Wearables company Rufus Labs welcomes former chief technology officer of Napster and Zya, Inc., James Mitchell to the team. James led the development of a comprehensive API and enhanced service availability, customer satisfaction and scalability to support Napster’s millions of users. As the startup is gearing up for shipment of the world’s first wrist communicator, the Rufus Cuff, it was the perfect time to bring James on with his extensive experience managing and growing software development teams in high-growth startups.
“Rufus is honored to welcome such a big force in technology to the team as our new CTO,” said Gabe Grifoni, CEO and co-founder of Rufus Labs. “James has a rich history in hardware, logistics and software. It’s been a magical experience assembling such an amazing crew on this mission to make a better, safer workforce and James will be a big part of that journey going forward.”
Along with their new CTO, Rufus Labs is officially commencing shipment of the Rufus Cuff in August. The Cuff is a full-featured wrist communicator that connects to smartphones or Wi-Fi functioning as a standalone device. The wearable has practical consumer applications as well as unique solutions for the industrial sector. The Cuff boasts a 3.2 Gorilla Glass touch screen, 128GB of storage and full Android KitKat functionality including full audio, video and Bluetooth capabilities for hands-free communication.
For those in the Los Angeles area, Gabe will be demoing at Southern California’s first hardware-focused accelerator Make in LA’s second Demo Day tomorrow, June 28th from 12:30 - 4:00 PM at the new Clay Lacy Hangar #7 at the Van Nuys Airport. Rufus Labs was selected to participate in Make in LA’s four-month intensive program, or “hardware startup bootcamp.” They will be completing the program with a final pitch at Demo Day.
