| Type | Private |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1986 |
| Headquarters | Seattle, Washington, USA |
| Owner(s) | Paul Allen |
| Subsidiaries | Charter Communications, Rose City Radio Corporation, Seattle Seahawks, Portland Trail Blazers, Mojave Aerospace Ventures (among others) |
| Website | http://www.vulcan.com/ |
|
Vulcan Inc. is an investment and project management company founded in 1986 by Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft, to manage his investments. It is headquartered in Seattle, Washington.
The following is a partial list of investments made by Vulcan.[1]
Vulcan, Inc. has also directly led some technology projects, including the following:
Vulcan Spectrum, a branch of Vulcan, Inc., participated in the United States 2008 wireless spectrum auction, paying $69 million for "A Block" spectrum in the Seattle-Tacoma-Bremerton area, and $43.6 million for "A Block" spectrum in Portland-Salem.[5]
In 2003, Vulcan began developing the Vulcan FlipStart a subnotebook with a 5.6-inch screen. The company began to manufacture and sell the FlipStart in March 2007, and ceased production in May 2008.[6]
Project Halo[7] is a project that has run since October 2002, with the goal of creating a "digital Aristotle" that can correctly answer queries about scientific information, using artificial intelligence technology. The project is managed by Mark Greaves. Project Halo has led to a number of spinoff technologies, including the wiki software bundle SMW+, the Semantic Inferencing on Large Knowledge (SILK) project[8] and the Automated User-Centered Reasoning and Acquisition System (AURA).[9]