before. Elemental’s upcoming software releases, Elemental Server 1.4 and Elemental Live 1.1, both offer support for Fermi to significantly improve video conversion tasks and boost performance for broadcast and multi-screen adaptive video delivery applications.

Elemental Perspective: Startup seedlings or clearcutting in Silicon Forest?

Submitted by Sam on May 27, 2010 - 11:41

Sam Blackman mugshot

Oregon got some sad news last week when Jive Software announced the company was moving its headquarters to Palo Alto. Jive is a terrific company that has built one of the best social media businesses around: unique technology, a deep customer base, and national recognition in publications like The New York Times. Dave Hersh, Jive’s current chairman and founding CEO, helped mentor many other Portland startups and was an inspirational technology leader here. What happened?

For those of us who have lived in the Northwest for a long time, it’s a familiar story. The excuses are plentiful: it is difficult to find great sales and marketing talent here. The epicenter of the technology world is the Bay Area. There's not enough venture capital in the state. I could go on and on.

So, why try to build a company in Portland?

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