Type Privately held company Founder Juha Christensen Headquarters Sunnyvale Number of employees 470 (January 2017) | Industry Technology, Design Area served Worldwide Founded 2008 | |
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Key people Juha Christensen[Founder, Chairman],
Michael Shraybman [CEO],
Marty McFarland [CFO],
Sergii Gorpynich [CTO] Services End-to-end technology product development: strategy, design, engineering, launch and evolution of software and hardware products | ||
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Cogniance is a global strategy and technology company, headquartered in Menlo Park, CA, working with venture-backed startups, corporate innovation labs and venture capital firms in the world's technology hubs as well as with established companies. Its services combine design (UI/UX as well as Manufacturings), user experience and engineering to help innovators bring products to market.
Contents
Talking about innovation with ceo of cogniance
History
Cogniance is founded (2008) and built up by the former founders, directors, technical managers from Sonopia, a product startup. Sonopia enabled people and organizations to set up their own carrier network. The technical solution was well-proven, but it was not a commercial success, due to the fact that it was a few years ahead of its time; US carrier companies were not open to such solutions back in 2007. Despite the fact that Sonopia was not a commercial success, the company ended up with a technical team they believed to be world-class. In May 2008, the founder of Sonopia, Juha Christensen, a venture capitalist and a serial entrepreneur, turned this team into a software and design consultancy with a special focus on venture-backed startups and corporate innovation labs. Christensen previously held top corporate executive positions, e.g. at Microsoft (Corporate VP, Mobile) and Macromedia (President). He co-founded CloudMade, Sunstone Capital and Symbian, and he has been board member at VirtualLogix, Teleca, Brandworkz, Buttonwood Financial, Pelican Imaging, Fairgain, CTIA, Unwire and Trolltech. Juha Christensen is voted one of the 25 most influential Europeans in Technology by Time Magazine.
More recently, in November 10, 2016, 50% stake in Cloud Made was acquired by Valeo (automotive supplier and partner to all automakers worldwide).
Locations and Expansion
Cogniance's CEO, Michael Shraybman, oversees the company's operations from Sunnyvale, CA. In June 2013, Cogniance announced it had hired the Silicon Valley veteran CFO, Marty McFarland.
The office in Kyiv, Ukraine, is Cogniance's development and design center. It is the fastest growing site and employs approximately 430 people (Feb. 2017). Cogniance claims to hire only the top 10 percent of talent
In March 2012, Cogniance expanded to cover the US East Coast market by adding Travis Bochenek in Boston, Massachusetts.
Since 2010, Cogniance has been present in the UK on and off. In October 2012, Cogniance relaunched its UK office in London led by Navid Ostadian-Binai who had relocated from Copenhagen, Denmark.
In February 2014, Cogniance established a design centre in Aarhus, Denmark, led by design veteran Kristian Krøyer, who joined the company as a Creative Director.
In January 2015, the company established its second development site in Wroclaw, Poland.
In February 2015, a new design studio was set up in Munich, Germany and in November, 2016 a design studio was opened in San Francisco, CA.
Industries and Technologies
Cogniance's horizontal capabilities include Mobile, Web, Cloud & Big Data, and Embedded. As for vertical domains, the company claims to exhibit special expertise in the following: AdTech, Automotive, Health & fitness, Media & Communications, MarTech, Consumer & Social, and Enterprise.
Notable Clients and Work
The company's founding client was CloudMade, which changed name from ZXV Ltd. Cloudmade was founded by Steve Coast after receiving a round of funding from Nikolaj Nyholm and Sunstone Capital. Juha Christensen was brought into CloudMade as Chairman and CEO. A later funding round of $12.3 million included Greylock Partners in addition to Sunstone Capital. CloudMade's products evolve around monitization in location-based services and gaming. In November 2012, CloudMade spun off a separate entity called Zigi, targeting developers in China, with the first campaign featuring promotions from nearby McDonald's restaurants while playing Angry Birds, a game developed by Rovio Entertainment.
Other notable clients include Swisscom, Libratone, Dolby, MobileIron, Swype (acquired by Nuance Communications), Mediafly, Sportstream (acquired by Facebook), Expensify, Netpulse, Huawei, Magellan GPS, Vocera, Jibe Mobile, Tweddle Group (acquired by Nuance Communications), Devicescape, Xtime (acquired by Cox Automotive).
Awards
Jibe Mobile, a Cogniance client, won the Mobile Merit Awards 2012.
At the PPA Digital Publishing Awards 2012, Cogniance client, Shipping Guides, was awarded Highly Commended IT Development Team of the Year. This award was directly relevant to Cogniance since it is responsible for development of Shipping Guides' digital products.
At the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in 2013, three Cogniance clients were nominated for Global Mobile Awards, and MobileIron won "Best Enterprise Mobile Service".