Business Digest August 30, 2013

OPENINGS

Eleanor, an eclectic clothing, accessories and home goods store, opened at 630 Front St., Louisville. Phone is 720-708-3016.

Fresh Thymes Eatery opened at 2500 30th St., Boulder after raising more than $25,000 through member “shares” and private investors. The “community-supported restaurant” plans to raise an additional $25,000 from member “shares” through the end of December. Members can pay a set sum ranging from $250 to $1,000 to receive gift cards, community dinners and similar benefits. Fresh Thymes will focus on healthy takeout items such as salads, sandwiches and hot items. Customers will be able to pick up items or eat at the restaurant, which occupies the space that formerly housed the Elephant Hut Thai restaurant.

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Business Cares: April 2024

In Colorado, 1 in 3 women, 1 in 3 men and 1 in 2 transgender individuals will experience an attempted or completed sexual assault in their lifetime. During April, we recognize Sexual Assault Awareness Month with the hopes of increasing conversations about this very important issue.

MOVES

Colorado Swim Shop LLC moved in July to a 1,100-square-foot space in The Village Shopping Center at 2525 Arapahoe Ave., Boulder. The space is between The Joint chiropractic office and The Cheese Course gourmet cheese store. The swimsuit and accessories store formerly was at 1738 Pearl St., Boulder.

NAME CHANGES

Funding Launchpad changed its name to Grofolio and plans to change its focus to serve as a clearinghouse to help investors put money into startup companies. Funding Launchpad is the trade name of Boulder-based Vim Funding Inc., a company that makes a crowdfunding software platform. The company has five employees and offices in Boulder and Denver.

BRIEFS

Gettliffe Architecture, which opened in Boulder in 1999, is opening a sister studio in Managua, Nicaragua. Two of Gettliffe’s architects are from Nicaragua. Architect Alejandra Baltodano – a native of Nicaragua who studied architecture in the United States and has worked for Gettliffe for nine years – is heading the new office that opens in August. As projects come online, the plan is to have two to four employees there depending on workload. Gettliffe employs six at its studio at 3014 Bluff St., Boulder, including Raquel Mayorga, who is from Nicaragua.

The Spot Bouldering Gym, 3240 Prairie Ave., Boulder, has installed a padded floor below its climbing wall to aid in climber safety. The $180,000 flooring has been tested with falls up to 18 feet. The flooring was installed by Futurist Climbing, an Albuquerque-based climbing wall consultancy.

Lucky’s Markets, with stores in Boulder and Longmont, has taken a pledge to buy at least 10 percent of its inventory from area farmers. The 10% Pledge is an initiative of Local Food Shift Group, a Boulder-based nonprofit that seeks to localize the food supply of the Front Range. Individuals and businesses are encouraged to commit up to 10 percent of their food budget to locally grown and produced foods, and to estimate weekly dollars spent on local foods.

Justin’s LLC, a manufacturer of nut butters and candy bars, issued a voluntary recall of certain products because of metallic fragments found in unpackaged nut butters. While no metal was found in any jars, Boulder-based Justin’s is voluntarily recalling 16-ounce containers of its Maple Almond Butter and its Chocolate Hazelnut Butter products. The flavors recalled were distributed nationally to retailers and were available for purchase on the Internet from July 18 to Aug. 14. Customers can visit www.justins.com for details of the specific batches of nut butters being recalled.

The unemployment rates in Boulder and Broomfield counties dropped nearly a percentage point in July. Boulder County’s unemployment rate dipped to 5.4 percent, down from 6.1 percent last month and 6.5 percent in July 2012. The county had 171,412 people employed and 9,829 looking for work. Broomfield County’s rate dropped from 7.1 percent in June and 7.7 percent a year ago to 6.3 percent in July, with 30,199 people employed and 2,032 looking for work.

NEBA Health LLC is marketing a diagnostic test for attention-deficit disorder that examines brain waves following approval from the Food and Drug Administration and receiving a U.S. patent Aug. 15. The company has four employees working in Boulder and six in Augusta, Georgia. The patent protects a key aspect of the company’s test, which is used to indicate whether a patient’s symptoms appear to be attributable to attention-deficit disorder or something else. The test scans brain wave activity through a device that looks like a cap affixed to the patient’s head. NEBA stands for Neuropsychiatric Interpretive Electroencephalograph Assessment Aid.

The city of Longmont reported a 7.4 percent increase in sales- and use-tax revenue from transactions in June. Collections in July, representing sales in June, were $4,566,040, compared with $4,250,472 for the same period a year ago. Sales tax on retail goods was up 8.9 percent for the month. Use-tax revenue decreased by 4.2 percent compared with the same period a year ago. Year to date, sales-tax revenue is up 6.5 percent compared with the first five months of 2012, and use-tax revenue is down by 2.4 percent.

EARNINGS

Real Goods Solar Inc. (Nasdaq: RSOL) reported revenue of $20.7 million and a net loss of $2.9 million for its second quarter that ended June 30, both less compared with the same period a year ago. Revenue was down from $21.4 million, and the loss was greater than the $2.5 million recorded in the second quarter a year ago. For the first six months of the fiscal year, the Louisville-based company posted revenue of $37.5 million, as compared to $39.7 million, and its net loss was $6.7 million compared with $4.4 million in the same year-ago period. The revenue decline in both periods reflects lower prices paid by customers as a result of competitive pricing pressures within the solar installation market, the company said.

CONTRACTS

National Eco Wholesale in Boulder landed a deal to sell an eco-friendly cleaning product in Sam’s Clubs nationwide. Sam’s Club, a division of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. based in Bentonville, Arkansas, will carry Boulder Granite & Stainless Cleaner in 611 of its stores.

Yampa Valley Electric Association has signed a deal to purchase power from a community-owned solar array that will be built in Craig by Boulder-based Clean Energy Collective. The agreement allows the association, a customer-owned rural electric cooperative serving northwestern Colorado, to buy 500 kilowatts of renewable energy from Clean Energy Collective’s 2,100-panel array.

Edwards Lifesciences (NYSE:EW) has selected Broomfield-based ForeignExchange Translations Inc. as a preferred supplier of translation services for its Europe, Middle East and Africa operations.

GRANTS

Louisville-based Solid Power LLC received $3.5 million from a Department of Energy program to develop new battery technology to improve the driving range of electric cars. Solid Power was founded by University of Colorado-Boulder professors in 2012 to continue research on rechargeable batteries. Funds come from the federal Advance Research Projects Agency-Energy program in the Department of Energy. Separately, a $999,088 grant from the federal DoE program went to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden to develop a new low-cost battery that will use organic energy storage materials.

MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS

Boulder-based Rogue Wave Software Inc. acquired Broomfield-based OpenLogic Inc., for an undisclosed sum. Rogue Wave, founded in 1989, supplies a suite of commercial software development tools, while OpenLogic provides open-source management and support software. Together, the two companies hope to enable their customers’ software-development teams to write better code faster by combining their own custom code with Rogue Wave’s commercial frameworks and OpenLogic’s open-source packages. OpenLogic, with approximately 50 employees, has become part of Rogue Wave but likely keep its own branding.

SERVICES

Carlson Craft and LifePics of Boulder launched an online service — Carlson Craft Photo Boutique — and mobile app — Carlson Craft Wedding Pics — both powered by LifePics. Dealers who have a Carlson Craft Online Store can offer photo products and services online, including photo books, photo canvas, photo calendars, photo gifts, and photo storage and editing software. The new Wedding Pics mobile app integrates with the Photo Boutique to allow users to share informal wedding photos taken on smartphones who can order prints or create photo products using the images.

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