San Rafael, California-based Fortune 1000 design and construction software company Autodesk Inc. announced Thursday it is acquiring Herndon-based construction project management software developer Pype.
A transaction amount was not disclosed. This marks Autodesk’s ninth investment in a construction technology startup company, however.
Since 2017, Autodesk has acquired Assemble, BuildingConnected and PlanGrid — totaling more than $1.1 billion. Pype has been backed by Blackhorn Ventures, Pritzker Group Venture Capital, Scott Garber and the Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship. It has also received funding from the Herndon-based Center for Innovative Technology’s CIT GAP Funds, which are seed-stage investments in Virginia-based technology companies.
“I could not be more optimistic about the future of the building industry,” Autodesk CEO Andrew Anagnost said in a statement. “Even in challenging times such as those we are currently facing, Autodesk remains focused on making the jobs of people who build easier. Pype’s robust machine learning capabilities will empower Autodesk customers to connect workflows across the building life cycle in new ways and optimize their businesses for long-term resiliency.”
The acquisition will allow for current customers to access software that automates construction workflows, including submittals and closeouts. Pype’s software uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to analyze and extract construction data including project plans throughout the project life cycle. Pype customers include general contractors Barton Malow Co., J. E. Dunn Construction Group, McCarthy Building Companies Inc., Mortenson Construction and Skanska AB.
“We’re incredibly proud of the rapid growth Pype has experienced since its founding in 2013,” Pype CEO and co-founder Sunil Dorairajan said in a statement. “Now as part of Autodesk, we look forward to expanding these automated capabilities to ensure construction teams efficiently progress through projects, from design to closeout.”
The transaction is expected to close during the third quarter of 2021.
The U.S. Navy awarded an $87 million contract to Herndon-based defense contractor ManTech International Corp. to provide information technology research, development and engineering for the Naval Sea Systems Command, the company announced Thursday.
ManTech was awarded the contract through the U.S. Department of Defense Information Analysis Center’s Multiple Award Contract, which are awarded by the U.S. Air Force Installation Contracting Center.
“ManTech has supported NAVSEA for 35 years across the full spectrum of engineering requirements,” Andy Twomey, ManTech executive vice president and general manager of the defense sector, said in a statement. “ManTech will improve the quality, integration and efficiency of the NMMES architecture to enhance ship maintenance operations and improve readiness for the Navy’s most critical surface and submarine platforms.”
Under the contract, ManTech will use artificial intelligence automation and DevSecOps (development, security and operations) to increase the speed of software development cycle times for the Navy’s Maritime Maintenance Enterprise Solution (NMMES). The NMMES is the information technology toolset used in the Navy’s ship maintenance and repair at its four public shipyards in Norfolk, Portsmouth, Puget Sound and Pearl Harbor.
Founded in 1968, the Fortune 1000 company reported more than $2 billion in revenue last year.
The board of directors for the Virginia Tech — Montgomery Executive Airport (VTMEA) announced Thursday that Keith Holt has been named as airport director, effective July 27. VTMEA is a regional authority that includes Virginia Tech, Montgomery County and the towns of Blacksburg and Christiansburg.
Holt has been hired to replace Airport Director Michael St. Jean, who is retiring after being with VTMEA since 2002 when the airport was officially formed. During St. Jean’s tenure, the airport underwent an extension project that lengthened the runway from 4,539 feet to 5,500 feet.
Holt was most recently the airport director for the New River Valley Airport in Dublin and was selected from a pool of candidates from the Jacksonville, Florida-based airport executive search firm ADK. He had been with the airport since 2008.
Before his time with the New River Valley Airport, Holt served as the director of legislative affairs for the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association and was an economic developer for the New River Valley Planning District Commission. He earned his bachelor’s degree in commercial aviation from the University of North Dakota.
“This airport is an invaluable regional resource with a tremendous history,” Holt said in a statement. “I look forward to leading the airport into its exciting next phase and beyond.”
The U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) awarded a $66 million contract to Fredericksburg-based information technology company IST Research LLC to perform large-scale data collection.
The funding comes from the GSA’s Phase III SBIR (Small Business Innovative Research) contract and will run through June 2025. IST Research will support information collection operations for the federal government. The company will use its Pulse Platform to provide monitoring and engagement of international organizations, including the U.S. Special Operations Command Africa (SOCAFRICA).
“The COVID-19pandemic has intensified the need for methodologies IST Research employs around monitoring and engagement,” according to IST Research. “This technology is even more critical — and efficient — in light of the current dangers of and restrictions around air travel and face-to-face encounters.”
IST Research offers data collection, cloud data processing and data analysis to inform its customers. Pulse combines social listening and content discovery across the surface, deep and dark webs and has been used for security, humanitarian assistance, research, marketing and risk management purposes.
“Right now it’s more critical than ever for organizations to continue engaging vulnerable populations in order to ferret out bad actors looking to take advantage of this worldwide crisis,” IST Research CEO Ryan Paterson said in a statement. “Our ‘technology + technique’ approaches are remote, scalable, cost-efficient, sensitive to the realities of vulnerable populations — and more accurate than methods used previously.”
IST Research, an Inc. 5000 company from 2016 through 2018, was founded in 2008.
With jobless claims at a record high, the state trust fund that pays for jobless benefits is expected to rack up a $750 million deficit by the end of the year, according to the Virginia Employment Commission. And Virginia employers already hurting from the pandemic‘s economic fallout could face tax increases to replenish the state’s Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund, which covers the cost of unemployment benefits for workers who are laid off or furloughed.
“In order to continue paying unemployment benefits, Virginia will need to borrow funds from the federal government,” according to a VEC statement. “Because these taxes are based, in part, on a company’s history of laying off or reducing staff, the businesses most impacted by pandemic-related workforce reductions face the most significant increases in future unemployment insurance taxes.”
Since January, more than 1 million Virginians have filed initial jobless claims and the VEC has paid out $6.9 billion in benefits. More than 37,000 Virginians filed initial jobless claims last week — an increase of more than 5,000 claims from the previous week, according to a VEC statement released Thursday.
The VEC projects that by the end of 2020, nearly 1.5 million initial jobless claims will have been filed.
On Jan. 1, the trust fund had a $1.45 billion balance (or 86% solvency), which was a record balance at the time. But when the pandemic hit, the state had to use the resources to pay out an unprecedented number of jobless claims due to the pandemic using the trust fund. This month, the trust fund has dipped to just $500 million. With an expected $2.6 billion payout by the trust fund and only $376 million in tax revenue from employers, the Dec. 31 balance is expected to be deep in the red by $750 million.
Unless the federal government steps in to cover the anticipated deficit, employers will end up carrying the burden through increased taxes due to the fund builder portion of employer taxes that go toward the trust fund.
“Virginia employers are facing the prospect of significant tax hikes to replenish the trust fund,” VEC spokesperson Joyce Fogg says. “Businesses that have been hardest hit by the pandemic and that have laid off or furloughed the most employees face the highest tax increases.”
The trust fund is composed of three types of funding: the tax base rate, a pool charge and a fund builder, according to the VEC.
The tax base rate is individualistic and based on an employer’s history with layoffs and furloughs; pool charges are used to offset employee loss not at the fault of the employer; and the fund builder is covered by all employers when the trust fund balance solvency drops below 50%. When the fund builder kicks in, employers are taxed an additional 0.2% and pay federal unemployment tax of $420 per employee.
“In 2008, the unemployment insurance trust fund solvency level was calculated at 64%. In 2010, it went into the red as a result of the Great Recession. In the following years, employers replenished the trust fund, and at the start of 2020, it was projected to be at least $1.5 billion, or 86%, which is very near full solvency,” Fogg says. “Now, less than a year later, we anticipate the trust fund will be depleted in less than two months and Virginia will have to borrow funds from the federal government to continue making benefits payments.”
“The decision to use ‘Washington Football Team’ for this season allows the franchise the ability to undertake an in-depth branding process to properly include player, alumni, fan, community and sponsor input,” according to the statement from the Washington Football Team. “We encourage fans, media and all other parties to use ‘Washington Football Team’ immediately.”
The football team tweeted its temporary branding on Thursday, saying, “It begins here…”
On July 13, the team announced it would — after 88 years — retire the Redskins name and logo after weeks of discussion over what many see as a derogatory name for Native Americans. The decision was made following a June 3 statement saying it would undergo a “thorough review” of the team name, “in light of recent events around [the] country.”
Starting Friday, and during the upcoming 50 days prior to the team’s opener against the Philadelphia Eagles, the team will retire all Redskins branding from its team properties, including FedEx Field and Redskins Park.
On July 2, the team’s stadium sponsor, FedEx, sent a private letter to the football franchise stating that FedEx would remove its signage from the stadium after its 2020 season unless the team changed its name, The Washington Post first reported. The shipping giant signed a $205 million deal for stadium naming rights in 1999 and it isn’t set to expire until 2025.
“We have communicated to the team in Washington our request that they change the team name,” Memphis-based Fedex later said in a released statement.
The Washington Football Team in recent weeks has faced media turmoil between its announced name change and an exposé by The Washington Post detailing the experiences of 15 former female Washington Redskins employees who said they were sexually harassed and verbally abused during their time with the team.
Despite a losing streak and name controversy, the Washington Football Team in 2019 had the seventh-highest NFL team valuation at $3.4 billion, according to Forbes.
The 2020 State Fair of Virginia has been canceled due to the COVID-19pandemic, the Virginia Farm Bureau board of directors announced Thursday.
The fair has run annually since 1854, and was last canceled during World War II. It was also canceled during the 1918 Spanish influenza and the Civil War, according to the Virginia Farm Bureau.
“This was a difficult decision, but safety is our No. 1 priority,” Marlene Jolliffe, the fair’s executive director, said in a statement. “We’ve spent months developing plans and scenarios that would allow us to still host the fair this year, but with the ever-changing, unpredictable COVID-19 situation, we just couldn’t make it work.”
The fair was scheduled to run from Sept. 25 through Oct. 4 this year at the 330-acre Meadow Event Park in Caroline County, where the event has been held since 2009. Last year, nearly 245,000 people attended the State Fair.
“In a normal year, preparing for this annual event is a huge undertaking,” Jolliffe said in a statement. “In the midst of a global pandemic, it just wasn’t feasible,” she added, noting that an event of this magnitude requires thousands of hours of planning by staff and vendors.
Earlier this year, dozens of county fairs across the state were canceled, as well as other outdoor festivals and events.
Each year, a 4-H Livestock Show is held for youth to showcase animals they have raised during the past year. Amid the pandemic, the State Fair will host a modified version of the livestock show, of which details are forthcoming. The State Fair is working with the Virginia Cooperative Extension to finalize plans for the modified show.
“While a modified State Fair 4-H Livestock Show is not ideal, we believe it will allow our youth to showcase the yearlong effort they’ve put into raising their animals, and enable them to earn scholarship money as well,” Virginia Farm Bureau Federation President Wayne F. Pryor said in a statement.
As of Thursday morning, the Virginia Department of Health had reported more than 81,000 cases of COVID-19 in the state.
“While our hearts are heavy, we believe this is the right thing to do,” Jolliffe added. “It is important that we are good stewards of our operation and consider the health and welfare of our communities.”
The State Fair for 2021 is scheduled to run Sept. 24 through October 3.
“We will be back bigger, better and stronger,” Jolliffe said.
Since January, more than 1 million Virginians have filed initial jobless claims, according to the Virginia Employment Commission. More than 37,000 Virginians filed initial jobless claims last week — an increase of more than 5,000 claims from the previous week, according to a VEC statement released Thursday.
“The jump in initial unemployment claims in Virginia highlights the fragility of the commonwealth economy,” Robert McNab, director of Old Dominion University’s Dragas Center for Economic Analysis and Policy, said in a statement.
The VEC projects that by the end of 2020, nearly 1.5 million initial jobless claims will have been filed.
In Virginia, 357,098 people remained unemployed last week — a decrease of 14,972 from the previous week, but 337,023 higher than the 20,075 continued claims from the same week last year. People receiving unemployment benefits through the VEC must file weekly unemployment claims in order to continue receiving benefits.
The regions of the state that have been most impacted continue to be Northern Virginia, Richmond and Hampton Roads.
Below are the top 10 localities, listed by number of initial unemployment claims, for the week ending July 18:
The accommodation and food services industry continues to be the most affected industry by the pandemic, followed by administrative, retail and health care jobs, according to the VEC.
The VEC has received more than 28,000 applications for the Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC), which provides up to an additional 13 weeks of regular or traditional unemployment insurance benefits to those who have exhausted their eligibility. Approximately $29 million has been paid out to applicants as of July 23.
The VEC on July 2 launched an application portal for Virginians to access the PEUC program, which is provided by the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act. Payments are retroactive dating back to the week ending April 4. To be eligible, applicants must have exhausted all benefits from their regular unemployment insurance benefits. The program is available through the week ending Dec. 26.
Approximately 60,000 applications have been flagged with eligibility issues thus far. VEC officials remind applicants that not everyone is eligible to receive benefits, according to eligibility requirements. The VEC is targeting 10,000 decisions per week regarding applications. PEUC benefits are taxable, as are regular unemployment insurance benefits and federal pandemic unemployment compensation, according to the VEC.
Nationwide, 1.416 million people filed initial claims for unemployment last week, bringing the total of unemployed Americans to nearly 53 million in the wake of the pandemic-related economic crisis, according to U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) statistics released Thursday.
The seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 11.1% for the week that ended July 11, a decrease of 0.7% from the previous week. However, claims were up by 109,000 from the week before.
For the week ending July 4, 48 states reported that nearly 13.179 million people are claiming federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, which provides temporary benefits for people who are not eligible for regular or traditional unemployment insurance. This funding is set to end this week on July 25, unless Congress takes action.
“The failure of Congress and the administration to pass a meaningful extension of the expanded unemployment benefits will reverberate throughout Virginia,” McNab said in a statement. “Proposals to adjust these benefits to previously earned income seriously misjudge the capacity of state unemployment systems, which are already coping with historic caseloads, to manage this additional complexity. Forcing unemployed Virginians off an income cliff in the midst of a pandemic is shortsighted and endangers prospects for a sustained recovery.”
“Barring action by Congress to extend the benefit, federal law mandates the end of the $600 supplemental benefit this week,” says VEC spokesperson Joyce Fogg. “If it is extended or modified, VEC will execute its responsibilities under the law.”
Forty-five states reported 940,113 people claiming PEUC, which provides up to an additional 13 weeks of regular or traditional unemployment insurance benefits to those who have exhausted their eligibility.
States with the largest increases in initial claims for the week that ended July 11 were Florida, Georgia, California, Washington and Indiana, while the largest decreases were seen in Maryland, Texas, New Jersey, Michigan and Louisiana.
The states and U.S. territories with the highest insured unemployment rates for the week ending July 4 were Puerto Rico, Nevada, Hawaii, Georgia, California, Louisiana, New York, Connecticut, the Virgin Islands and Massachusetts.
“Labor markets will not return to pre-COVID levels for an extended period of time,” Dominique Johnson, research associate at the Dragas Center, said in a statement. “Allowing extended unemployment benefits to expire will also exacerbate existing racial inequities as Black Americans have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic. Black households typically have less wealth, reducing their ability to cope with financial shocks.”
The VEC is hosting a statewide virtual hiring event on July 28, for which more than 150 employers from varying industries have signed up to participate. Employers may contact Robert Walker, VEC veteran outreach coordinator, for details on registering for the event.
“With the [federal] supplemental benefit ending this week, we recognize that many benefits recipients may be looking to return to workforce,” Fogg says. “We’ve heard from hundreds of employers who are looking to fill immediate vacancies, and this is a great opportunity to connect employers and prospective job — and especially in a virtual format.”
Alexandria-based telecommunications company InSite Wireless Group LLC announced Wednesday it has acquired Great Neck, New York-based Repeater Communications Group LLC, an operator of leased rooftop telecommunications sites in the New York City area.
A transaction amount was not disclosed.
InSite Wireless is a privately owned company that manufactures tower and wireless infrastructure. With the acquisition, InSite Wireless will gain access to urban rooftop telecom sites that Repeater Communications currently operates.
“Repeater’s portfolio of buildings varying in size and its excellent landlord relationships enables current 4G growth as well as the evolving 5G technology for a full-suite of equipment deployment options in the densely populated urban areas,” InSite Wireless CEO David E. Weisman said in a statement. “We are excited to partner with Repeater as we play a crucial role facilitating 5G technological expansion in these markets and beyond.”
As one of the largest tower and wireless infrastructure companies in the country, InSite Wireless develops, manages, owns and operates approximately 2,500 telecommunications towers and sites for wireless carriers in the U.S. and its territories, as well as Canada and Australia. Repeater Communications markets and operates 3,500 co-located rooftop and tower communications sites.
Burlington, Massachusetts-based software company HealthEdge Software Inc. announced Wednesday it has acquired Alexandria-based software company The Burgess Group LLC.
A transaction amount was not disclosed. The acquisition follows a majority stake investment in HealthEdge by funds managed by Blackstone Growth.
“The acquisition of Burgess is a great strategic fit for HealthEdge to enter the large, high-growth market of payment integrity, helping address the estimated $1 trillion in wasteful spending in the U.S. healthcare system,” Ram Jagannath, global head of health care for Blackstone Growth and chairman of HealthEdge, said in a statement. “This partnership will extend HealthEdge’s best-in-class claims processing to include software-driven payment integrity, actioned before a claim is paid, delivering significant value to health plans beyond what is available in the market today.”
HealthEdge develops software for health insurers, while The Burgess Group develops software that ensures payment integrity for health care claims.
“Working together we will accelerate our shared vision to challenge the inefficient status quo in claims administration,” Burgess Group Founder Greg Burgess said in a statement. “As one combined company, we can offer our existing complementary solutions while we collaborate to introduce another industry first: an end-to-end unified claims processing, payment integrity and adjudication platform capable of delivering first-pass payment accuracy to providers.”
Seabrook Partners served as the financial adviser to The Burgess Group in the transaction.
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