Mo & Dianna's Cops & Robots

Baton Rouge may be no Silicon Valley, heck it may not not even be
the "Silicon Bayou" that we were hyped in the early 2000s by the
tech park and economic development folks. That said, there are
nonetheless some amazingly impressive companies here that are
creating tech products and performing IT services in ways that
are not being done anywhere else. These are not
attention-grabbing cool startups with a catchy marketing hook
solving some or other issue like laundry and parking (though we
have those too). They're companies dealing in real-world
commodities – businesses that have grown from the ground up and
proven themselves so successful that they've been acquired by
larger companies or private equity firms.


Mo Vij is founder and owner of 365 Labs, a tech company that
builds software and processes for public safety departments,
courts, prosecutors, and first responders.


Mo founded the company in January of 2021, using his @Highland
campus as its headquarters.


The company is funded by Vij Capital, a private equity firm Vij
founded in 2019 to fund technology firms. In the years since its
founding, 365 Labs has revamped law enforcement systems for
agencies around the country, changing the way police process
records, how courts handle warrants, and how law enforcement
issues tickets.


Mo is no stranger to the tech world, or to this show. You may
remember he was a guest several years ago, when we talked about
his company General Infomatics, which he founded in 2004. In 2020
Mo sold a majority share of that company to a private equity firm
based in California. General Infomatics continues to work out
of  the @Highland campus next to 365 Labs, and that
neighborliness is not coincidental, the companies continue to
work together. 


Dianna Liu is founder and CEO of Arix Technologies, an IT company
that creates robotics software - which is the fancy way of saying
they build robots. The robotic systems Arix creates perform
inspections for the petrochemical industry. For example, they
make a robot that checks for corrosion on the inside of pipes and
others that monitor the safety conditions of componentry in
chemical plants and refineries, which can be difficult and
dangerous for humans but not so hard for robotic systems.


Dianna founded the company in 2017, after spending several years
with Exxon Mobil. She got her MBA from Yale after getting her
bachelors in mechanical engineering from Duke University. 


Out to Lunch is recorded live over lunch at Mansurs on the
Boulevard. You can find photos from this show by Erik Otts at
itsbatonrouge.la.


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