Amped Up About Amplify: Joyent Cloud Sponsoring LA Startups Like Look.io

We announced today that Joyent Cloud is the lead cloud services sponsor of Amplify. What is that? Amplify is a Los Angeles startup accelerator and venture capital fund combined based in Santa Monica. It’s a unique structure put in place by an exceptionally talented group of engineers and founders who wanted to build a new model for nurturing startups. Oded Noy and Jeff Solomon have built a stellar team and deep bench of advisors and participating portfolio CEOs and CTOS. Amplify is taking a new, holistic approach to startup development. Here's the manifesto outlining their differences from their site.

 

1. Our physical space is a real community - not a room with desks2. Our mentor program is highly organized and pragmatic - they will spend real time with you3. Our management team works “in” the companies - not investors looking to increase their wealth on your back4. We are tightly connected to media and entertainment in Los Angeles - not hustlers who know the usual suspects5. Our investor network is extraordinary in LA and far beyond - not just a few big names

After we learned about Amplify pre-launch, it was a no-brainer for Joyent Cloud to sponsor Amplify and provide compute credits on our infrastructure. Amplify's management is deciding exactly which startup deploys what on Joyent Cloud but we are extremely impressed with the first major one - Look.io, an in-app real-time support plug-in for mobile apps. They use Node.js to make sure that chat through their platform is super fast even over sketchy mobile network connections. As such, Look.io is targeting the Real-Time Web. Since we like to think that Joyent Cloud is the Real-Time Cloud, then its a perfect fit.

Co-founders Grant and Marc deployed Look.io in Node.js with Basho's high-availability Riak data store (just like Voxer) as well a Redis and WebSockets. They used Joyent Cloud SmartMachines running Joyent SmartOS, the open source operating system that powers our own cloud and incorporates Joyent Cloud Analytics and DTrace to provide unparalled transparency and QA capabilities for Node.js apps. Support and communications applications are about as real-time as it gets. Latency and slowness will turn end-users off and chase them out of the app or off the Website. We’ll be talking more about Look.io in the near future as the app ramps, and about Amplify as the first crop of portfolio companies leaves the launch pad. It’s going to be a fun ride.



Post written by alexsalkever