Prestigious London-Based Chocolate Competition Names Wisconsin’s CocoVaa Chocolatier as an International Rising Star

Syovata Edari Collects 17 Academy Awards in London and is Named an International Rising Star by the Prestigious Academy of Chocolate Awards

CocoVaa Chocolatier picked up its 17 academy awards in London, England on Wednesday at the Academy of Chocolate Awards’ annual awards ceremony. The Academy also announced owner and chocolatier Syovata Edari as an International Rising Star, which came as a surprise to Edari who is fairly new to the industry. She is the only US national to hold this title in 2018. This year the Academy had a record-breaking 1,200 entries from 45 countries. The highly competitive juried competition took place over ten weeks in a rigorous process where each chocolate is subjected to blind tasting by multiple panels of international experts in the fine chocolate industry.

According to a coordinator of judges, even placing silver is extremely difficult due to the complex rubric used to assess the hundreds of chocolates submitted from around the world.

Edari entered seventeen items in the hopes of winning at least one or two awards. “I would have been pleased to win even one bronze because I knew I was competing with some of the world’s best” states Edari who won awards for every submission including two gold, eight silver and seven bronze. “Sharing the stage with some of the world’s best makers and designers of fine chocolate, winning so many awards and being named an International Rising Star is the greatest honor and a dream come true.“ Edari’s wins from the London based competition come the same year she was named one of America’s Top Chocolatiers and awarded the highest ranking Grand Master title by the International Chocolate Salon based in the U.S.

Edari uses premium ingredients, makes everything in “micro-batches,” and is conscientious with regard to the sources of her chocolate. “When you operate ethically and with attention to quality, your margins are lower, but as consumer’s become more educated with regard to taste as well as sourcing, smaller artisans like us will be at the forefront of the food revolution and industrial chocolate will ultimately lose its appeal all together.” says Edari, who took her children with her to London to receive their awards. “I wanted my kids to see and to enjoy the benefits of our collective hard work and perseverance.” Edari’s children Emayu, age 18, and Solomon, age 10, have been actively involved in the business operations and inspire many of Edari’s flavor and design concepts. “My kids took the stage with me. They deserve this as much as I do.”

CocoVaa Chocolatier has become known for its unique and whimsical flavor combinations such as coconut Lemongrass which won a silver award and hazelnut macchiato which won a gold award. Edari is scaling up and is building a larger production and retail space at The Marling at 1815 East Washington Avenue in Madison, Wisconsin which should be open fall of 2018 with expanded hours. “We are growing quickly but carefully so we don’t lose quality or lose sight of our mission.”

Source:

CocoVaa Chocolatier media team

info@cocovaa.com

Innovation Fuels InfoSec Institute’s Record Performance for First-Half 2018

InfoSec Institute, the leading provider of IT security education and workforce security awareness training solutions, today announced record revenue growth, development achievements and staff expansion through the first half of 2018. Both of the company’s business lines, SecurityIQ security awareness training and InfoSec Flex professional IT and security education, demonstrated remarkable gains.

Security Awareness Innovations Spur Impressive SecurityIQ Growth

SecurityIQ’s 1H2018 revenue grew 81% compared to same period last year. Catapulting this growth were several innovations unveiled since the start of the year to help clients combat cyber attacks’ growing sophistication:

Learner Assessments – pre-built and customizable quizzes test learner comprehension, uncover training needs and validate learner participation
BEC Defense Suite – training toolkit educates staff to recognize business email compromise attacks and allows administrators to detect sensitive information shared in failed simulations
Hundreds of New Education Assets – expanded Security Awareness Content Library keeps employees cyber-sharp with new training resources for privacy BEC, GDPR, PHI and HIPAA compliance, security champions and much more
PhishyDomains™ – built-in domain registration enables immediate creation of phishing simulations to train learners how to identify typosquatting
CDN Support – a SecurityIQ exclusive, integrated support accelerates page load times and cuts bandwidth consumption for the best online experience, especially for global learning teams
Launch of InfoSec Flex Pro Spikes Online Course Enrollments

InfoSec Institute’s flagship training courses for IT and security professionals saw similar first-half success. In the past twelve months, the company trained and credentialed nearly 8,500 students, a 24% year-over-year increase.

Instrumental to training revenue growth was the release of InfoSec Flex Pro, the Institute’s next generation of its award-winning, online training format. Since Flex Pro’s June launch, live online course enrollments grew an unprecedented 32%. Powered by InfoSec Flex Center, an immersive assessment and live-streaming platform, Flex Pro courses are designed for today’s busy professionals with courseware personalized to how, when and where they learn best.

Staffing Doubles to Meet Growth

To accommodate its accelerated growth, InfoSec Institute added staff across all departments – doubling its headcount over last year and opening a second Madison, Wisconsin sales office.

“Social engineering, phishing and ransomware no longer discriminate – putting organizations of all sizes and industries at risk. Our team’s singular focus is providing the best education solutions to keep all organizations and their employees safe from more frequent and malicious attacks,” said Jack Koziol, InfoSec Institute’s CEO and founder. “I’m very proud of every InfoSec team member’s passionate contributions toward this goal. I look forward to our growing company achieving exceptional milestones in 2H2018 as well.”

InfoSec Institute Scores Industry Recognitions and Awards

Named a Gartner Peer Insights Customers’ Choice for Security Awareness Computer-Based Training based on 80 verified client ratings and averaging 4.7 out of 5 stars
Recognized as the Security Training & Education Program Gold Winner in Info Security Products Guide’s 2018 Global Excellence Awards
Named to Trainingindustry.com’s “Top 20 IT Training Companies” and “Online Learning Library Companies Watch List”
About InfoSec Institute

InfoSec Institute fortifies organizations of all sizes against security threats with award-winning information security education. Recognizing cybersecurity is everyone’s job, the company provides skills development and certification training for IT and security professionals while building the entire workforce’s security aptitude through awareness training and phishing simulations. Recognized as a Gartner Peer Insights Customers’ Choice for Security Awareness Computer-Based Training, InfoSec Institute is also a Training Industry “Top 20 IT Training Company” and the Security Training & Education Program Gold Winner in Info Security Products Guide’s Global Excellence Awards.

About Gartner Peer Insights Customers’ Choice

Peer Insights is an online platform of ratings and reviews of IT software and services that are written and read by IT professionals and technology decision-makers. The goal is to help IT leaders make more insightful purchase decisions and help technology providers improve their products by receiving objective, unbiased feedback from their customers. Gartner Peer Insights includes more than 70,000 verified reviews in more than 200 markets. For more information, please visit www.gartner.com/reviews/home. Gartner Peer Insights Customers’ Choice distinctions are determined by the subjective opinions of individual end-user customers based on their own experiences, the number of published reviews on Gartner Peer Insights, and overall ratings for a given vendor in the market, as further described here, and are not intended in any way to represent the views of Gartner or its affiliates.

Contact

Kristin Zurovitch

Director Corporate Communications, InfoSec Institute

608.960.7337

kristin.zurovitch@infosecinstitute.com

PegEx™ Closes $8 Million Investment Round

PegEx™, Inc. Closes $8 million Series B

Plymouth Growth Partners leads funding round to accelerate launch of new SaaS platform

Madison, Wisconsin – May 14, 2018 – Today, PegEx™, Inc. announced it closed its Series B investment round led by Ann Arbor, Michigan-based Plymouth Growth Partners. Existing Milwaukee based investor, Capital Midwest Fund, and Madison based investor, WISC Partners, also participated in the round.

“PegEx is rapidly establishing a leading position with their software platform for the hazardous waste and chemical markets” said Plymouth Partner Evan Ufer. “The team’s operating history and knowledge base gives them an advantage in solving key customer issues and delivering value in these markets”.

Eric Apfelbach, President and CEO of PegEx, Inc. commented; “We are very excited to have Plymouth as a new investor. Their team’s operational and SaaS (Software as a Service) experience will be invaluable as we go through our next phase of growth.”

PegEx, Inc. grew its business over 60% from 2016 to 2017. With its new integrated software solution, aimed at the waste and chemical industries, PegEx is primed to revolutionize the waste disposal and chemical distribution lifecycle, automating the entire process of documenting, transporting, and disposing of waste. The company will use the new Series B capital to further accelerate the development, sales, and marketing of these new software solutions.

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About PEGEXTM

Pegex™, Inc. is a rapidly growing, technology-enabled solutions provider that is disrupting the waste disposal and chemicals workflow across the US and Canada. The PEGEX PLATFORM™ provides a set of productivity modules that accelerate the process of ordering, tracking, recycling, and disposing of hazardous and off-spec waste, with compliance every step of the way. The platform taps extensive rules and data to enable real-time business and operating decisions. Any Waste. Any Place™. Learn more at www.pegex.com.

About Plymouth Growth Partners

Plymouth Growth Partners invests in growth stage businesses throughout the Great Lakes region. With over 100 years of combined investing experience, Plymouth takes a flexible approach to partnering with management teams, helping to drive growth, build value and realize full potential. Plymouth focuses on B2B product and services companies that have scalable technology and proven growth. Based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Plymouth Growth Partners has over $150 million under management and is actively investing out of its fourth fund. For more information on Plymouth Growth Partners and its investments, please visit www.plymouthgp.com.

Contact:

Eric Apfelbach;

President and CEO, PegEx. Inc.

Eric.apfelbach@pegex.com

(608) 576-7549

AkitaBox Continues Rapid Growth with New Office Space

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Press Contact: Todd Hoffmaster, CEO, thoffmaster@akitabox.com

AkitaBox Continues Rapid Growth with New Office Space

MADISON, WI – November 8, 2017 – In order to accommodate a rapidly growing team for their facilities management software solution, Madison-based tech company AkitaBox has moved to 212 East Washington Avenue. This new space offers three times the square footage of their previous office to accommodate for further expansion.

Quadrupling in size since 2016, AkitaBox now employs over 60 facility innovators and has successfully provided software implementation in over 250 million square feet of building space across the United States.

“We’ve come a long way in the last two years alone” says Co-Founder and CEO Todd Hoffmaster. “When evaluating a move for the new office, we had to look at two pieces of the puzzle – how our new space will improve our customer experience and how will it help maintain our company culture and values.”

The 10,200 square foot suite offers plenty of space for collaboration and features a large number of dedicated, department-specific breakout spaces, conference rooms and windows with downtown city views.

Staying in the downtown Madison area was crucial for the company’s culture and allowed the growing team to remain close to the evolving entrepreneurial hub and heart of Wisconsin.

“We knew staying in the heart of downtown Madison was important to us because the city’s hard-working, innovative culture aligns with our core values,” said Hoffmaster. “Madison is a great place to work and live. We’ve capitalized on both the growing business landscape and community to help grow our company and ultimately attract more talent for our recruiting efforts.”

AkitaBox is the leading facility management software and implementation services provider dedicated to improving the way people manage and think about the buildings they occupy. Founded in 2015, AkitaBox currently supplies accurate data management tools and implementation services to over 250 million square feet of educational, healthcare, and governmental organizations in the United States. For more information, visit home.akitabox.com.

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Per Mar Security Services Recognized as a SSI Top Market Leader

Contact: Jennifer VanGenderen, Per Mar Security Services, 563-344-7313

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

October 19^th, 2017

Per Mar Security Services Recognized as a SSI Top Market Leader

DAVENPORT, Iowa – Per Mar Security Services, a leading provider of total security solutions for residential and commercial clients based in Davenport, IA, was recognized by Security Sales & Integration as a Top Market Leader for delivering customized security solutions in the Retail & Entertainment, Utilities, Healthcare and Education sectors.

The Market Leaders program celebrates security’s best go-to-market strategists by vertical. SSI Editor-in-Chief and Associate Publisher Scott Goldfine said, “The most successful providers are developing tailored solutions that take into account the unique needs and qualities of a particular end user. Thus, in devising SSI’s first compilation of the industry’s leading companies it made sense to do so according to vertical markets. I am excited about SSI’s new Market Leaders program as it highlights those dealers and integrators that epitomize this go-to market model, and are reaping the rewards in their respective verticals.”

Brian Duffy, President of Electronic Security for Per Mar Security Services, said, “We are honored to be selected as a Top Market Leader in the Security Industry, and to be recognized for delivering customized security solutions. We look forward to continuing to develop customized and innovative security solutions to meet our customer’s needs.”

About Per Mar Security Services

Established in 1953, Per Mar Security Services is the largest, family-owned, full-service security company in the Midwest with more than 2,400 team members, operating in 23 branch locations and 18 satellite locations. The company provides full-service security solutions for homes and businesses including security officer services, smart home automation, burglar and fire alarms, access control, security cameras, alarm monitoring, investigative services and background checks. For more information about Per Mar Security Services, please visit permarsecurity.com.