Spring Oaks Capital, LLC has hired Paul Hurlocker as Chief Technology Officer. Paul will be based in Richmond, Virginia, and report to President & CEO Tim Stapleford. Paul joins from Capital One where he served as the Vice President of the Center for Machine Learning, an in-house consultancy and center of excellence for machine learning product delivery, innovation, education, research and development, and partnership across the business. Paul joined Capital One through the acquisition of Notch, a machine learning consulting firm that Paul founded in 2014. Prior to founding Notch and serving as its Chief Executive Officer until its 2018 acquisition by Capital One, Paul served in senior software development roles at Red Hat, Affinion, Plan- G, and other leading technology firms.

Capital One, one of the top 100 America's 100 largest banks, has acquired a machine learning technology startup, Notch. Notch is a technology startup that applies machine learning and software implementation to deliver unique solutions to customers. The startup was founded in 2014 by Paul Hurlocker and David Der. "We're thrilled to announce we were acquired by Capital One! Our team is joining their Center for Machine Learning & looks forward to the great things we'll do together using machine learning and opensource technology – to make them a leader in both," the company said in a Twitter post. Notch was acquired 15 months after Capital One created an in-house "Center for Machine Learning."