Alex Dunn

Two recent developments from home automation/home security giant Vivint caught my eye. One is a new feature for homeowners called Vivint Live, which the company said links customers directly to a monitoring professional and helps reduce false alarms. The other is that Alex Dunn, who just recently became president of Vivint, is also now interim CEO for Vivint Solar.

Provo, Utah-based Vivint announced today that with Vivint Live, its customers can now use their touchscreen panels to communicate directly with a monitoring professional in the event of an alarm.

Here’s what the company had to say:
 

When an alarm is triggered, the signal is sent to Vivint's award-winning monitoring center, which is staffed 24 hours a day throughout the year. Upon receiving the alarm, a Vivint in-house monitoring professional speaks to the customer through the touchscreen panel. Acting as a first responder, the agent assesses the situation, confirms an emergency with the customer, and dispatches emergency personnel accordingly. With Vivint Live, homeowners have the personal, immediate response they need to work through any emergency situation and receive necessary care. …

… Vivint Live's quick response also allows Vivint to decrease the number of false alarms. Vivint monitoring professionals connect directly with the customer and then dispatch emergency personnel only during a legitimate emergency or when the customer cannot be reached.

In other news, the company also announced yesterday that Tanguy Serra has stepped down as CEO of Vivint Solar and that Dunn is now interim CEO. Serra said in a statement that it’s time for him to step away from day-to-day operations but that he still will be involved as an advisor to the company.

Vivint Solar, a company that Vivint created in 2011, is one of the fastest-growing residential solar power provider in the North America.

Dunn said in a statement: “Tanguy has helped us build an amazing business, and we are grateful for all of his hard work and dedication. Vivint Solar is what it is today because of his leadership. We are committed to expanding upon the foundation that he has built, and believe our solar solution to be a critical component to helping our customers save money and gain energy independence.”

Vivint made it into Forbes’ annual ranking of America's Most Promising Companies this year, marking the first time the Provo, Utah-based home automation/home security company was named to the exclusive list.

And with a ranking of 46 out of the 100 privately held companies listed, Vivint—which bills itself as the largest home automation services company in North America--actually made it into the top 50 of those successful businesses.

Revenue growth and hiring are two factors used to determine which companies make the list. Forbes lists Vivint’s revenues as $400 million and the number of its employees as 2,533.

Pivot3, an Austin, Texas-based provider of video surveillance storage solutions, is the other security company on this year’s list. Ranking #74, Pivot3 has $31 million in revenue and 92 employees, according to Forbes.

Vivint President Alex Dunn told Security Systems News, “It’s really nice to have third-party validation of what we're trying to accomplish … and it will help bring credibility to our strong management team and the company. But, in the end our success is not based on what awards we win and don’t win, but on how we take care of our customers and how we innovate around products and services [ensuring they’re] simple to use and affordable.”

Here’s more from Vivint’s news release on the Forbes’ list.
 

Vivint's inclusion on Forbes' list comes after a momentous year for the company, in which it crossed the threshold of $30 million in recurring monthly revenue--one of only three companies in its industry to achieve this milestone. Since 2007, the company has experienced a growth rate of 400 percent. Acquired in 2012 for more than $2 billion by Blackstone [http://www.securitysystemsnews.com/article/blackst..., Vivint was selected to the Forbes list for its growth (in both sales and hiring), the quality of its management team and its investors, product strength, margins, market size, and key strategic partnerships.

One metric never says it all. For the Most Promising list, Forbes strove for a holistic gauge of young, privately held companies, trying to pin down their trajectories by looking at a slew of variables. Over the course of six months, Forbes reviewed thousands of applications. Forbes turned to CB Insights, a Manhattan-based data research firm that specializes in assessing private companies, to refine the search. Their MOSAIC software scans 45,000 sources to measure a company's health. A new distribution deal, for example, marks a positive signal, while the loss of an executive is a negative. MOSAIC gathers those myriad signals into a final score that Forbes uses as an initial guide in producing the list. After verifying sales numbers, speaking with each company and debating their merits and blemishes, Forbes produces a final ranking.

To view the complete 2013 list of America's Most Promising Companies, visit www.forbes.com.

Ever since rebranding last year, Vivint has seemed to do nothing but grow. The latest sign of that is the announcement yesterday from the residential security and home automation provider that it has surpassed a $30 million milestone in RMR, putting it among the top three largest security companies in the nation.

Also, the Provo, Utah-based summer-model company said, it has added another $50 million to its financing, bringing its total senior debt financing to $812 million.

That refinancing comes on the heels of a $72 million financing boost the company announced just over three months ago. It then had $762 million in total financing.

I’ve reached out to Vivint officials to learn more about these developments. In the meantime, here’s what they had to say in a news release:
 

“Surpassing the $30 Million RMR benchmark is quite an accomplishment and is a testament to our loyal customers and employees,” said Alex Dunn, Vivint’s chief operating officer. “We look forward to growing our customer base with continued product innovation and a corporate focus on customer service.”

… Chris Black, Vivint’s chief financial officer, commented, “We continue to enjoy a very strong relationship with our lenders and are pleased to have added an additional $50 Million to our existing facility, increasing the bank deal to over $800 Million. The increase will be used to support organic growth of the business and continued expansion of our customer base.”

“I am very proud of the accomplishments that Vivint has been able to achieve,” added Todd Pedersen, Vivint’s chief executive officer. “None of this would have been possible without the support of our customers who trust us to protect what is most important in their lives, and the talented team we’ve assembled who are passionate about creating exceptional customer experiences every day.”

Vivint is not without its critics, however. A recent television news report from South Carolina cites a homeowner and CPI Security Systems, a North Carolina-based security monitoring company, in saying that Vivint used deceptive sales tactics to steal customers from CPI.

However, the TV report says Vivint issued a statement saying: "Vivint does not condone aggressive or misleading sales tactics. To ensure the highest level of customer service, Vivint conducts a recorded telephonic survey where the customer is asked to confirm their understanding of the terms of their agreement and that Vivint is not affiliated with any other company."

Vivint rebranded from APX Alarm Security Solutions in February 2011 to better reflect its expansion beyond security into home automation services.