September at Updater: Acquisitions, Awards, and an Offsite
If someone asked us to describe our last month in one word, it would have to be proud. This month will go down in Updater history as a month where we simply have so much to be proud of. We’re happy to share a bit about why we feel that way and what we’ve been up to:
We made our first acquisitions
We were pleased to announce our acquisition of two leading software companies in the moving industry: IGC Software (IGC) and Asset Controls Inc. (ACI). IGC and ACI together will operate as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Updater, MoveHQ. You can learn more about the acquisitions here and learn more about what MoveHQ will offer here.
MoveHQ will bolster our current solutions and provide our users with the industry’s first and only fully digital moving experience. Updater users will soon be able to:
- Compare trusted, Updater-certified moving companies with accurate quoting/estimation tools
- Book a moving company seamlessly within our platform
- Gain unprecedented transparency over the entire moving process
This partnership is particularly exciting for the moving and storage industry. MoveHQ will offer moving companies a more compelling and complete portfolio of products than any one of our companies could have alone. MoveHQ is a complete end-to-end solution to run your entire moving and storage business from the cloud. #proud
We updated the Updater User Dashboard
After watching and learning how movers move, we released an updated version of our user dashboard. The evolution of the design allows us to iterate rapidly — testing and measuring outcomes to further simplify and automate the moving process. To find out more, read our blog post written by our Senior Product Manager, Gretchen Altman. #proud
AMSA Fall Board Meetings, Realogy FWD, and Apartment All Stars Live
This month, we traveled down to Washington, D.C. to attend the American Moving & Storage Association Fall Board and Committee Meetings. While in D.C. we had the honor of attending the ribbon cutting ceremony for AMSA’s new office! This event was not only a fantastic opportunity for us to connect with our partners in the industry and share our acquisition news mentioned above, but it was also an opportunity for the industry to spend a day on Capitol Hill lobbying members of Congress on behalf of the relocation industry. You have to take a stand and make the effort to enact change. #proud
Just a few days later, we attended the Realogy FWD Innovation Summit in our hometown of NYC. Realogy FWD is an innovation summit where real estate-focused tech startups compete with live demos in front of Realogy executives. You might remember that Updater competed in the first-ever Realogy FWD competition, back in 2013. This year, Updater’s Head of Marketing, Jenna Weinerman, was invited back onstage to make an announcement about Updater’s success since our participation in the competition. #proud
To round out the month we attended the Apartment All Stars Live in Raleigh, NC., where we listened to an exciting executive session featuring speakers Jackie Ramstedt, Alex Jackiw, Kate Good, and Pete Regules. The Apartment All Stars has presented in over 53 different cities and is committed to providing quality education to apartment industry professionals in the United States and Canada.
Move for Hunger Happy Hour and the Tunnel to Towers Run
To help raise money for the Stephen Siller: Tunnel to Towers Foundation and our official charity partner Move for Hunger, we hosted a happy hour at Public House — raising over $800.
Later in the week, 15 members of the Updater family laced up their sneakers and ran/walked the annual Tunnel 2 Towers 5K to further raise money for both organizations. In total, participants raised over $5,000. Go team! #proud
Another epic team off-site is under our belt
Three times per year, the entire Updater Team comes together in New York City for a few days of brainstorming, collaboration, and a deep dive into our company goals and where we stand with them. Our next off-site is in January and the team is already thinking about how to add additional value to this event. The Updater Team, we never stop moving. #proud
Bowling league is back!
Fall may mean pumpkins and changing leaves to some, but to the ladies of Updater, it means that bowling is back! For the third fall, we’re showing off our incredible bowling skills through a six-week corporate league. Beyond working on our forearm strength, we love spending time together and a little friendly competition.
Our team names are Bloody Watermelons and YaBurnt. Don’t ask. Here’s a look at our high scores from week one:
Bloody Watermelons
- Amanda – 104
- Sara – 111
- Lauren B. – 72
- Jenna – 99
YaBurnt
- Lauren S. – 96
- Laura – 133
- Brittany – 126
- Andrew – 81
#proud
Happy Updaterversary, Michael!
As you probably know already, Updater is big on celebrating milestones. This includes the dedication of our employees. This month we helped Michael Breiner, Updater’s Tech Ops Manager, celebrate 4 years with us. Where would we be without you? #proud
Awards and recognition
Not to toot our own horn, but this month Updater was recognized not once, or twice, but three times for our amazing workplace culture and employee experience. We were awarded a 2017 Stevie Award for Great Employers in the category of Achievements in Workplace Design. A huge thank you to our internal team members who contributed to our office design and to Carly Jacobson and the entire team at TPG Architecture for their incredible work. They may now need to build us a trophy shelf! We’re thrilled that the hard work of our team in customizing our new home was recognized.
We also won our first Timmy Award for Best Tech Work Culture! As you know, we take Updater culture very seriously and strive to go above and beyond in providing not only a physically comfortable work environment, but also an environment where every employee feels appreciated, encouraged, and supported in their role. We want every employee to feel that working for Updater has been (and will continue to be) a transformative experience.
This year, there were 250 companies nominated, 31 finalists, and 8,000 votes cast by the public.
Congrats to all the finalists in the category of Best Tech Work Culture (Conductor, Fueled, Moda Operandi, mongoDB, WeWork, and Work & Co), in addition, big congrats to the runner-up — Moda Operandi. This award is a huge achievement and we are humbled to be honored alongside an impressive group of incredible New York City startups that care about culture the way we do.
Last, but definitely not least, we were named the 54th Best Internship Program in the country by WayUp! WayUp’s list of the top 100 internships programs of 2017 put our young program on the map with leaders like Lyft, CHANEL, Nike, LearnVest, Morgan Stanley, and Amazon. Not bad for a 71-person startup!
We welcomed 6 new employees to our team
Over the past few months, you’ve probably started to see a trend. We’re growing, and fast! This month we added six new Updateers to our team. We couldn’t be more thrilled to grow our Updater family. Welcome! #proud
Interns for the win
Seeing the summer wave goodbye to us was a little easier this year knowing that one of our summer interns would be returning. Welcome back, Emily! We also welcomed Ben to the marketing team as our new content marketing intern. Welcome aboard! You can check out all the stellar content Ben is creating on the Updater blog.
Can’t wait a whole month before hearing from us again? Follow us all month long on LinkedIn, Twitter, and our brand new Instagram. Until next time, keep moving!
More Updater Life
Changes to Updater’s team
16 August 2022
Updater raises $215M to accelerate product, design, data, and engineering
19 May 2022
