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Below is our recent interview with Don Sharp, CEO at Coolfire Solutions:
Q: Could you provide our readers with a brief introduction to Coolfire Solutions?
A: We are a software development company located in St. Louis, Missouri. Our company and our platform were developed in response to the needs of the U.S. Military Special Operations Forces. They needed to get real-time, critical data in the hands of soldiers deployed in remote areas.
Our founders realized the problem of delivering data to the edge existed in the business world as well as on the battlefield. So we developed the Ronin Platform for commercial use. Our current focus is on public safety, transportation, utilities, smart cities and military industries.
Q: You’ve recently raised $11.5M in oversubscribed Series B round; could you tell us something more?
A: We couldn’t be happier about the latest round of funding. In addition to it being oversubscribed, we were able to add a new, unnamed strategic investor, but we’re also thrilled that Enterprise Holdings re-invested. As a strategic investor and customer, Enterprise Holdings has been monumental in our recent growth. It’s always reassuring when an organization of their caliber believes in your mission to invest not once but twice. Enterprise Holdings is the largest privately-owned company in St. Louis and the 13th largest in the U.S. We are proud to be part of the booming St. Louis tech startup scene. St. Louis was recently ranked #2 on Forbes list of Top 10 Rising Cities for Startups.
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Q: Tell us more about the Ronin platform. What is it, and how does it work?
A: The Ronin Platform allows companies to deliver the right data to the right hands at the right time. This is often the workers at the edge of operations. The most underutilized asset for most businesses is intelligence. They have loads of data but no way to get it to the people who need it. Data is only valuable if you can communicate it and act upon it. Our platform delivers data to the people who need it, in real-time and in context to their role and location. This allows companies to turn data into intelligence that can be acted upon. It allows companies to empower workers to make decisions in real-time and at the edge.
Q: Can you provide some real world use-cases of your platform?
A: Our platform is in the hands of over 20,000 Enterprise Rent-A-Car employees every day. Our platform is delivered via desktops, tablets and mobile devices. The platform integrates data from multiple legacy systems and delivers it in context to their location and role. This allows employees to cut the rental car transaction time in half. And the tablet format allows employees to move from behind the counter and deliver a more personalized experience to customers.
Our platform is also used by a Central Asian foreign government to secure their border from illegal drug trafficking and terrorism. Border patrol units use our platform to integrate their systems with data from ‘unattended ground sensors’ (e.g. seismic sensors, radar, motion-activated cameras). When a person crosses the border an alert is sent to troops in real-time. This provides the patrols with complete situational awareness and allows them to share a common operational picture with command centers.
Coolfire Solutions is also participating in the Department of Homeland Security’s Smart Cities Internet of Things Innovation (SCITI) Labs focused on helping first responders adjust to smart city environments. Additional information on this initiative will be released shortly.
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Q: What are your plans moving forward?
A: Our efforts will be toward growing the business. A lot of the money will be invested in sales and marketing functions to drive revenue growth. We plan to look to increase our talent pool by an upwards of 10 percent in the next quarter.
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