Homegrown Tech Company Expands

In 2011, six General Electrics employees left their jobs to found Grey Wall, a software company based in New Haven that digitizes and streamlines business operations and emergency plans. Now, a year after GE fled Connecticut, Grey Wall is doubling down on New Haven.

Mayor Toni Harp Thursday joined Grey Wall’s co-founders, employees and members of the city’s economic development department for the grand opening of Grey Wall’s new office on the 14th floor of the 195 Church St. Key Bank tower. The roomy location is fit with two conference rooms, corner offices and ample space for the company’s 40 employees. The company was previously headquartered at a smaller space downtown.

The suite is the former home of the quasi-public Economic Development Corporation, which has moved to Long Wharf. So a space formerly used to promote new and growing businesses in New Haven is now occupied by an expanding homegrown business.

City Economic Development Administrator Matthew Nemerson, who spoke before the ribbon-cutting, said he sees companies like Grey Wall as the future of small business in New Haven.

“What New Haven is becoming known for is using technology to transform and change industries,” Nemerson said.

“You’re a part of that,” he added, nodding to co-founder Sukh Grewal. ​“We want 20 more of you.”

Rapid Rise

Progress has come quickly for the tech firm. The company has expanded from six to 40 employees over six years and has landed several large clients both in and out of state, including Dallas-Ft. Worth Airport, Yale, the California State University system and the Texas Department of Transportation. Co-founder Nathaniel Ellis said financial institutions and other private companies also use the platform. Twenty-five of the employees work out of New Haven; the company has opened other offices across the country and in India.

Grewal and his wife Paula Kavathas came to New Haven in 1986, relocating from Palo Alto, where he worked for GE. Kavathas was recruited from Stanford to join the Yale Medical School faculty in the Departments of Laboratory Medicine and Immunobiology. The couple lives in Westville.

Having learned at GE how people and teams do actual work, Grewal developed ​“process management” software to make that more logical and efficient, and teamed up with partners to launch the company to sell it.

The state helped the company launch with a $350,000 loan from Connecticut Innovations (CI) and a $100,000 grant. But the biggest help off the ground, according to Grewal, was the landing of the first client: the city of New Haven. Grey Wall manages the city’s emergency response systems. It also organizes records for the mayor’s Youth Stat program, which protects at-risk youth in the city from violence, and helps the city respond to emergencies involving young people in the program.

“I really think the work we’ve done here has saved lives in our city and can save lives across the country,” Harp said.

Grewal thanked the mayor and the city for supporting his company from the start.

The company offers one product, a platform called Veoci that brings together communications, data-storage and emergency-response plans in one place.

Before New Haven bought Veoci to manage communications, Grewal recalled, officials dealing with major storms would gather in the Emergency Operations Center below 200 Orange St. and yell at each other. We provided them with a comprehensive system, which allowed the information coming in to be logged and visible.”

The next improvement Veoci led to was in the 911 emergency system. When a 911 call comes in, it’s actually switched to a different number, he explained. And ​“someone used to take it [the problem or issue] down on piece of paper. We put all that in the computer, not only which tree fell but where, and visible on Google maps. They could now see duplications” of people calling about, say, the same tree. ​“Officials could see [information] in real time.”

At the end of Hurricane Sandy, therefore, Grewal said, ​“the mayor could announce 892 trees had fallen, because it was there on the map”

He recalled that he was in the EOC during Sandy and saw a tree fall on Knollwood Road, ​“down at the end of our [own] block.” He noted how under Veoci the city could dispatch crews to attend to a cluster of problems at once rather than send them less efficiently ​“here and there.”

Through VEOCI, each child being monitored by Youth Stat has a dedicated section of his or her own that only a number of authorized people can access, Grewal explained. In the past, if something changes in the kid’s life, an appointment or an achievement, the authorized people had to email each other with the news. Now you just enter it in the site and everyone involved with that child sees it right away.

That results not only in ​“efficiency but accountability,” Grewal said, because everyone can see who’s tasked with a job or making a call.

The next community-minded use of the software will address the systems engaged in looking at prisoner recidivism, he said.

Grewal noted at the event that the state hasn’t followed up its original investment with contracts.

“We have 35 airports, including Dallas-Fort Worth, among the top five, but we don’t have Bradley,” he said. ​“We have 30 universities including MIT and Virginia Tech, but not UConn. We are doing emergency operations work [all over] but not with the Connecticut Department of Emergency Management and Homeland Security. We’d love to have them in our family. The state needs to do a lot more supporting their companies employing people here.”

Veoci, Up Close

After Thursday’s ribbon-cutting, Ellis gave the Independent a private demonstration of Veoci in action.

He pulled up a mock version of the platform that could be used by a city government. He demonstrated the platform’s robust group messaging function, which allows people across department to communicate quickly and efficiently.

Ellis then opened a drop-down menu of dozens of different emergency situations that could arise in a city, including ​“Hurricane” and ​“Earthquake.” He explained that clicking on a tab brings up a step-by-step plan describing exactly what to do in that situation at every point in the response process. Users input these plans into the system before emergencies arise, so that when they do, all the information they need is a click away and is located in the same place as messaging and data-storage.

“Basically, the platform helps you get all your ducks in a row,” Ellis said. ​“Imagine how much time is wasted at the beginning of an incident; we take care of that.”

Ellis said the platform is designed so that plans can include reminders, mass messages and calls. He clicked a button within the ​“Hurricane” tab, and seconds later his phone began ringing. ​“We are activating the city’s hurricane plan,” a robotic voice spoke from the other end of the line.

The city used Veoci to respond to Hurricane Sandy.

Ellis said one of Veoci’s best features is its flexibility. The platform is designed to be easily customizable and users are able to input their own files and plans into the platform. Ellis said this allows the platform to be adapted to a variety of fields and sectors, which is reflected in the diverse group of public and private organizations that use the platform.

The company also has developed a mobile Veoci app.