Nov 18, 2022

Accountability Services

Kooper

Fischer

Thomson Reuters, a provider of business information services, announced Accountability Services of Seattle as the winner of their annual Luca Accounting Firm of the Year Award. Dave Fischer is managing director, and Lera Kooper is firm director of Accountability Services.

The award is named after Luca Pacioli, known as the “father of accounting.” Thomson Reuters recognizes the pursuit of innovation within the tax and accounting profession, honoring firms and individuals who combine their technological and accounting expertise to further the profession. Accountability Services has decades of experience in accounting and tax law, and has offices in Seattle and Bellevue.

Stoel Rives

Stoel Rives promoted four attorneys in its Seattle office to partner, effective Jan. 1, 2023. Veronica Keithley is a member of the Environment, Land Use & Natural Resources group and assists clients in navigating environmental regulation for water quality, NPDES permitting, stormwater, wastewater, and wetlands. Keithley works extensively with a wide range of clients in Washington and Alaska, including industrial, transportation, commodity, energy, and resource development companies, as well as ports and dam operators. She earned her J.D, cum laude, from Lewis & Clark Law School. Emily Kelly is a member of the firm's Real Estate Development & Construction group. Her practice focuses on complex commercial real estate transactions, including the acquisition, disposition, leasing, and financing of multifamily mixed-use, retail and office projects. Her clients include private developers, technology and life sciences companies, real estate investment trusts (REITs), nonprofit organizations, institutional investors, and government entities. Kelly earned her J.D., cum laude, from Boston College Law School. Claire Mitchell is a food and beverage regulatory attorney with extensive experience helping businesses navigate the complexities of food and alcohol laws. She counsels grocery chains, national and regional restaurant groups, hotel operators, e-commerce retailers, entertainment venues, alcohol brand owners, and beer, wine and spirits producers on state and federal liquor licensing strategies, tied house compliance, trade practice regulation, promotional advertising and sponsorship assessments. Mitchell earned her J.D. from Hofstra University School of Law. Jenna Poligo is a member of the firm's Litigation group. Her practice focuses on business disputes, representing clients in the technology, insurance, manufacturing, and consumer products industries facing class actions, government enforcement actions, antitrust, bad faith and other commercial disputes. She is an experienced trial lawyer, defending clients in individual lawsuits and class actions in state and federal courts across the country and counsels clients through arbitration, trial, and appeals. She earned her J.D., summa cum laude, from the William & Mary School of Law. Stoel Rives has offices in seven states and Washington, D.C.

Gravitics

Seattle-based Gravitics announced raising $20 million to build large, next-generation space station modules. The seed round was led by Type One Ventures, and included Tim Draper from Draper Associates, FJ Labs, The Venture Collective, Helios Capital, Giant Step Capital (Chicago based), Gaingels, Spectre, Manhattan West, and Mana Ventures. Gravitics is developing the StarMax, a flexible-use space station module. The StarMax module provides up to 400 cubic meters of usable habitable volume - nearly half the volume of the International Space Station in one module. StarMax's family of modules is compatible to launch on any of the next-generation launch vehicles, including SpaceX's Starship, ULA's Vulcan, and Blue Origin's New Glenn. Bill Tandy, former mission architect for Blue Origin's Orbital Reef space station, and Scott Macklin, former head of propulsion at Virgin Orbit, are leading the StarMax development team. The Gravitics team has grown to nearly forty, comprised of both full-time employees and experienced contractors. To support development and early production, Gravitics opened a new 42,000 square foot facility in 2022 north of Seattle. The company has already begun assembly of their first StarMax prototype and is preparing to conduct module pressure tests in early 2023 with plans for an upcoming orbital test mission to be announced soon. Gravitics is taking StarMax pre-orders now for delivery in 2026. Founded in 2021, Gravitics is an aerospace company that designs and manufactures large space structures.

Nov 17, 2022

ExtraHop

Seattle-based ExtraHop, a provider of cloud-native network intelligence, appointed Chris Scanlan as president and chief commercial officer. Scanlan will lead the company’s international expansion initiatives while overseeing the global sales, sales engineering, channel sales, and renewals functions. Scanlan has more than 25 years of experience in the technology and cybersecurity industry. Most recently, he was CEO of Defy Security, a cybersecurity value-added reseller. Prior to that role, Scanlan was president of Americas for Check Point Software and senior vice president of North America sales for Cylance. He also brings extensive experience in the channel and partner ecosystem to his role through a long tenure at Optiv. Scanlan sits on the advisory board of numerous cybersecurity startups.

Tracer

Boise-based Appdetex announced the company’s rebrand to Tracer and the launch of the next generation of its flagship Tracer Platform. The SaaS platform leverages human-in-the-loop AI and machine learning to continuously trace, analyze and mitigate brand misuse across global Web2 and Web3 digital sources, including online marketplaces, NFT marketplaces, social media channels, mobile app stores, domains, websites, online advertising and paid search channels. Built on more than a decade of real-world brand protection experience, the Tracer Platform enables businesses to decrease the mean time to detect and enforce instances of brand misuse. Tracer’s latest investments in product engineering and data science have resulted in advancements across all core functionality of the next-generation Tracer Platform, including Tracer Protect, which provides online brand protection. Tracer Protect automates the detection of infringing content, the classification and scoring of infringements, the correlation of bad actor networks, and the enforcement of customer directives.

Resilient Infrastructure Group

Industry veteran Walter Lynch has joined Resilient Infrastructure Group as a senior advisor to the board of directors. Resilient develops, funds, and manages a portfolio of wastewater, water and related infrastructure assets in the U.S. and Canada. Lynch’s water and wastewater utility experience includes multiple senior level positions within American Water across several regions, serving his last 14 years with the company as both the CEO and COO. Prior to American Water, he was an entrepreneur in the resource recovery sector, selling his business to Waste Management and working as an executive for Synagro, a residuals industry company. He has served on numerous boards, including the National Association of Water Companies and the Water Research Foundation. Partners Group, a global private markets firm, acting on behalf of its clients, acquired Resilient Infrastructure Group in 2021. The company is headquartered in Portland.

Autonomy

Electric vehicle subscription company Autonomy is expanding its geographic footprint to the Seattle area. Autonomy’s subscription model offers a way to get an electric vehicle that does not require the long-term debt or commitment that comes with buying or leasing. Autonomy subscribers can pay their subscription on their credit card or through their bank account, and can subscribe month to month after a three-month minimum hold period. Vehicles are available for delivery or pickup within weeks. The company was founded by Scott Painter and Georg Bauer, who founded Fair, a used-vehicle subscription service. Autonomy will leverage its recently announced national partnership with AutoNation for vehicle preparation and delivery services in connection with customer activation, as well as maintenance, repair and reconditioning services. Autonomy offers the Tesla Model 3 and Tesla Model Y and will soon add the full Tesla lineup, among other makes and models. In August, Autonomy ordered 23,000 electric vehicles, with the order totaling more than $1.2 billion. Autonomy is based in Santa Monica, California.

Nov 16, 2022

Symetra

Work

Symetra Life Insurance promoted Mindi Work to executive vice president, Individual Life Division and Emerging Solutions. Most recently senior vice president and chief of strategy, Work reports to Margaret Meister, president and chief executive officer, Symetra Financial Corporation. She succeeds Jon Stenberg, who has left the company. A member of the Symetra Leadership Team, Work has played a key role in multiple corporate initiatives since joining the company in 2006 from Ernst & Young. As vice president, finance, she led Symetra's SEC reporting team during the company's initial public offering in 2010 and was involved in the accounting for Symetra's 2016 acquisition by Sumitomo Life Insurance. Work was promoted to senior vice president and chief of strategy in December 2019, with oversight for corporate strategic planning, including the development, design and execution of strategic initiatives supporting Symetra's customer-centric business focus. In March 2022, her role expanded to include leadership of Emerging Solutions, the team responsible for emerging opportunities, experiences, new lines of business and technologies, enterprise wide. She will retain her emerging solutions responsibilities in addition to her role leading the Individual Life business at Symetra. Symetra Life Insurance is a subsidiary of Symetra Financial Corporation, a diversified financial services company based in Bellevue.

Ossia

Ossia has been featured in TIME's list of the Best Inventions 2022, featuring 200 innovations changing our lives. To compile the list, TIME solicited nominations from TIME's editors and correspondents around the world, and through an online application process, paying special attention to growing fields—such as the electric vehicle industry, green energy, and the metaverse. TIME then evaluated each contender on a number of key factors, including originality, efficacy, ambition, and impact. Ossia's Cota Power Table leverages Cota Real Wireless Power for table charging. The wirelessly powered table is designed with hospitality businesses, such as hotels, airports, quick service restaurants, and coffee shops, in mind, and provides a flexible in-store experience for powering (or charging) multiple guest and employee devices simultaneously while eliminating competition for scarce outlets. The Cota Power Table can charge many devices simultaneously and automatically without wires, plugs, or charging pads. Ossia is headquartered in Redmond.

Jackson Lewis

Nationwide employment law firm Jackson Lewis announced that the firm's Seattle office has earned a Tier 1 Metropolitan designation in the Labor Law – Management category by U.S. News and Best Lawyers for 2023 Best Law Firms. The Best Law Firms rankings are based on the opinions of general counsel at major U.S. corporations as well as prominent legal practitioners. Focused on labor and employment law since 1958, Jackson Lewis employees over 950 attorneys in offices nationwide.