Key2enable Assistive Technology

Origin: FL | Grant Awarded: 2019 | Status: Active

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What is Key2enable Assistive Technology?

There are over 200 million people with severe motor disabilities who cannot communicate or use a computer at school or work in the contemporary world. Severe motor disabilities lead to a lack of opportunities, contributing to less development of their skills, poverty, and discrimination. However, Key2Enable now has a solution with Key-X, a multifunctional keyboard that enables anyone with severe motor or intellectual disabilities to fully access computers, tablets, and smartphones. With Key-X, anyone can learn, write, search the NET, play games, and do everything we do on a regular keyboard.

Company Leadership

William de Oliveira

President

William is originally from Brazil, graduated in Journalism and Marketing, and Entrepreneur working with technology connected to Social and Education areas for many years

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José Rubinger filho

CCO

Mission-driven serial entrepreneur. I have been working for several years in sustainable businesses that benefit the social, education and health sectors.

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Alexandre Assis

head of education

Systems Analyst, Business Management & Marketing Degree, Solution Designer, Portfolio Company of Singularity University, & Co-founder at Key2Enable, Innovation & Business Development at Actcon

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Lux and Nyx

Origin: MO | Grant Awarded: 2019 | Status: Active

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What is Lux and Nyx?

We are a fashion company that equips the rockstar women with the tools she needs to go places and make a difference in the world. We design professional and stylish bags for the rising career women to go from board room to travel without skipping a beat. Function, style, plus eco-friendly.

Company Leadership

Lisa Hu

CEO

After spending over a decade in the corporate world and launching her own business, Lisa understands the needs on-the-go females because that’s who she was, it’s who she is and will be. Slowing down is not in her vocabulary. She is passionate about designing products that help women do more and achieve more through innovative and functional designs. She believes that one shouldn’t have to substitute function for luxury and vice versa. The name Lux & Nyx comes from the Greek words meaning “light” and “night.” According to Hu, “It’s a representation of a transitional period, whether it’s a physical change in time or an analogy for life changes.” This transition was marked by Hu’s step out of the corporate financial world into fashion design.

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Mandy Campise

Co-Founder, Director of Sales

With a passion for uplifting and empowering women to be their best, Mandy loves working with people and growing a team of go-getter women.

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iSite Media

Origin: MO | Grant Awarded: 2019 | Status: Active

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What is iSite Media?

iSite Media is dedicated to providing brands a platform that showcases a clear message to a captive and targeted audience, while delivering an asset to venues that monetizes an often overlooked area of their establishment. Fans and visitors routinely visit the restrooms of live sports and entertainment venues, and we saw this as an opportunity to revolutionize the space with cutting edge technology that drives new value to advertisers and venues alike.

Company Leadership

Brian Lord

Co-Founder & CEO

Brian Lord founded, grew and generated a successful exit from a previous energy startup in Chicago. Additionally working in sports at Creative Artist Agency’s (CAA) football office.

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Kim Lord

Co-Founder & Managing Partner

Kim Lord has over a decade of success in strategic planning and growing businesses from concept to revenue profitability.

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HomeTraq

Origin: MO | Grant Awarded: 2019 | Status: Active

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What is HomeTraq?

In the same way you use Uber to quickly find a driver to get a ride, you use HomeTraq to quickly find a real estate buyers agent to show you ANY home for-sale and are delivered down payment assistance options for that specific home. The social impact of HomeTraq focuses on low-to-moderate income areas, minorities, and specifically serves disinvested neighborhoods. Through partnerships with local financial institutions and community development organizations, HomeTraq improves access to homeownership & down payment assistance in all communities while connecting buyers to local real estate agents, instead of chasing them for mortgage customers.

Company Leadership

Mark Gorman

Co-Founder, Chairman

Founder and CEO of Gorman & Gorman Home Loans, which consistently ranked among the leading mortgage lenders in St. Louis for nearly 20 years, according to the Business Journal’s Book of List rankings before exiting in 2016. Serial entrepreneur that founded and owned several business with successful exits. Past President of the Mortgage Bankers Association of St. Louis and the State of Missouri, Past President of Entrepreneurs Organization of St. Louis

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Brett O’Daniell

Co-Founder

Nearly 20 years combined experience as licensed real estate agent, mortgage loan officer and in management. LaunchCode Core Coding & Front-End Web Graduate. Recipient of multiple national recognition for implementation of customer service initiatives, specializing in B2B2C sales & systems.

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FastDemocracy

Origin: MO | Grant Awarded: 2019 | Status: Active

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What is FastDemocracy?

FastDemocracy is a federal, state, and local legislative analytics platform that provides users with a way to follow politics and take action. We’ve streamlined the legislative process nationwide into a one-stop, easy to use platform, that combines data-driven analytics with collaborative communications tools and enables political newcomers and professionals alike to be more informed and effective while advocating for policy change. FastDemocracy’s platform: 1. Replaces political punditry with machine learning and data science. 2. Offers distinctive collaborative, communications and workflow tools. 3. Creates an intuitive, user-friendly platform with comprehensive bill tracking capabilities.

Company Leadership

grant campbell

CEO

From growing a non-profit from 3 to 200 people to serving in the White House, Grant’s career has taken him many places. With experience building organizations from the ground up, multiple presidential campaigns, and top level government operations know-how, Grant leads the team on strategy, operations, and fundraising.

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Anatolij Gelimson

CTO

As a Doctor of Theoretical Physics, Anatolij brings hard science to the world of politics. He believes that data-driven analytics can revolutionize legislative advocacy and offer FastDemocracy’s clients unprecedented insights that will shape a more informed strategy. Anatolij earned his Ph.D. in theoretical physics from Oxford University.

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Sara Baker

Chief Innovation Officer

As a state legislative director for a large national non-profit, Sara knows all too well how the right tools can make or break a legislative strategy. Her expertise in policy, advocacy, coalition building has shaped FastDemocracy’s platform, making the legislative process accessible and transparent to all. Sara has a master’s degree in international affairs from Washington University in St. Louis.

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PenPath

Origin: MO | Grant Awarded: 2019 | Status: Active

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What is PenPath?

PenPath is reinventing how marketers make data-driven decisions. It first allows marketers to connect to all their marketing, sales, and user platforms. Next, PenPath stores, cleans and models that data before visualizing it in a single source of truth dashboard. PenPath’s solution eliminates outdated manual reporting processes and provides real-time actionable insights that were previously difficult to access. PenPath’s customers are able to discover opportunities to minimize wasteful spending and maximize revenue. Enhancing data with its proprietary Prediction and Attribution models gives PenPath an advantage to competitors in the market.

Company Leadership

Alex Cruz

CEO

Alex is passionate about the intersection of marketing and data visualization. With over 9 years of industry experience, Alex has worked with businesses of all sizes from growing startups to agencies and Fortune 500 companies. His background gives him a unique perspective in the dynamic and fast-changing worlds of digital marketing, marketing analytics, attribution modeling, and data visualization.

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Phas3

Origin: MO | Grant Awarded: 2019 | Status: Active

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What is Phas3?

phas3 is a digital health company focused on increasing participation in cardiac rehabilitation (CR), an important but extremely underutilized secondary prevention program for patients with heart disease. 80% of eligible patients never even enroll in a CR program and 95% of eligible patients don’t complete the full course of treatment despite data suggesting that completing a CR program doubles the chances of extending one’s life by five years or more. There are two main reasons why CR is a broken model within the U.S. healthcare system: 1. Patients are reluctant to participate in a CR program because it is expensive, time-consuming and inaccessible due to distance or transportation issues; and 2. Providers typically lose money because CR is expensive to operate and poorly reimbursed, and therefore they do not aggressively recruit referred patients, leading to further stagnation of the program. phas3 is fixing the CR system by removing the barriers to participation and compliance while helping providers achieve financial viability. The phas3 program makes CR viable for patients by allowing them to complete the protocol in the comfort of their own home while costing 90% less than an in-clinic program and requiring 85% fewer clinic visits, typically saving 36 hours or more in travel and work time. phas3 also helps hospitals transform their CR department into a sustainable profit center by enabling a new revenue stream via new CMS reimbursement codes, reducing staff burden by managing the patient recruitment process, and supporting the business office by developing a customized CR financial model including support during the back-end claims process. phas3’s accessible, cost-effective, and reimbursable approach to cardiac rehab can help a health system maintain the existing qualities and add a tangible value proposition based on revenue and profit improvement.

Company Leadership

Lucas Rydberg

CEO

Before starting his entrepreneurial journey, he studied Biomedical Engineering at SLU. During his time as a student, he designed and taught a Signals and Systems lab course that included projects such as building an ECG circuit and building a guitar tuner out of an Arduino. In his free time he loves playing music (guitar, mandolin, ukulele and more) and making mobile apps.

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Dan Ebeling

COO

Dan is a St. Louis native and graduate of biomedical engineering from St. Louis University. During his time there, he developed a strong interest in wearable devices, electronics, and smartphone-connected medical devices. After undergoing an ACL surgery and the accompanying physical therapy during his junior year of college, he began to consider how smartphones and novel wearable devices could potentially assist in the recovery process. His interest on this topic inspired him to join a professor’s research lab with Lucas to investigate smartphone-based medical devices. The work Dan and Lucas did in this lab convinced them that innovations in this area will continue to shape the future of healthcare, and ultimately led them to where they are now. Within phas3, Dan’s current area of focus is healthcare economics, business strategy, and customer acquisition.

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Roo Storage

Origin: MO | Grant Awarded: 2019 | Status: Acquired

What was Roo Storage?

Roo optimized the storage experience by connecting people in the local community with extra space to people seeking a more affordable storage solution.

Roo Storage was acquired by Handled in 2020

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Edison Agrosciences

Origin: NC | Grant Awarded: 2019 | Status: Active

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What is Edison Agrosciences?

Edison Agrosciences uses standard biotechnology to make natural rubber – from sunflower. Natural rubber is used in thousands of products because it has properties that can’t be matched with synthetic materials, but the supply is at risk – 90% comes from one geography and all comes from a single plant species. And just like in Brazil in the early 1900’s, disease is starting to set in. At Edison, we’re increasing the amount of natural rubber already produced by the sunflower plant to provide a more profitable crop for farmers and a reliable domestic supply of a critical resource.

Company Leadership

Thomas Hohn

co-founder & Scientific Advisor

Tom has 30 years of leadership experience in the development and commercialization of agricultural biotechnology products. He is a recognized expert in the biosynthesis of plant/fungal isoprenoid products with 65 publications and patents. Prior to co-founding Edison Agrosciences, he was responsible for R&D portfolio development in the Agricultural Biotechnology Division of Intrexon Corporation, a major synthetic biology company. Before joining Intrexon, he founded Dorsan Biofuels, Inc. and participated in its sale to Novozymes. At Dorsan Biofuels, he helped raise seed funding and led a metabolic engineering project for the development of a fungal isoprenoid production platform. In the 11 years prior, Tom was at Syngenta and one of its legacy companies where he held various technical, regulatory, and business development roles. While Director of Disease Control Traits, he led the development of crop disease traits based on the genetic engineering of plant immunity to pathogen-produced toxins. Before joining Syngenta, as a Research Scientist at the USDA – Agricultural Research Service, National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research, Tom authored the first published report for a cloned terpene synthase gene from any source. He also cloned and characterized the key genetic and metabolic regulatory factors responsible for a fungal isoprenoid toxin pathway. He holds a B.S. in Biology/Chemistry from Central Michigan University and Ph.D. in Microbiology from Washington State University.

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David Woodburn

ceo

David founded bio-Growth, LLC, to help life science companies and their investors with corporate development, new market assessment, and business planning, which is what he did as CEO of Blue Prairie Brands and Vice President of Finance & Development at Chromatin, Inc. Prior to this, David was a sell-side research analyst for 10 years, most recently publishing investment research on companies in the areas of alternative fuels and water technology for boutique investment bank ThinkEquity. Earlier, David provided research coverage of Specialty/Generic Pharma and Global Pharma for Prudential’s institutional equity business, being named in the Wall Street Journal’s Best of the Street survey and frequently being quoted by Barrons, Reuters, Dow Jones, The New York Times, the Boston Globe, and others. David’s eleven years of healthcare industry experience include corporate strategy and merger integration at Searle Pharmaceuticals, and product design, global marketing, and business development within various divisions of Baxter Healthcare. David remains a co-owner of a Midwestern grain farm, Maplewood Farm, LLC. David is a graduate of the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, and holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

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We champion extraordinary entrepreneurs to create positive change – for St. Louis and for the world. Join us by applying to our Global Startup Competition, becoming a financial supporter, volunteering your time or amplifying our message.