Trello acquires Butler to add power of automation

Published December 10, 2018

Trello, the organizational tool owned by Atlassian, announced an acquisition of its very own this morning when it bought Butler for an undisclosed amount.

What Butler brings to Trello is the power of automation, stringing together a bunch of commands to make something complex happen automatically. As Trello’s Michael Pryor pointed out in a blog post announcing the acquisition, we are used to tools like IFTTT, Zapier and Apple Shortcuts, and this will bring a similar type of functionality directly into Trello.

Screenshot: Trello

“Over the years, teams have discovered that by automating processes on Trello boards with the Butler Power-Up, they could spend more time on important tasks and be more productive. Butler helps teams codify business rules and processes, taking something that might take ten steps to accomplish and automating it into one click,” Pryor wrote.

This means that Trello can be more than a static organizational tool. Instead, it can move into the realm of light-weight business process automation. For example, this could allow you to move an item from your To Do board to your Doing board automatically based on dates, or to share tasks with appropriate teams as a project moves through its life cycle, saving a bunch of manual steps that tend to add up.

The company indicated that it will be incorporating the Alfred’s capabilities directly into Trello in the coming months. It will make it available to all levels of users, including the free tier, but they promise more advanced functionality for Business and Enterprise customers when the integration is complete. Pryor also suggested that more automation could be coming to Trello. “Butler is Trello’s first step down this road, enabling every user to automate pieces of their Trello workflow to save time, stay organized and get more done.”

Atlassian bought Trello in 2017 for $425 million, but this acquisition indicates it is functioning quasi-independently as part of the Atlassian family.

Meet 11 new startups launching out of the Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator

Published April 26, 2018

Today, 11 new companies launch out of the Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator based in NYC. This is the 14th cohort of startups to launch out of ERA, and each company has received $100,000 in seed funding from the accelerator.

These startups span a wide variety of industries, from hospitality to new retail to healthcare. So without any further ado, here are the 11 companies launching out of ERA:

Butler

Butler wants to handle room service and amenities for hotels, partnering with hotels to provide room service, catering and other food-based amenities from Butler’s various hubs across the city. Using SMS as a means of communication with guests, Butler can serve a larger number of hotels. Right now, Butler serves 5,000 rooms in Manhattan.

Choosy

Leveraging machine learning algorithms that scour social media, Choosy quickly whips up fashion designs, sends them to China for manufacturing and offers flash-fashion items via Instagram. As brands like H&M and Top Shop continue to speed up their operations and offerings, Choosy looks to use tech to keep up the pace.

Flume Health

Flume Health works with self-insured employers and healthcare providers to ensure that employees are best utilizing their healthcare benefits. The company says that 78 percent of employees don’t understand how their benefits program works, costing companies up to 26 percent more for healthcare. Flume Health uses concierges to connect employees with the best healthcare at the lowest price based on their benefits plan, reducing healthcare costs by 20 percent to 60 percent.

HealNow

HealNow wants to bridge the gap between healthcare professionals, pharmacies and patients, offering an ordering and payments platform for pharmacies. Patients can pay, schedule deliveries and enter medical information online to receive their prescription or equipment, while doctors and hospitals can offer on-demand delivery of the prescriptions they write.

Myro

Deodorant stops being optional around the age of 13, but many deodorants are made with potentially harmful chemicals and toxins. Myro offers an all-natural formula in a refillable container, letting users feel good about what they’re putting on their body as well as reducing plastic waste. Plus, they smell good. Myro launches later this summer.

Orcadex

Orcadex is a business intelligence platform focused on the blockchain and cryptocurrency verticals, collecting data via machine learning and natural language processing to offer analysis and insights to customers. The platform helps professionals create models and identify trends as the blockchain space continues to rapidly evolve. Orcadex launches to a closed group of institutional investors in June.

Spin Analytics

Spin Analytics is a fintech company focused on offering credit risk modeling for financial institutions. The company works with banks to offer actionable insights for meeting regulatory compliance and reporting requirements, reducing the time and cost of maintaining compliance.

Spryfit

Spryfit is where HQ meets the gym. Users connect their fitness trackers and try to achieve their fitness goals with the hopes of winning a cash prize. The idea is to use underutilized health data from wearables and smartphones to motivate users to get fit for the cash prize. The company currently has 50,000 users.

StellarEmploy

Hourly workers like waiters tend to churn in and out of positions often. StellarEmploy uses deep learning algorithms to match employee performance to job fundamentals, letting companies recruit hourly workers that will enjoy the job, do a great job, and stay put. Some of StellarEmploy’s customers include Home Chef and IBEX Global.

Welnys

Big companies understand that healthy employees are both more effective and more cost efficient, which is why many companies have implemented a wellness program for their workers. But Welnys wants to do the heavy lifting for those companies, offering a marketplace for workplace wellness vendors such as yoga and meditation instructors, nutritionists and more.

Young Alfred

Young Alfred wants to make buying home insurance as simple as possible. The platform lets users identify their needs, while a machine learning algorithm identifies customer risk and makes custom recommendations for home insurance that fit the users needs. Young Alfred has relationships with Progressive and Hippo, and users can check-out online direct from the Young Alfred website.

CityConnect shows you how climate change will impact your own home

Published May 14, 2017

We’ve all seen the maps that show Florida being consumed by rising sea levels. But many of us still underestimate the impact of climate change because we can’t visualize its effects. At the TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2017 Hackathon, James Butler, Caitlin Squyres and Florian Carls put together CityConnect, which lets people see flood levels for the City of Cambridge using… Read More