New company seeks to stretch its reach
GroupGifting.com., described as a "a social gifting service," is expected to be launched in less than two weeks. Credit: iStock
People have been pestering Tyler Roye, who along with his team brought Long Island one of the few local Internet companies that survived the dot-com bust, about his next move. Roye is about to let the Island know.
In less than two weeks, Roye will announce that he and his team will be starting a new company, to be called GroupGifting.com. In an interview last week, Roye would offer only a few details about the new company, saying it would be "a social gifting service."
"We anticipate hiring a handful of folks during the first two months and hopefully more after," Roye said. The company Roye started in 1995, Invision.com Inc., a Web application developer that was based in Commack, had employed about 100 people.
Roye sold Invision to Waltham, Mass.-based MindSHIFT in 2007 for an undisclosed sum. He and some of the others who helped start Invision stayed on until May 2011 as senior executives. Invision was among the few Long Island Internet companies that rode the dot-com boom and survived the bust of the early 2000s.
In the last few months, Roye and his Invision partners -- brothers Eric and Mark Manno and David Levinsky -- have been discussing the new business. They have looked at space in a Hauppauge building where they would join other tech companies and the headquarters of LISTnet, the technology organization that is moving from Melville.
Eric Manno said he and the others are excited about the company. "We feel like we're launching one of the most interesting Internet ventures on Long Island in a long time," Manno said. In brief, he said, social gifting services will be aimed at retailers. There will be another difference from the old Invision: "We're going to be spreading out our wings a little wider," Manno said. "Invision was predominantly in the New York area. But with [the new company] we're going to be hitting [all of the] states."
Roye and the others are planning an announcement Feb. 16.
Are they all ready for the rigors of another start-up? Of course, Manno said. "The Invision guys never got much sleep."
Thieves steal hundreds of toys ... Woman critically hurt in hit-and-run ... Rising beef prices ... Out East: Nettie's Country Bakery
