Florida Venture Forum, the leading statewide support and member organization for venture and private equity professionals and entrepreneurs, has selected 24 companies to present at its 14th annual Florida Early Stage Capital Conference, which will be hosted in-person in Tampa, October 7-8, 2021.
The conference also will feature the 11th annual 2021 Statewide Collegiate Startup Competition, attracting the “best of the best” in collegiate competitors from several of Florida’s leading innovation-focused colleges and universities, including Florida Atlantic University, Florida State University (Jim Moran College), Stetson University, University of Central Florida, University of Florida, University of South Florida and University of Tampa.
“This is perhaps the most diverse set of applicants for the Early Stage conference from a geographic, applicant, and technological perspective,” said Ben Patz, managing partner of DeepWork Capital, Florida Venture Forum board member and chair of the Early Stage Conference selection committee. “The selection committee was able to select presenting companies that will inspire with their story, amaze with their technology, and impress with their progress. There is something for everyone.”
In addition to company presentations and other educational programming, the conference will feature a total of $100,000 in cash awards distributed between early stage and seed stage companies, provided by Space Florida. To date, past early stage presenters have attracted over $745 million in equity funding.
Online registration for the Early Stage Capital Conference is available through October 6th, 2021. Conference attendees will hear pitches from selected companies and network with attendees including every major seed and angel fund in Florida, as well as venture investors from throughout the state and beyond. On October 7, 2021, pre-registered conference attendees can attend “Optimizing Investor Engagement” workshop led by Robert Okabe, who actively shares his experience through work as a teacher and lecturer. He has been involved in every aspect of new company formation and development.
Presenters were selected from a pool of over 150 applicants by a committee of active Florida venture capital investors. The presenting companies are listed below, by region:
Alertgy, Melbourne, the company has developed the world’s first non-invasive blood glucose monitor and alert system using its patented in vivo wearable dielectric spectrometer. This system can also monitor for many other analytes of interest. It has been through clinical trials and is as accurate as the leading continuous glucose analyzers without suffering from interstitial lag.
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Nasser Nassiri Koopaei, CEO
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EriVan Bio LLC, Alachua, the company develops stem cell exosome platform technology as the next generation of regenerative medicine to replace live stem cells in the products. These exosomes introduce superior efficacy into the regenerative products by their enriched and balanced growth factors and signaling molecules as the natural way of communication in the human body.
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Blythe Karow, Co-founder & CEO
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Gainesville, the company is advancing the treatment of PTSD through a user-friendly and intelligent hardware and software platform that is easy to use and personalized. Their initial medical device – the Phoenix ® -delivers transcutaneous auricular vagal nerve stimulation (taVNS) in a discreet earbud design.
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Abhishek Sastr, CEO & Co-founder
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FLUIX LLC, Orlando, the company’s patent pending multi-inlet liquid cooler eliminates overheating and allows workstation manufacturers to increase processing speeds by up to 25% In turn this allows compute intensive firms (AEC) to increase productivity. They sell their technology in an “AIO” all-in-one liquid cooler to workstation manufacturers.
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Saida Florexil, Founder/CEO
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Imanyco, LLC, West Palm Beach, is a medical device company based in South Florida that advocates, creates devices, and improves communication accessibility for the hearing loss community. Imanyco helps the deaf and hard hearing to feel connected and be part of the conversation in the world around them through a live transcription technology that transcribes and color-codes individual speakers so that those who are deaf and hard of hearing can enjoy group conversation without wondering who is speaking at anytime and anywhere.
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LifeSaversSoftware Inc, Boynton Beach, the company is a provider of virtual rehab and aftercare services. They utilize top therapist and coaches to provide a new model to treat addiction to drugs and alcohol. They offer a completely new model to rehabilitate people safely and effectively from the comfort of their home at a fraction of the price of in house rehab. Their solution is more effective, less expensive and puts the focus for the first time on aftercare.
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Jason Crystal, Co-founder / CEO
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Maitland, the company is a compliant funding portal that has an automated onboarding process, web and mobile application and unique expertise working with accelerators and early stage startups.
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Paxi Inc., Daytona Beach, the company is the country’s first on demand rideshare with a focus on pets or people traveling with pets. Persons can use their app on iOS or Android and request a ride for themselves or their pet alone. Paxi takes pets where they need to go even with their owners to places such as the vet, groomers, sitters, dog walks and more.
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Meghan Wolfgram, CEO / Founder
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Swift Paws, Inc, Melbourne, is a health and wellness lifestyle brand for pets and a leader in modern lure coursing equipment. The company focuses in the pet enrichment space, manufacturing and selling products that helps pets live better lives.
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VoiceScript, Inc., Stuart, the company leverages proprietary technology to deliver court reporting solutions that transform the way court reporting products and services are delivered to the legal market. VoiceScript court reporting agency clients can now provide better, faster court reporting product and services at a fraction of the production costs of traditional court reporting services.
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Oracle Health, Inc., Safety Harbor, the company is developing a tiny insertable cardiac device with remote monitoring capabilities to monitor long term cardiac disease, known as Heart Failure, a $21B problem.
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Dr. Manoj Ram, President / CEO
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POLYMATERIALS APP, LLC, Tampa, the company is developing a prototype supercapacitor (“Poly3-Scap”) suited for consumer electronics, toys, medical devices, etc.PolyMaterials is also laying the groundwork for supercapacitor “Poly4M-Scap” of greater voltages (27 to 48V) required for hybrid motor vehicles, power grid, space, and large appliance applications.
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Oliver Belin, CEO / Founder
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Miami, the company helps organizations unlock millions in working capital and generate free cash flow by optimizing payment terms. In short, Calculum helps companies get paid earlier and pay invoices later. The company’s platform allows organizations to compare themselves with their competitors. With the web-based platform leveraging artificial intelligence, companies can analyze all their suppliers in terms of payment terms, financials, sustainability, ESG (Economic Social Governance), and seize all the necessary arguments to negotiate more favorable terms.
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Catalyst GEM, Ft Lauderdale, is a cloud-based, education marketplace transforming the international admissions process for students and institutions. Students are provided with free access to our platform to search over 12,000 programs including high school, bachelor’s, master’s degrees, pathway and online programs. We provide a secure environment to enable students to upload, track and manage their applications. Students are also provided with access to complimentary products and resources including student loans, virtual internships, and a student knowledge center.
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Erik Graff, CEO / Co-founder
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CHNL, Boca Raton, the company is an Automation as a Service Platform focused on the aerospace vertical. They are 100% cloud native and utilize a serverless architecture to deliver complex workflow automations with no additional infrastructure costs. Their mission is to aid companies in fostering operational excellence via automation and business intelligence. Using a No-Code Automation Builder, users of all backgrounds can automate everything from mundane non-value add tasks, to more complex workflows.
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SaaS company that focuses on digitizing property liens data for government agencies. We empower municipalities to create lien reports digitally and virtually interact with businesses to provide lien search report faster.
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Rodrigo Griesi, Founder / CEO
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NEPTUNYA Ocean Power, Boca Raton, this showcase company proposes a solution to clean, renewable energy generation through the development of mixed-mode marine energy converters that tap into wind, currents and waves, coupled with grid-scale deep sea hydrogen production technology capable of reaching over 80% efficiency.
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Daniela Sichel, Founder / CEO
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Opcion Yo, Miami, the company operates the leading online behavioral health and wellness community catering exclusively to Spanish speakers. Their network includes over 300 Spanish speaking specialists from over 30 countries, providing clients the greatest flexibility to receive care in the language, cultural connection, and time zone of their choice. They offer both licensed behavioral health clinicians, as well as nonclinical, wellness specialists such as nutritionists and coaches.
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Dr. Steven Charlap, CEO / Founder
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SOAP Health, (Subjective, Objective, Assessment, Plan), Boca Raton, the company has created the world’s first patent-pending Perfect Medical Interviewer™, a voice and image based conversational AI-powered digital human clinically validated to collect more actionable patient data than doctors; Riskvue™, 400+ proprietary algorithms focused on risk detection and diagnosis, thereby improving early risk detection and point of care diagnosis; the Smart SOAP Note™, a clinical note compiled from patient data and generated risk assessments saving physicians’ time, decreasing liability exposure, increasing revenue, and improving patient care.
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Troy Faletra, CEO / Founder
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Throw Raft LLC, Ft. Lauderdale, their product is designed to save space, created for safety on the water for you and your family. They make inflatable, throwable personalflotation devices and life jackets that are modern and innovative. Their mission is to save lives. Their products make recreational boating and water sports safer and save lives.
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SOUTHEAST FLORIDA / NORTH FLORIDA
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Dr. Michael Havig, CEO / Founder
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HealthMe, Naples, this showcase company is a physician-founded digital healthcare platform that improves and automates the delivery of healthcare to patients who want to pay directly for their healthcare. This growing group of direct-pay patients include employees of self-insured businesses, independent gig economy workers, and those disenfranchised by the high cost of health insurance.
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Jacksonville, the company’s mission is to make accurate, low-cost point-of-care diagnostic testing and secure patient data available instantly to everyone across the globe, including those in resource-limited or logistically remote areas, in order to improve and save lives. Their tools will help communities greenlight negatives, isolate positives, and keep life going.
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David Lawson, CEO / Co-Founder
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Tallahassee, is the Flight simulator for call center agent training. The company is a cloud-based simulation creation and delivery platform. Their API’s enable them to connect their simulations directly to the call center software so that users are honing active listening and multitasking skills simultaneously.
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Nhu Energy, Tallahassee, the company provides digital distributed intelligence to enable electric power systems of the future. It is a suite of scalable interoperable digital operating technology (OT) solutions. They deliver future-proof, scalable solutions, de-risked with state of the art controller in the loop simulation to provide high-values solutions that work dependably in high-value applications.
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Statewide Collegiate Startup Competition:
In addition to the above listed selected presenting companies, attendees will hear from Florida’s major universities as they bring their selected competitors to participate in the seed stage component of this Conference. For more information,
Click HereAbout the Florida Venture Forum: The Florida Venture Forum is Florida’s largest statewide support organization for investors and entrepreneurs, helping companies with headquarters, operations or supply chain in Florida connect with sources of capital from across the country. Since 1984 over 1500 companies have presented at Forum events and have gone on to raise upwards of $11B in equity capital and contribute well over $15B in total economic value to Florida. The Forum’s 200+ members represent a “who’s who” of venture capital and private equity dealmakers, including and equity and debt investors at all stages, as well as major law, accounting, and investment banking firms, and large corporates active in the innovation ecosystem. The Forum provides programs and programming statewide throughout the year in addition to hosting major annual conferences like the Florida Venture Capital Conference, the Statewide Collegiate Start-up Competition, the Early Stage Capital Conference, and industry-focused events including aerospace and healthcare. For more information, visit:
www.flventure.org
About Space Florida: Space Florida was created to strengthen Florida’s position as the global leader in aerospace research, investment, exploration and commerce. As Florida’s aerospace and spaceport development authority, we are committed to attracting and expanding the next generation of space industry businesses. With its highly trained workforce, proven infrastructure and unparalleled record of achievement, Florida is the ideal location for aerospace businesses to thrive – and Space Florida is the perfect partner to help them succeed. For more information, visit:
www.spaceflorida.gov
