Radian6 Co-founders Join Potential Motors
FREDERICTON — Not only has Potential Motors pivoted to become a software company, but the Fredericton startup has brought two of New Brunswick’s most successful tech entrepreneurs on to its team.
Chris Newton and Marcel LeBrun have joined Potential Motors as Chief Scientist and Chairperson respectively. They are best known as the Co-Founders of Radian6, the social-media-monitoring company that sold out to Salesforce.com for US$326 million in 2011.
As they joined the Potential Motors team, the company changed its business model to focus on software that improves the performance of automobiles, especially in steering, accelerating and braking. It’s a change from the team’s original mission two years ago to convert gasoline-powered automobiles into cars with electric engines.
“This all happened about eight months ago,” said CEO Sam Poirier in an interview this week. “We got to a point where we were working on converting autos to electric vehicles, and we were excited about it, but wanted to do something that would have a big impact.
“Marcel had been mentor us for quite some time. He introduced us to Chris Newton, and he was absolutely ecstatic about the changes going on in the automobile industry. He’s passionate about autos in general and he said . . . all the value in autos now is coming from the software. We chatted and went through tons of brainstorming sessions and how we could go through the transition.
Read the rest over at Entrevestor.