Dynadec — an optimization company founded in 2007 by Professor of Computer Science Pascal Van Hentenryck — recently received $350,000 in funding from the Slater Technology Fund, one of the initial partners in the company's formation.
The money will be key in the development and growth of Dynadec as a company, said Van Hentenryck, who is an expert in optimization, the process of maximizing efficiency and minimizing waste within a company's economic constraints. He added that the grant would fund expansion of Dynadec's sales force, development of its products and growth of the sales process to establish long-term relations with their customer base. Slater Technology Fund typically provides investment for promising technology-based enterprises in Rhode Island, according to its Web site.
"Dynadec looks at developing solutions for customers to maximize profit and corporate solutions," said Robert Williams, vice president of sales and marketing for Dynadec. He added that Dynadec's clients are often large corporations working in sectors like consumer goods, transportation, logistics and energy.
"We are in the business of manufacturing and using optimization software," Van Hentenryck said. Dynadec essentially looks at helping companies make better decisions, match tasks and minimize time and logistics, helping to solve "complex problems they cannot do by hand," he said.
While Dynadec does use a software program, the task of optimization still "requires a lot of skills and understanding of the complex workings of the software," said Van Hentenryck. Thus, Dynadec works with its client companies, talking with them to see where they need optimization and typically helping to solve problems they have not seen before, he said.
