Here’s our roundup of the week’s top tech business news. First, the most popular stories Silicon Bayou News published in the last seven days:
Gameloft to Open Major Development Studio in New Orleans – Yesterday, after months of rumors, Gameloft made it official: the company is establishing a new video game development studio in New Orleans. Headquartered in Paris, Gameloft is one of the world’s largest publishers of digital and social games. The company will create 146 jobs during the next decade, with an average salary of $69,000, plus benefits.
Louisiana Ranks #6 State In Entrepreneurship – Louisiana ranked as the sixth best state for entrepreneurship in a new State Entrepreneurship Index developed by economists at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. The study combines five key components — a state’s percentage growth and per capita growth in business establishments, its business formation rate, the number of patents per thousand residents and gross receipts of sole proprietorships and partnerships per capita — to build its state-by-state rankings.
New Orleans Internet Entrepreneur Simplifies Web Design: Plebu Aims to “Do Less” – Plebu founder Simon Marthinsen says that his company isn’t trying to solve a million problems. Rather, with its unique and intuitive new online web design system, Plebu will, in his words, help in the building of “Portfolio websites for Fortune 100,000 companies.” Initially born to address a simple problem—there was no simple tool for videographers to easily construct dedicated video portfolio websites—Plebu now aims to be the simplest, most intuitive web design tool on the Internet for small businesses.
Launchpad Ignition Startup Badger Launches Group Photo Sharing and Location App – Launchpad Ignition portfolio company Badger Media just launched their photo-sharing iPhone app, which allows you to create location-based badges for your interests, share them with a community and develop commentary around them.
Two More New Orleans Startups Honored At The White House – Back in July, two New Orleans companies sent their principals to the White House as part of the “Champions for Change” program. Global Green’s New Orleans Director Beth Galante and Will Bradshaw of Green Coast Enterprises were honored at the event for their work in the city.
TechX Conference & Expo Launches in Baton Rouge; Announces Lineup – Transformyx , one of Louisiana’s largest web design and integration companies, has announced the launch of the TechX Conference and Expo in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Coming October 5-7, TechX will showcase some of the technology industry’s largest manufacturers showcasing the hottest technology solutions. Regional technology integrators and infrastructure companies are also a key part of the event. Keynotes come from executives with TechX from HP, EMC and Microsoft.
Skillshare Raises $3.1 Million; Adds Union Square Ventures And Spark Capital – Skillshare, the startup founded by NOLA expat Mike Karnjanaprakorn that soft-launched in New Orleans last week, announced today that they have closed on their $3.1 million Series A of venture financing, led by Union Square Ventures and Spark Capital. Previously the company raised a $550,000 round of seed funding from Founder Collective and SV Angel, among others.
Galactic’s inFamous Score – When SCEA (Sony Computer Entertainment America) Music Manager Jonathan Mayer discovered that the sequel to the video game inFamous would take place in a fictional New Orleans, he turned to a group of musicians steeped in the city’s unique musical culture—Galactic.