Name Kasian Franks | Organizations founded SeeqPod, Mimvi | |
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Education University of California, Berkeley | ||
Kasian Franks is the founder, CEO, and CVO of Mimvi. As of January 2013, Kasian Franks is involved in a new company, Pimovi.
Career
Franks was born and raised in Berkeley, California. At UC Berkeley, he studied Computer Science and Software Engineering. While at UC Berkeley, Franks consulted for Genentech and eventually started his own company in 1993, The Berkeley Integration Group, which later landed Genentech as its first client. While working with Genentech, Franks helped develop and manage the Pharmaceutical Recipe Builder (PRB), a toolset for construction and revision control of genetic “recipes” used to design breast cancer, asthma and blood clotting drugs (HER2, DNASE and Protein A).
Franks worked as software engineer and product developer specializing in pattern matching algorithms and tools for companies and organizations such as Sun Microsystems, Oracle, Motorola, Tivo, mPower, and X-Mine. Franks worked at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Life Sciences Division, as a Genomic Research Scientist from 2002–2005, where, along with Raf Podowski, and Connie Myers, he developed the technology behind SeeqPod. Franks began to study biomimetics along with pattern matching in data and nature. This led to 5 patents in the area of search and discovery. Later he went on to start SeeqPod Inc. a music search, discovery and pattern matching company in which the U.S. Department of Energy, along with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, holds a 5% stake. Under Steven Chu and Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, Franks and SeeqPod won a 2008 R&D 100 Award for biomimetic search engines. A number of record companies have attempted to sue SeeqPod, including Warner Music Group, Elektra Records, Rhino Records, and most recently EMI and Capitol Records.
Franks formerly held the CEO and CVO position at SeeqPod. A number of record companies have attempted to sue SeeqPod, including Warner Music Group, Elektra Records, Rhino Records, and most recently EMI and Capitol Records. In addition, a multi-billion dollar lawsuit was filed by EMI and Capitol Records against Kasian Franks as the founder of SeeqPod. However, the suit from EMI and Capitol Records was recently thrown out of court.
Due to economic conditions and litigation, SeeqPod filed for bankruptcy protection on April 1, 2009.
After acquisition talks with a number of companies, it was announced on August 30, 2010, that SeeqPod's technology assets were acquired by Sony's Intertrust division.
In January, 2010, Franks founded another company, Mimvi, Inc. Headquartered in San Francisco, California, Mimvi, Inc. (OTCBB: MIMV), a pure-play search, discovery and recommendation engine, is the first of its kind to index the world’s mobile apps (or applications). The search engine will enable consumers and developers to find any app regardless of platform or device, including: the Apple iPhone, Google Android, Blackberry, Windows and Nokia devices. Mimvi's technology is based on proprietary search, recommendation and personalization algorithms. Mimvi plans to extend its platform to power partner sites and services. The company will generate revenue through multiple streams, including: sponsored search results, keyword and API marketplaces, mobile-enabled transactions, advertising and more.
As of January 2013, Kasian Franks is involved in a new company, Pimovi. It is a subsidiary of The Chancellor Group, Inc. (OTCBB: CHAG). Its website is www.pimovi.com and Kasian is listed as the Chief Scientific Officer of Pimovi in a press release dated Jan. 15, 2013 issued by The Chancellor Group, Inc. (OTCBB: CHAG).